Latest / Pod Save America / Pardons, Prosecutions, and Perfume: Trump Unveils 100 Day Agenda

Transcript

Pardons, Prosecutions, and Perfume: Trump Unveils 100 Day Agenda · Pod Save America

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's show, Donald Trump sits down for his first
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: major interview since winning the election and lays out his
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: plans on deportations, tariffs, healthcare, political retribution, and more. The
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson crosses the barrier from
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: cultural fixation to political debate, though it's still a cultural fixation.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: And in some incredible news, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad flees
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: to Moscow, ending two generations of his family's sadistic rule.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: We'll get into what this means for the world and
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: for America's new president. But first, President-elect Donald Trump sat
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: down with Kristen Welker at Meet the Press for a
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: pretty newsy and substantive interview that lasted one hour and
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: 16 minutes.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I wonder how long his staff was trying to call it.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: 30 minutes? 20 minutes?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: I didn't know it was that long, and I just
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: started reading the transcript, and I was like, why does
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: this keep going?
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: It must have budgeted an hour.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's very long.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: There are a few big topics they went in-depth on,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: and we're just going to take them one at a time,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: play some clips so you can get a feel for
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: what it was like without having to suffer through the
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: whole thing like we did.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a service we provide. We watch the whole
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: thing so you don't have to.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Let's start with immigration. They covered a lot here, including
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: big questions on deportations and citizenship. Here's a sampling.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: If they come here illegally, but their family is here legally,
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: then the family has a choice. The person that came
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: in illegally can go out or they can all go
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: out together.
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: You promised to end birthright citizenship on day one. Is
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: that still your plan?
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So even though Trump wants to end birthright citizenship, he
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: also said he wants to work with Democrats on a
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: solution for the Dreamers, who he spoke favorably about.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about birthright citizenship first, which I think is
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the big headline here, ending it, at least for the
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: children of undocumented parents, something of a right-wing passion project.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: It's also birthright citizenship is also guaranteed in the constitution
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: and the 14th amendment. Do you guys think he actually
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: can end this?
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: I think he wants to fight. I don't think he
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: knows or particularly cares if he can end it. You know,
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: it's yet another place where the constitution is unequivocal and
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: yet we're having this debate because we don't know if
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: six conservative justices will agree anymore. That's, that's the reason
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: we can have this debate. Uh, but I think he
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: wants to fight.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: So you think he would just do something tested in court,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: see if the Supreme court and not go through like
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the constitutional amendment process.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: So he, he said, he doesn't have the, He wouldn't
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: get the vote.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: He doesn't have the discipline. But he didn't. He says
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: that he said, you know, throughout this interview, it was
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: a lot of moments of Welker trying to pin him down.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: And his whole sort of stance throughout the interview was
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: just refusing to be pinned down. So this is one
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: of the places where he did that, too. And he said, well,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: we may have to bring it to the people. But
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: then he brought it back to the executive order and
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: talked about the executive order he was going to issue
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: when he was president.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: It's just a listener note. It's very hard to amend
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the Constitution just to propose an amendment to the Constitution.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: You require you need support from two thirds. both houses
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: of Congress or two-thirds of state legislature. And then the
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: bar is higher to three-fourths to ratify it. So not
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: going to happen.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court said something about this back in 1898. They
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: ruled that birthright citizenship is part of the 14th Amendment.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: They said the ruling there was the 14th Amendment affirms
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: the territory, including all children here born of resident aliens.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: The only qualification, the reason that the right keeps talking
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: about this and has for a while, is there's a
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: qualification in the 14th Amendment that says children born in
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: the U.S. have to be, quote, subject to the jurisdiction thereof. But,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: of course, undocumented immigrants are subject to U.S. jurisdiction and
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: that they can be sanctioned for violating the law.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Right, they're not ambassadors.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Right, that's what I was going to say. The only
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: people who aren't subject to U.S. jurisdiction are foreign diplomats
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: with diplomatic immunity. That's why that exception is in the Constitution.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Something I am sure Donald Trump has ranted about when
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: all those... ambassadors were racking up tickets in Manhattan over
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: all those years. There's no doubt that Donald Trump fucking
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: hated seeing those diplomatic plates parked in the fucking fire zones.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: There was also a Trump appointee in the Fifth Circuit
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: that just ruled in 2015 that the clause covers, quote,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: the vast majority of lawful and unlawful aliens. So it
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: is a pretty, I mean, again, it's this Supreme Court,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: so who knows? But you could see Roberts, you could see,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's, it seems unlikely. What do you guys
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: make of the cognitive dissonance between saying he wants to
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: protect the dreamers who are children who were brought here,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: undocumented children who were brought here by their parents as kids,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: but he also thinks that kids born here shouldn't get citizenship?
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: So it's interesting. I actually thought the dreamers, the part
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: where he talked about the dreamers was the most interesting
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: part of this section because he actually was more compassionate
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: in his language than he's been in a very long time. Uh,
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: not ever, but a long time, a long time. He
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: used to say that answer that we said, he was like,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: you got to do something. Some of them are great people.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: You got to do something. We're going to do something
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: for them. That's what he used to say when he
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: was president. Yes.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: So he has not, he did not talk that way
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: throughout the entire campaign. So I think the contradiction is that, uh,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: he doesn't care and he's not thinking about it that way.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: When he talks about birthright citizenship, he's talking about, you know,
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: he's ranted about, uh, tourists having babies from Asia. He's
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: talking about people that just got here. When he's referring
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: to the Dreamers, he's actually acknowledging what has been at
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: the core of the Democratic position on this, which is
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: you need to have a system of rules and laws
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: going forward, but you need to recognize that people have
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: been in this country for a very long time. It's
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: sort of acknowledging both sides of that.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think he's a liar. I mean, if
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: he wanted to protect the Dreamers, there's a deal on
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the table with the Democrats that he could passed tomorrow.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Just do it.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Protect them. Go for it. I mean, there was an
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: offer in 2018, 2019 that was basically protection for the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: dreamers in exchange for billions of wall funding. And Democrats
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: walked away from it because of the wall funding at
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the time. But again, they could pass a narrow fix.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: For the dreamers.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Man, wish we had taken that deal.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I do, too.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: But I think that tells you, liar or not, I
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: think he would take that deal. I think that can
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: still happen.
• 6:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah, maybe.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: I'm just saying he would love the win.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I think he's a guy who doesn't want to get
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: blamed for ugly images on TV, but ultimately supports an
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: incredibly radical immigration agenda that includes mass deportations of tens
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: of millions of people.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It feels like a past versus future thing.
• 6:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: You know, that you protect the children of undocumented immigrants
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: who are already here, but you don't allow the the
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: children of future undocumented immigrants to become citizens because, like
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: you said, he believes that this birth tourism, that people
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: come here illegally and have children, this is the whole, quote-unquote,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: anchor babies. I mean, it's just silly.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: He wants to, after a certain date, be able to
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: deport people without having to consider the fact that the
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: children born here are American citizens. He wants to have
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: a date after which he doesn't have to worry about
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: that anymore. But unfortunately, the Constitution says otherwise.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Also, there's a bigger challenge here. There's bigger consequences here
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: if you suddenly decide that citizenship in the United States
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: is not granted because you're born here. The amount of
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: people that you could start stripping citizenship from is just,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: it goes on for, it's crazy. Getting rid of birth
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: certificate is crazy. But we'll, I mean, they're going to
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: try via executive order, so we'll see.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Or they won't, like we don't, like again, like it's
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: just like, this was an interview where I.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Mean, it seems like the Wall Street Journal says they
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: are drafting an order, so it seems like they're going
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: to at least try, but what happens to it remains
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: to be seen.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: What happens next, we don't know. Yeah, I just, like,
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: he is... It was a strange interview in that, like,
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: basically on a few different places, Walker was, like, challenging,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: did you really mean this? And every single time he said,
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: of course I did. Of course I did. But then
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: he does this sort of more moderate-sounding language on Dreamers,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: on a few other issues. So it was, like, an
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: interview where he was making himself hard to pin down.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: It sounds like the deportation plan is to start with
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: immigrants who've committed crimes here in America, but then go
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: far beyond that to include undocumented immigrants who've been here
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: for years, have jobs, pay taxes, live with American citizen
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: family members. We've talked a lot about Democrats not becoming
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the defenders of the status quo, but obviously immigration was
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: one of the defining issues of the campaign. How do
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: you guys think Democrats should fight this or can fight this, really?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, we know there's a Groups like the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: ACLU will challenge in court any effort to use the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: military to deport people. And then there will be cities
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: that will refuse to work with ICE and prevent deportation operations.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of the policy side. Then I think
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: part of it as Democrats, I mean, if this starts
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: to happen, you start seeing families ripped apart. You start
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: to see, you know.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: He's going to go well beyond criminals, these sort of deportations.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: It's going to be farm workers, students, people who served
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in the military, teachers. I think you have to like
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: lift up the stories and talk about the impact on communities.
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: There was a moment in the interview where he said
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: something he hadn't said before, where Walker's asking about all these,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: about the kind of impact of all this kind of
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: mass deportation. And he says, well, you know, there are
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: these criminals they're hiding. They're in our cities. They're on
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: our farms. And it was a strange, like, wait, we're,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: He doesn't talk like that. He doesn't reference the fact
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: that undocumented people do a ton of the labor on
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: farms in this country. And it felt like reflective of
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: some kind of conversation he had where it's clear that
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: this rounding up of people is going to impact the
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: nation's food supply. And so he's starting to think about
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: how to message around the impact of that. I don't know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: but it was strange.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the hard reality of this is that
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: it's very difficult to fight deportation since Trump's is well
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: within the law. And past presidents of both parties have
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: deported undocumented immigrants. Cities can try not to cooperate with ICE.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: You know, Tom Holman, the new border czar said, if
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: they don't cooperate, I'll just have my agents do it.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: It's whatever, we don't need their cooperation. But I do
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: think You show, like Tommy said, how cruel and unnecessary
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: and harmful it is to the country to expel people
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: who are doing nothing more but trying to live their lives.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: do their jobs, haven't committed any crimes.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Who are giving back a lot to the country, contributing
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to the economy, to society in a million different ways.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: Oh, paying, paying. By the way, also just one other
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: lie and all of this undocumented people are paying into
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Medicare and Social Security and not able to ever recoup it.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: He also lied and says we're the only country in
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the world that does birthright citizenship. That is totally wrong.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Dozens of countries do it. The Canadians do it. Chile,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: like lots of countries.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: I think that another challenge for Democrats is because they
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: are going to start with criminals or people who have
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: committed crimes here in America. Obviously, you break the law
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: if you cross the border unlawfully. But for the people
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: who've committed crimes here in America, they're going to make
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: a big deal out of them and then sort of
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: try to bait Democrats into, you know... Look, the reason
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: that there are, to the extent that there are people
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: who've committed violent crimes or either other crimes in America
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: who are undocumented, the reason they're still here is not
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: because the Biden administration or other Democrats just didn't want
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: to go after them. Part of it is because either
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: they can't find them or, you know, law enforcement's been
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: looking for them but can't find them or... Sometimes people
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: are here because we don't have agreements with the countries
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: that they came from to send them back to those countries.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And so there's a number of challenges, just logistical challenges,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration is going to have to grapple with
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: just in order to do some of these deportations. I
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: read that they're actually thinking of sending some of these
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: undocumented immigrants back to countries that aren't their home countries
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: because they don't have the agreements with all the countries,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: which is just.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: And this is where Tom Homan's full of shit, the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: immigration czar. sure, ICE could go to a community and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: find someone and take them and deport them, but they're
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: going to have a hard time finding them. That's the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: part that you need the local cops for is the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: law enforcement piece, tracking people down, knowing where they are.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But it's going to be hard. And I also
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: think the Democrats just need to be clear in laying
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: out the alternative, right? Which is we, of course, support
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: going after criminals and people who've committed crimes in this country.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And also, you know, people who've just arrived here or like, let's,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: we're fine with removing people, recent arrivals, right? But people
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: who have been here for years, who just want the
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: chance to become citizens, we should give them the chance
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: to become citizens. We should bring them out of the
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: shadows so that they can contribute, which is what they
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: want to do in this country. I think you just
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: have to be very clear about the message.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you have to, I also think like
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: this interview that Trump gave is an opportunity for Democrats
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: to say like, okay, we will do your, we have
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: a conservative border bill right now. We will tie that
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: with protections for finally letting these dreamers who did nothing
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: wrong and who only know this country to become citizens,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: which you now say is something you want to do.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: So let's do that right now. How about that's the
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: first thing? That's one of the first things you can
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: do when you become president. We should be out there
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: taking him at his word.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about what to make of Trump's answers on
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: whether he'll actually go after his political enemies. Here he
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: is answering questions about the January 6th committee.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I think those people committed a major crime. And Cheney
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: was behind it. And so was Benny Thompson and everybody
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: on that committee. For what they did, honestly, they should.
• 13:29
  Speaker 7: Go to jail.
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: So you think Liz Cheney should go to jail?
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: For what they did.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: Everyone on the committee you.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Think should be in jail.
• 13:37
  Speaker 6: I think everybody on the committee.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Anybody that voted in favor.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: Do you want Kash Patel to launch investigations into people
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: on that list?
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: No.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, he's going to do what he thinks is right.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: If they think that somebody was dishonest or crooked or
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: corrupt politician, I think he probably has an obligation to
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: do it.
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: But are you going to direct him to do it?
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: No, not at all.
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: Not at all.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: I'm not looking to go back into the past. I'm
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Where do you think we are on the spectrum of
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: rule of law to Trump decides who goes to jail?
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Just some pure uncut fascism there.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, it's funny. Again, like if you could there,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: he before that section, he's saying the right things. I'm
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: not I don't want I'm not going to tell Cash
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Patel what to do. I'm Pam Bondi is great. I'm
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: not going to tell her what to do. They're going
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: to do what they want to do. I don't want
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: to go backwards. I'm not. That's what Biden did. I'm
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: not for that. And then the second Welker brings up
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: the select committee. He's like, jail, jail for every fucking
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: one of them. Who voted for it. Who voted for it. Jail. Well,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: we don't hear the end of that sentence. I think
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: maybe on the committee, because weren't there- On the committee vote, yeah.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: You vote against me and you go to jail. And
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: it's just pure, adulterated fascism.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Yes. Also, the constitution has protections specifically designed to protect
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: legislators from the executive for doing their jobs. Not something
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: that comes up in the interview, it also reminded me
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: that there was a part in that Atlantic profile of
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: Patel that said he's the kind of guy you don't
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: have to tell him to do it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: That's why that question was dumb. That's why you chose
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Kash Patel. He has an enemies list in his book.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: That's why you chose Pam Bondi. Well, I guess Matt
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Gaetz washed out, but that's why she was your second choice,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: because you don't need to tell these people what to do.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: They know they're there to punish your enemies.
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: You could read it two ways, I think, which is one,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: exactly how we just talked about it, how you guys
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: just talked about it. The other is, he genuinely doesn't
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: want to go back, doesn't want this, doesn't want to
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: have all these investigations, but you bring up things that
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: he's pissed about and that he's talked about before, he's
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: going to set him off because the man has no
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: control of his emotions. And also, he's never been someone
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: who's like, you know, I changed my mind, actually. Let's
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: let bygones be bygones. He's always going to be like, yes,
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: you should go to jail, but I'm not going to
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: make anything happen, right? Now, again, the huge problem here
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: is whether or not you believe Trump, whether or not
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: he means they, he really is going to make them
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: go to jail or he doesn't want to go back
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: to the past. Cash Patel and Pam Bondi are the
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: problem because they'll either take his comments as a green
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: light to go investigate and prosecute, or they may just
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: decide to do whatever the fuck they want, knowing that
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Trump either won't care or he will approve. and they
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: will curry.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Favor with that. Glad they're doing it despite his lack
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: of intervention, which is sort of an ideal outcome for him. Yeah,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: just stepping back, this was the most unleashed Trump in
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: this entire interview. It's an hour and 16 minute interview.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: It was much more like Trump on Rogan, where the
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: clips are taken out of context to make it seem
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: like the most dangerous and kind of unhinged version of Trump.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: But for the majority of this interview, he is trying
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: to seem as reasonable and mainstream as humanly possible. And he,
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: I think, does succeed in a lot of places. This
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: was one place where I was like, whoa, he's definitely
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: going beyond his his whatever goals he had for this interview.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: He has left those behind to start railing against Liz Cheney.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: The one thought I had while watching him, it was
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: a little galaxy brain, which is like, man, this is
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: not somebody like this is baiting Joe Biden into pardons.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: That's what I was like.
• 17:16
  Speaker 7: Why?
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Why would you go so hard at these people right now?
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: You're you're so careful throughout the rest of it. to
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: try to seem more disciplined.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: I think he just has no impulse control.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I think Liz Cheney is bait. I think it's like that.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: He's just triggered by hearing Liz Cheney in January. Same
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: thing when she mentioned 2020. It's wild to me that
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: one of the questions was like, did you win the
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: 2020 election? I'm like, oh, we're going back there now.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: But like there are certain things, not certain things. There's
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of things you can say to Trump to
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: set him off.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: He is also very mad that the January 6th committee
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: destroyed all their records and evidence and thinks that's prosecutable now.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: The whole thing, he's very mad. I think he's seeking retribution.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: He was trying to be serious, but the minute you
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: push him, like he's electrocuted.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: But I do think, I guess where I come down
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: on this is I would not be surprised if they
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: do launch investigations and try to do everything he had
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: said during the campaign he wanted to do. I would
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: also not be surprised if nothing happens.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all, look, Joe Biden, it's, it's.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: But if I was Biden, I think I, that's, I mean,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: if I was Biden, I think I would, I would,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: I would do, I think really hard about preemptive pardons
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: and blanket pardons for the J six committee and Jack
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Smith and his team. And I would do the team
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: and I would do the staff. I would do like for,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: for anyone who was caught up in federal employees who
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: were investigating Donald Trump in some way, I would think
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: seriously about pardons. Yeah.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I just, it's like an umbrella, you know, you're, it's okay.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: If you have it, you don't need it better than
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: to need it and not have it. And we don't,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: we will not, we do not get to go back
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: and man, Joe, but look, I think it's why he
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: pardoned Hunter. He doesn't want to look back and realize
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: he had this chance to save his son and didn't
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: take it. Well, it's time to use that in the
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: same way for the rest of us.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: He also talked about pardoning the January 6th protesters, rioters
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: who have been convicted, who pled guilty, who are currently
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: serving time in prison. He said that's a day one
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: thing that he's going to do. Do you think people
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: are going to care about that?
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I do. I mean, I don't think the voters want
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: to look back. And this is looking back. And I
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: think You know, here's what I think we have to do.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: The Republicans are very good at picking out a couple
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: of specific stories and examples and lifting them up.
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Like Lake and Riley, any sort of incident of horrible
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: crime against an individual by an undocumented migrant. Trump will
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: tell that story ad nauseum. We need to not just
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: like look at the statistics around January 6th. or talk
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: about it in the big picture. We need to find
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: individuals that he pardons who are, you know, hitting cops
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: or beating people up or being violent and get the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: footage of that and the stories of those individuals out
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: on day one. I do not think that people, I mean,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I think the polling on this was like 30% support.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: for pardoning January 6th insurrectionists?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw, Harriet had this on CNN. It was
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: like 33% said they were patriots. 64% were opposed to pardons.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: 1% wanted to be a priority, which he's clearly making
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: a priority if it's on day one. And 53% think
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: that what the rioters did was an insurrection. So the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: public opinion is clear. I totally agree with you, Tommy,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: that like you've got to, and he kind of danced,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: she goes back and forth.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: This is what I was going to get at.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she goes back and forth on the police officers thing. Like,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: what about the people who violently assaulted police officers? Some
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: of the way that it was written up had Trump
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: responding by saying, They had no choice. He wasn't saying,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I don't think he was saying they had no choice
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: to assault the police officers. He was referring to a
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: different part of her question, which was they pled guilty.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: And he's saying they had no choice to plead guilty
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: because it was like a forced confession kind of thing.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Well, it's amazing how realistic Donald Trump can be about
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: the criminal justice system when it's his own fucking people. Like, oh,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: the jail is not fit for people. And, oh, well,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: you understand that people take plea deals just to get
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: out of something and confess to things that they didn't
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: actually do. Incredibly generous to his own people. Yeah, I
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: think it matters. The other thing he did throughout this
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: section was bounce around who was going to get pardoned.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Is it, who's going to be affected? He really didn't
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: give any straight answer. He avoided it completely. So I
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: think it matters who ends up getting these pardons, right?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: If it's a blanket pardon for a bunch of people
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: that assaulted cops, like we should be fucking talking about
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: it for years. But like- Huge issue.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: We should make it, I think this is the one
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: you make a really big deal out of. Trump is
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: letting violent criminals out of jail to roam the streets
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: in your neighborhood. This is when you go from, yeah,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Democrats shouldn't be talking about like, democracy because it doesn't
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: really resonate with people, but criminals in your neighborhood who
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: were committing political violence and assaulting cops.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: People are going to care about that.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Trump also talked about his economic plans, including a lengthy
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: back and forth on tariffs with Trump saying he quote,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: can't guarantee Americans won't end up paying more. He also said,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: I can't guarantee that. I can't guarantee tomorrow.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was very metaphysical. Very funny. Very funny.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: He also talked about how his other big priority is
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: extending the Trump tax cuts, which mostly benefit the richest Americans.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: He was also asked about raising the minimum wage, but
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: didn't sound as favorable on that, even though he said
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: he would consider it. We've talked about how Democrats need
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: to focus on working class voters issues very early, of course.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: But how do you think Democrats should respond to the
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Trump economic agenda?
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: What I took from this, as you would say, Donald
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Trump has just told us what his priorities are as president,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: to free people that assault cops and cut taxes for
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: the rich. Those are his two big priorities, right? It's
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: not raising the minimum wage. It's not protecting access to healthcare.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: It's not even lowering costs. It's tax cuts for the
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: rich and freeing the people that assaulted the cops on
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: his behalf. And that should tell you something about what
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: you can expect from Donald Trump over the next four years.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would hammer the tax cut issue. I was
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: reading a report On the 2017 Trump tax cut, it
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: found that large US pharma companies saved about $ 6 billion
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: in taxes over the course of four years. And during
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that time, they expanded their workforce by less than 1% globally.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: So they saved a ton of money on taxes and
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: they created no jobs. In 2023, Pfizer made over $ 27
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: billion and paid zero federal income taxes, thanks in part
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: to the Trump tax cut, because they make the bulk
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: of their money in the US. And then they use
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: loopholes and tax avoidance schemes to recognize that revenue in
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Ireland or whatever. So this is the opposite of populism.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: This is the opposite of the bullshit that Steve Bannon
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: and his types try to tell us that the Trump
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: MAGA message is about. And I think we need to
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: really push it hard. I mean, again, like the richest 0.1%
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: of taxpayers got a $ 250, 000 tax cut. The poorest quintile
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: in this country got a $ 70 tax cut. That's the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: story of the 2017 Trump tax cut that he's trying
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to extend.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do think much like Your point, Tommy,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: on the J6 rioters, Democrats are going to have to
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: work hard to publicize and lift up the stories of
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: like who's going to benefit from the tax cuts. Because
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: my guess is that the Trump folks will sell the
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: tax cut extension as middle class tax cuts. In fact,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't even be surprised if they gave if they
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: tried to propose, you know, especially with J.D. Vance and
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: that crew in there. like larger tax cuts for the
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: middle class. So they actually are bigger than the $ 70
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: they got last time. And I think that we need
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: to lift up the stories of the, you know, big
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: CEOs and billionaires who are getting the tax cut. I
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: also think, by the way, look, there's already companies that
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: have said they're going to raise prices thanks to the tariffs.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: I think every time a company announces that they're going
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: to raise prices because of the tariffs or every time
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: they do raise prices, we need to make a huge
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: fucking deal of it. We need to make a huge
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: deal of who's getting the rich people who are getting
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: tax cuts. And I think we should also talk about
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: people who are making minimum wage and can barely afford
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: to get by. And I think the frame of this
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: is we took Trump at his word. You know, he's
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: he he ran on making life more affordable for people
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: and cutting costs. And he's breaking his promise. He's betraying
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: the people who voted for him. And, you know, what
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't do is say things like, oh, well, too bad.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: This is what you voted for. People are they're idiots
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: or they deserve it. You know, you see this, you know,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: people already posted this is like the same people who
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: are like, well, that. you know, the Latinos and immigrants
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: who voted for him, they deserve it if they get deported, right?
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Like we, this is not, when he does this, it is,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: it is, he is breaking a promise to people that
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: he made. Yeah.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Chipotle just announced that they're raising prices next year. And
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: then you look and they had an incredible increase in
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: profits over the previous year. They're raising costs because they
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: think you can get away with it. Corporations and Donald
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Trump and the billionaires around him are conspiring to raise prices.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: They are not focused on what you need. They are
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: focused on on each other and you will pay the price.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Another big topic in the interview is healthcare. Welker pressed
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: him on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: on RFK Jr. 's plans for childhood vaccines. Let's listen.
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: Sir, you said during the campaign you had concepts of
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: a plan. Do you have an actual plan at this
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: point for healthcare?
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: Yes, we have concepts of a plan that would be better.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: I'm not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: If somebody told me get rid of the polio vaccine,
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: they're going to have to work real hard to convince
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: me I think vaccines are, certain vaccines are incredible, but
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: maybe some aren't. And if they aren't, we have to
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: find out.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Before we get to vaccines, what do you think his
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: answer is their signal about how serious he is about
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: taking on health care reform and going after the ACA again?
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know that he cares about health policy as
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: much as he hates Obama and acts accordingly.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems like he wants credit for
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: all the good parts of the ACA, but maybe doesn't
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: want to touch that hot stove again. But I don't know.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think?
• 27:04
  Speaker 7: I agree.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I took it. He spent a while talking about how
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: much he did to make Obamacare work, which is his
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: new line. It's obviously it's not true. He sued to
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: get rid of Obamacare. And, you know, and he even
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: responds to his Welker point that he says, well, that's
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: what I was doing to try to get rid of it.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: But actually administering it, he was trying to sabotage it internally.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: sabotaging the enrollment periods, making it more difficult to sign up.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: So he wasn't, he was trying to undermine Obamacare at
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: every turn. But it does seem like he doesn't want
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: that fight. He also... Yeah.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think he understands that the appetite for
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: ACA repeal isn't there.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: It's popular. It's like 60% approval.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: It's the most popular it's ever been. Only 38% of
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: people disapproved. The appetite isn't there in Congress either. I
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: do worry about Medicaid a lot. because I think Republicans
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: will want to gut Medicaid as part of the budget
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: bill they're going to use to extend the Trump tax cuts.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: So I think we should watch that. Obviously, Biden did
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: the Inflation Reduction Act as part of a budget reconciliation bill.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: We talked about that more than enough when it was happening.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: But I think Republicans are going to now do something
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: similar with the budget bill. And they're going to try
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: to do tax cuts and then all of their other
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: cuts to the budget. And I worry about health care
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: programs that can be just cut or radically reduced just
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: in the budget. I don't think they're going to have
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the votes to actually repeal the insurance protections or the
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: law of the Affordable Care Act. But I think a
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: lot of the money that goes to making health care
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: affordable for people, I really do worry about that.
• 28:30
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: The places where they'll look to make cuts that they
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: think they can get away with will be Medicaid and
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: will be food stamps. They will go after the programs
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: that target the poor, especially because in this interview and previously,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Trump has said that he wants to carve out Social
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Security And Medicare, he knows, politically, it's toxic. And so
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: where are you going to find the money to pay
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: for a $ 200, 000 tax cut for a person making $ 5 million?
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: You're going to cut food stamp increases by $ 20 a month.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the doge bozos like Elon and Vivek are
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: like learning in real time on Twitter that most of U.S. spending,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: federal spending, is entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: And they're like, amazing, look at this, quote tweet.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: It drives me fucking nuts. It's just like day one.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Did you guys all hear about this?
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: Elon posting something like, we're paying so much for healthcare,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: but we're not really getting a good value for it.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: We've been dealing with this. We've been talking about this
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: for fucking 20 years.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Good thing a brilliant man like me has looked into this.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: No one has done that before.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: Do you know the administrative cost on private insurance versus Medicare?
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: It's out of control.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Fucking dilettantes. Brief exchange about abortion, Welker asked if he
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: would be restricting access to abortion pills, and he made
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: it seem like he would not. I think the question is, like,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: does he come under more pressure from Republicans in Congress
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: now that they have a majority in both houses to
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: do more abortion than he might be inclined to do? Or,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: you know, she asked the question about the abortion pill.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: That would be an administrative action. does some of the
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: loons he has put in charge of his government decide
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: to move on that?
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: That's the big question.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I think clearly Republicans want a national abortion ban. This
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: is part of their project. There are a bunch of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: right-wing zealots in the House in particular who will stop
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: at nothing to get a federal abortion ban. The question
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: is whether Speaker Johnson will keep those people under wraps
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: if he and Trump have cut some sort of deal.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: I don't, yeah, I think that the The votes aren't
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: there in the House. The Republicans don't have a big
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: enough majority. And the frontline members are not in districts
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: where they're going to, especially since the frontline members are,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of them, blue state Republicans. They're not going
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: to want to do that. I think the appetite's not
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: there among enough Republican senators to do that. They're not
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: going to vote in the Senate either. I worry about
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: the Comstock Act and what happens within the administration.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: The question is always on abortion with Trump has been
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: not what does he want to do, but what is
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: he willing to stop? That's why the most important question
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: during the election was, would you veto a bill? That's
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: why the questions around what he would do administratively are
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: so important. And he has evaded those answers. I think
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: he clearly understands how damaging politically this has been for
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: him and does not want the fight, but a lot
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: of people around him do.
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the vaccines. All over the place there.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: He says that Kennedy won't be Upending the system.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: That was, yeah.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: But if you watch or read through, it's also pretty
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: clear he's bought into the idea that there's been a
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: huge spike in autism in America and that it has
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: to be attributable to something external. Maybe vaccines. Who knows?
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Let's investigate. He also mentions at one point that it
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: could be chlorine in the water, presumably meaning fluoride, which
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: we know RFK wants to get rid of.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's what he meant. Yeah.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: That's what he meant. Got it.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Unless he's worried about public pools.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I took it to mean fluoride.
• 31:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: The danger to me seems, again, that Trump is at
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: risk of just getting convinced by RFK Jr. to make
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: these major public health changes. And by the way, if
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: RFK goes off on his own and does some investigation,
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: it's just an investigation. Like, oh, I wonder what's going
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: to turn up.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: This is the problem. RFK, this is what he cares about.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: This is the only thing he cares about. In 2021,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: he did a podcast interview where he said he goes hiking.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: If he sees a parent carrying a little baby, he'll
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: say to them, better not get him vaccinated. Like literally
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: like he says to strangers on the hiking trail, this,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: he said this. So that is not a nuanced perspective
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: that includes a carve out for polio. This is a,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: an ideologue who is dishonest, who is sloppy. And if
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: he gets access to a big bunch of data, he's
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: going to find what he wants to find. And in
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the process, I don't know where Trump will land on
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: all this, but in the process, the U S government, uh,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: sowing chaos and making people hesitant or scared to get
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: vaccines like that is going to do damage.
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: To me, that's like the best case scenario is a
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: huge fight over vaccines and whether, you know, RFKs bullshit
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: study is right or wrong. You could get a whole
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: bunch of people in HHS who whistleblowers saying, no, this
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: is bullshit, blah, blah. If there is, if there's conflict
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: about it, that is going to increase hesitancy. That's going
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: to do damage enough.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm, I'm, I think, RFK Jr. coming out and
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: trying to withdraw vaccine approvals, causing a kind of giant
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: national debate over this. Do I think that's necessarily going
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: to happen? No. I worry about the kind of quiet
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: power this guy's going to have behind the scenes to
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: decide what gets funded, what doesn't get funded, who's in
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: charge of overseeing these investigations. For a long time on abortion,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: the question was, would the court overturn Roe v.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: Wade?
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: And what they did was, then the headlines would end
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: up being court upholds Roe v. Wade while undermining abortion
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: all along the way. And I worry about what happens
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: when you have somebody like RFK Jr. in charge of
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: the Department of Health and Human Services, and it comes out,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr. will not be banning vaccines. But the policies
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: that are now coming down from the top throughout HHS
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: are undermining vaccination campaigns, undermining public health research, undermining the
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: institutions that are not just making sure people are getting
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: vaccinated now, but investigating and doing the research into the
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: next generation of vaccines. Like, I'm worried about the like
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: what happens when the headlines fade because he's not doing
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: the big, terrible thing. And we just live with the
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: slow degradation of what is the incredible public health apparatus,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: like the incredible achievements of America's public health system.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he's going to do both. I mean,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: he's already said, I mean, there's a quote out there.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: We said, I'm going to tell the, you know, the
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: researchers that we're going to hit pause for eight years
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: on basically R & D on some of these vaccines
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: and things. But what always happens with these anti-vax advocates
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: is they get a mound of data and they find
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: in it what they want. And then the scientists on
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the other side are left having conversations about correlation, not
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: causation and other variables and the uncertainty of the scientific
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: process and yada, yada, yada. And we just lose that
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: public debate. And in the process, a bunch of parents
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: are like, I don't know, man, this measles thing is scary.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: And I heard this story. I read something online.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: There's this awful example of a child who got the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: shots and then all of a sudden wasn't responsive. And
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: that stuff is really powerful.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Next thing you know, they take away your Diet Coke.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: Never.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: He's not stupid enough to go after my and Donald
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Trump's Diet Coke.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: That's where he draws the line. Foreign policy was not
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: a major focus of the Meet the Press interview, which
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Trump recorded on Friday morning, two days before Assad's regime
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: fell in Syria. Though the issue did come up when
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Welker asked about Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to be director of
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: national intelligence. Gabbard had a couple of infamous secret meetings
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: with Assad that reportedly have a bunch of senators worried
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: about her nomination with good reason. Let's listen to Trump's response.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: Let me ask you about former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. You
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: picked her to be the director of national intelligence. In 2017,
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: she had two secret meetings with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: Do you have questions or concerns about those meetings?
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: No.
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: And he's got bigger problems right now.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Well, do you think it makes it hard for her?
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: His country is collapsing.
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: I mean, do you think it compromises.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Her ability to handle that?
• 35:55
  Speaker 7: I met with Putin.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: I met with President Xi of China. I met with
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: Kim Jong-un twice. Does that mean that I can't be president?
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: Well, when you were president, they weren't secret meetings. Do
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: you have confidence in Tulsi Gabbard?
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: I do.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: I mean, she's a very respected person.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Before we get into the politics of it, Tommy, can
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: you just walk everyone through what actually happened this weekend
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: since this is now the biggest story in the world.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I know you and Ben did a bonus episode about
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: this for Pod Save the World that everyone should check out.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: We recorded something Sunday. We'll do another one on Tuesday
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: for Wednesday, but check them out if you want the
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: longer story. I mean, the short answer is that in Syria,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: these opposition forces toppled 50 years of Assad rule and
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: 13 years of the civil war, and they just drove
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: them out of town. It was lightning speed. The rebels
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: basically started coming south from northwestern Syria and And over
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the course of eight days, took city after city after
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: city until they just rolled into Damascus and Assad had
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: to fly to Russia where he will now live out
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: the rest of his life, hopefully in some squalid conditions.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: So it's just a truly historic moment where one of
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the most brutal regimes in modern history fell and Assad,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Bashar al-Assad came after his father, who was just as
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: brutal and took power in a coup. And Bashar killed,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: you know, 500,000 of his own people through the course
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of the civil war. He's just a truly horrific human being.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Sounds like when push came to shove, Iran and Russia
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: really weren't there for their pals in Syria.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: They were not there. They were either tied up in
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Ukraine or tied up in Lebanon or Hezbollah had been
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: decapitated by the Israelis. So his benefactors were not around
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: to bail him out this time.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Well, then let's talk about his other friend, Tulsi Gabbard.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: What do you think this means for Gabbard's nomination? Anything?
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a good question. So the kind of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: hit list on her, they mentioned it there. She met
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: with Assad twice. She flew to Syria to meet with
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: him in 2017. Then she got this kind of PR
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: tour around Aleppo after it had been bombed to dust
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: by Assad and the Russians. She said Assad is not
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: the enemy of the United States. She refused to say
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Assad is a war criminal. She also refuses to believe
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: that Assad used chemical weapons on his own people, which
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: he very much did. And so there's all these other
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: weird examples. Like in 2018, the House Foreign Affairs Committee
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: held a closed-door meeting with a Syrian defector who had
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: smuggled all this evidence of Assad's brutality and war crimes
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: out of Syria. And bipartisan groups of staffers were so
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: worried about Tulsi being there that the guy wore a
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: mask in closed-door hearings. And then there's that same NBC
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: report that talks about that. mentioned a trip Tulsi took
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: to the Turkey-Syria border in 2015. There she met with
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: two little girls who had been horrifically burned from airstrikes
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: while they were living at this IDP camp. And she
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: asked them, how do you know it was the Russians
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and Assad who bombed you and not ISIS? And the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: answer is, ISIS doesn't have an air force, you fucking moron.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: So it's like, are you an Assad fan? are you
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: just that stupid? You know what I mean?
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: Like, how do you get to these?
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Neither speaks very well for qualifications for DNI.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: No. Yeah.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: There's also the, she, she embraced the conspiracy theory around
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: bio labs in Ukraine. And like, you know, this has
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: become like ideological and because like, and John Bolton has
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: been one of the, like the most like fervent opponents.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: But the point he made, which is just like, this isn't,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: she just seems like she has terrible judgment. Like it's
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: not ideological. She's a fucking kook. And like, whether or not,
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: the fact that she was so solicitous towards us and
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: the specific situation in Syria aside, the fact that all
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: this is unfolding as she's about to go into these
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: hearings is a reminder that this is a serious and
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: important job. Trump, one part in the Welker interview, Welker says,
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: you said you would end the war in one day.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: if you're president. So how's that going?
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: It's going.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: And it is like, to me, like it is a,
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: the Hegseth stuff, the Gabbard stuff. It's a reminder to me,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: like Trump has won twice as a challenger. He has
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: lost as an incumbent. It is easy to say how, how,
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: how you will solve every problem and understand how to
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: turn every key when you are a candidate. But when
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: you were president, these are serious, real and complicated issues
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: that demand serious, capable people. And Tulsi Gabbard Pete Hegseth,
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: these are not those people.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you need a team. And I get where Tulsi's
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: coming from on not saying Assad is not the enemy
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: of the United States. She's just trying to make an
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: argument that we shouldn't go to war in Syria or
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: on behalf of the Syrian opposition. I understand that. But
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: in service of that goal, she became an apologist for
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: this evil war criminal who was using chemical weapons on
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: his own people, who was throwing people in these gulags
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and torturing them for years and years and years. And
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: so there's going to be the Gabbard hearing, but then
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: there's going to be a set of policy questions for
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Trump There's 900 US troops sitting in Syria right now
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: working with these Kurdish forces to keep ISIS at bay.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: There's Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles that are kind of littered
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: throughout the country still. These Israelis were bombing those over
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: the weekend. CENTCOM was hitting all these ISIS targets. There's
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: going to be this need to make sure that this
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: isn't just chapter one of the Syrian civil war, but
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: that something good comes out of it, some sort of
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: viable state. Because the Syrian civil war led to 5
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: million people, I think, fleeing beyond Syria who are living
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: as refugees. Most of them are in the sort of
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: neighboring countries like Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, et cetera. But, you know,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: I think Germany took like 800,000 refugees in. A lot
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of those people want to go home. A lot of
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: that migration destabilized the politics in these European countries and
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: led to the rise of these far right parties. So
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: there's a huge opportunity right now for the international community
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to step up, help Syria, help people come home and
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: make it a viable state. and not let it devolve
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: into just another fucking nightmare for these people who have
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: lived through hell for the last decade. And the question is,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: what is Trump going to do? Because his tweet is like,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: not our problem. That's his take. And then his DNI
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: is like an Assad fan.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: And then you have Rubio, who's been a hawk.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: It's just like the contradictions get resolved when you're governing.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: They can exist while you're campaigning. They don't get to
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: continue to exist when you're governing.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Did you see in Playbook today, they were reporting that,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: you know, Gabbard's defenders now are going to say, well,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: she once called him a brutal dictator and also she
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: has top secret clearance. So if there was any problems,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: this would have come up then. That process is always perfect.
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: And then she was just promoted also to be a
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: lieutenant colonel in the army reserve so that's that's you
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: know all of this stuff is like qualifications for that
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: but i'm like i.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: Don't i don't think the army reserve process probably isn't
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: geared to look into international fucking trips to meet with
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: asad like i'm sure she did what she needed to
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: do to earn that promotion but like it's a ridiculous defense.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah they're the the air force reservist named jack to
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: share i was the kid who leaked all those top
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: secret documents onto discord to his gamer buddies so i
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: don't know that that's the bar we're gonna hold the
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: dni to.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Seems seems wise We've been following the shooting of UnitedHealthcare
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: CEO Brian Thompson like everyone else, a story that now
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: clearly has a political angle.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Well, because he's running for the 2028 primary.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Correct, yes. We don't know which party. As of this recording,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Monday afternoon, L.A. time, police have a, quote, strong person
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: of interest in custody, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, who was apprehended
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania with a backpack containing a gun,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: a silencer, fake IDs matching the ones used in New York,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: and a handwritten manifesto. That didn't give the health insurance
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: industry the best reviews. This was after the bullet casings
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: found at the scene had the words delay, deny, and
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: depose written on them. The reactions on social media, which
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: is one of the reasons why this is a big story,
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: have ranged from people joking about the murder to celebrating it.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: UnitedHealth Group had to shut off the Facebook reactions to
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: the announcement of Thompson's death after nearly 75,000 users responded
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: with a laughing emoji. The reaction inevitably reached the point
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: where politicians got asked about it. Here's California Congressman Ro
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Khanna on ABC's This Week on Sunday.
• 44:10
  Speaker 7: Let me just say it was horrific. I mean, this
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: is a father we're talking about of two children. and
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: my sympathies to the entire family. There is no justification
• 44:21
  Speaker 7: for violence. But the outpouring afterwards has not surprised me. Look, I,
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: as a congressperson, had UnitedHealthcare deny a prescription for a
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: nasal $ 100 pump spray, and I couldn't get them to
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: reverse this. So imagine what ordinary people are dealing with.
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: The biggest denial comes when it's cancer treatment. I mean,
• 44:41
  Speaker 7: people are getting denied on cancer treatment. And my view
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: is very simple. Why can't we have a rule that
• 44:46
  Speaker 7: if a doctor prescribes something and if Medicare, traditional Medicare,
• 44:50
  Speaker 7: is going to cover it, then private insurance companies should
• 44:52
  Speaker 7: be forced to cover it? I mean, it's absurd in
• 44:55
  Speaker 7: this country what's going on.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: I think that's a good idea. What do you guys
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: think of Roe's answer? And what's your general take on
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: this story?
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: So I, like when I saw that the shooting had happened,
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: I was just, I was like, okay, so here's what's
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: going to happen next. I just was waiting for it.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: Like there's going to be a round of people celebrating it.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: There's gonna be a round of people criticizing the people
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: for celebrating it. Then a round of people criticizing those
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: people for not understanding the pain that people are experiencing
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: in their lives. Everybody.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Next thing you know, universal healthcare.
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: Like, right. It's sort of like.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Medicare for all or else.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: Right. That was the worst ideas I've heard. But the, but, uh,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: the kind of like performative, the way, the way you demonstrate,
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: you really understand what's broken in our healthcare system is
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: by performing this lack of empathy. That's how you demonstrate.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: You really get it. And if you don't have that
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: lack of empathy, that means you don't really get it.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: All of that. I was just sort of like, just
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: sort of waiting for it. Of course, like unfolded actually
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: worse than I expected. Um, it was all pretty ugly.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: The thing that I, there was a lot of like
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: earned vitriol, like insurance companies, some are better than others. plenty,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: play games, even break the law to try to avoid paying.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: We have a cruel and broken system. That's what we have.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: This guy, well compensated, is a tool of a broken system.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: This insurance company exists and benefits from a broken system.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: And that to me, I want to have a debate
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: about the broken healthcare system and why we have this
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: ridiculous system where half the people get insurance through work,
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: which creates these incredibly convoluted and broken incentives, where we
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: have publicly traded companies that exist to create a difference
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: between how much they pay out in health benefits versus
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: how much they recoup in premiums. Like their job is
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: to maximize that differential. We built a whole system around it.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: That's fucking stupid. That is terrible. That causes all kinds
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: of harms. But like the idea that we're going to
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: associate the murder of a health executive with Medicare for
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: all to me does not bring us anywhere closer to
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: Medicare for we're not going to shoot our way to
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: universal health care. And it ends up becoming a kind
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: of vicious and negative and divisive debate, a debate we
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: can win without kind of needing to resort to this
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: sort of like ridiculous kind of performative, I don't know
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: what you'd call it, theatrics, heroics, I don't know.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people can make jokes. The reason I don't make
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: them is because I just think that people all have
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: families and let's think about it on a human level.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: And then also, deciding that We're tacitly supporting targeted assassination.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: It's the slipperiest of slopes in my view. And I
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: saw people saying, well, you know, UnitedHealth, healthcare is responsible
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: for more deaths because they deny claims. Well, what if
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: someone decides that rationale applies to like, you know, abortion
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: rights groups and goes after their CEOs, right? I just,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: I think copycat violence is a real problem. So let's
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: just not celebrate this stuff. That said, everyone has had
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: a terrible interaction with an insurance company. Every single person.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: The insurers reject one in seven claims for treatment. ProPublica
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: had a really long investigation in February of 2023 that's
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: worth reading about UnitedHealthcare. It's one story about the treatment
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: of a patient who finally found an effective treatment for
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: a debilitating disease that was wildly expensive. He was denied.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: His family then sued. And they got access to all
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: these recorded calls and documents and things that just outlined
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: the way UnitedHealthcare put profits ahead of his healthcare or
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: anything else and lied and did all these horrible things. So,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: but I think the net effect of this incident is
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: probably going to be that a bunch of corporate CEOs
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: getting armed security and their customers pay for it. And that's,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: you know, the frustrating part.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, according to the New York Times, some
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: people on social media said that people who have information
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: about the killing shouldn't share it with authorities. The hostel
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: that he was staying in was cooperating with the authorities
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: and they got threats because they were cooperating. Some people
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: posted names and pictures of other health insurance executives. I'm
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: going to take the... I'll take the, the neolib squishy
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: centrist position that murder.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Let's hear it.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Murder is bad.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: Also denying people life-saving healthcare because they can't afford it. Bad.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: How about that? Wow. That's incredible. Incredible. Incredible.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Incredible. Hope all the, hope all the murderers are caught
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: and punished. Also hope we pass more laws to make
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: sure that everyone can get the healthcare they need without
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: the insurance company putting them through hell, which insurance companies
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: frequently do.
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: The, I feel like the other question, like, why do
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: we have a system where all these people have horror stories,
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: like terrible stories about what it's like to engage with
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: these companies? These companies exist to deny claims and make
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: life harder. And, you know, Barack Obama used to tell
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: stories about what it was like when his mother had
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: cancer and how you're dealing with the worst moment of
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: your life and you're on the phone with insurance companies. Like,
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: Why does this system exist? And the debate online, fine,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: it's not real life. But I do think it captures
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: something that is real about the healthcare debate, which is
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: there are all these people that are screaming like the
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: system is fucking stupid. It is stupid, right? And yet
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: when you try to change it, you run into this buzzsaw. Now,
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: part of that is because the insurance lobby donates a
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: lot to campaigns. They run a lot of ads. There's
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of anti-government, anti-Medicare propaganda, a lot of right-wing
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: propaganda about this. But the reality is when you ask people,
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: do you like your insurance? The vast majority say they do.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: Even when a majority of those people say they've had
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: problems with their health insurance, that one in six say
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: that they've had claims that they could never resolve.
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: That they could never resolve.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: Just to put some statistics there, like Kaiser Family Foundation
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: did a very large poll June of last year, June
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: of 23. 81% of people give their health insurance a
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: rating of excellent or good. Now, if you're in poorer health,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: that number falls, but it falls to 68%, still pretty high.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: 58% say they've had a problem with their health insurance
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: in the last year, though half of those people say
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: it was resolved to their satisfaction. And then 27%, so
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: one in three people say in the last year they've
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: had a specific issue with a claim denial or the
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: insurance company paying less than they had hoped the insurance
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: company would pay. Clearly a problem. To your point, though,
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about what the barriers are, right? What happened
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: in when we tried to pass the Affordable Care Act, right?
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Which was a Herculean effort that cost a lot of
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Democrats their jobs, a lot of House members. Everyone talks
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: about what happened in 2010 and like why didn't down
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: ballot win and was it OFA or this or that?
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: A bunch of people took the vote, knew that they
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: would probably lose because they took the vote for Affordable
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: Care Act, but they thought it was important enough to
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: do anyway and they did it. The Affordable Care Act,
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: which didn't even pass with a public option because we
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: didn't have the votes for a public option, which still
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: isn't single payer. We passed a bunch of insurance company
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: reforms that put a bunch of new regulations on insurance companies,
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: but we couldn't get more than that. Fast forward to
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the 2020 Democratic primary, where the central debate in the
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: primary was over Medicare for all. And what happened there,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Medicare for all ended up less popular than it started
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: at the beginning of the primary. Because when you ask people,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: should the government guarantee health insurance, people say yes, like
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: 60% say yes. When you ask people, do you think
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: it should be a government run system or a private
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: insurance system? More people want private insurance than they do government.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: That number has narrowed now, but that's still, so it
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: is not, it is a problem with the insurance industry.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: It is a problem with their lobbying. It is a
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: problem with the money in politics. It is certainly a
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: problem with the Republican party, but it's also, we have
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: work to do convincing people to change this system.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Well, it's also, I think, look, I think The fact
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: that profit is in the health care system is the
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: original sin here.
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: The thing that we would all want to get rid of.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: If we were doing it over again, we would have
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: it without profit in the system.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Single payer, Medicare for all type system. The challenge that
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: you outlined, though, is getting people to trust that the
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: government is going to competently administer that system is also
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: a great challenge. I imagine that challenge was not aided
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: by the rollout of healthcare.gov during the ACA. fight and
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: roll out in the second Obama term. So- Well, and
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: let's talk about why that was such a challenge, right?
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: In 2013, as part of the Affordable Care Act, we said, look,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: if insurance companies try to give people these shitty plans
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: that don't cover anything, where they're paying a lot of money,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: but they still can't get good coverage, what the government's
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: going to do is say, we're going to cancel those plans.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: And- The government canceled those plans, and suddenly there was
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: a fucking uproar like you wouldn't believe because people said,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: I thought I could keep my health insurance if I liked.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: My health insurance. Because of a line that you had
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: to include when you were campaigning to reform the health
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: care system, which is, if you like your plan, you
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: can keep your plan, which was going to be true
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: for 98% of people.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: But also the website didn't work, too.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: That wasn't great. What I was saying, the bigger one was,
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: the real political problem was, why did we get all
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: these cancellations? And- Now people are like, well, everyone hates
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: their health insurance plan. Well, actually, no, we tried to
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: cancel a bunch of really shitty plans that didn't do
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: a lot to cover people. And there was a fucking uproar.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: So that's not to say that we, of course we
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: should try again, but it is much more complicated with
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: actual people.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: The other part of this is like, oh, people, people
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: also say they're comfortable with expanding insurance by the government.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: They just like, I do think like, okay, so half
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: the country roughly has health insurance through their employer. That
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: is the system we built. That is a convoluted, broken
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: system that creates a bunch of perverse incentives. It means
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: that insurers don't have much of an incentive to cover
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: preventative care because if you change jobs, you change insurers,
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: creates a whole host of problems. Small percentage of people
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: buy their own insurance, about 10%. The rest are either
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: uninsured or in the public systems. We already have a
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: huge chunk of the country in public health care. And
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: that poll that John talked about, it said that 81%
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: of people like their private insurance. It's even higher. for Medicare.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: Medicare is extremely popular. And I do think, like, the
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: point that Ro Khanna makes in that interview is smart, right? Like,
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: that private insurance should cover anything Medicare should cover. He's
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: thinking about the ways in which to make private insurance
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: more like Medicare, basically, which costs far less to administer, right?
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: The huge percentage of private insurance costs goes towards administration.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: What's administration? It's paying the staff that reviews claims, tries
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: to make their costs low, right? It's money that goes
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: to getting worse healthcare than actually paying providers. But, like,
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: Part of what happens when you end up only debating,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: when the debate becomes about, are you for single payer
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: or against single payer, is you don't have other debates.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: A debate like, should we lower the Medicare eligibility age
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: to 60? How about that?
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Or I was going to say, to your point about
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: people liking Medicare so much, I think that the plan
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: offered in 2020 that was both the best plan, but
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: also the most politically palatable plan and that most people
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: liked it was, remember Pete Buttigieg proposed that medicare for
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: all who want it yes and so basically it would
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: allow anyone if you really want medicare and you want
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: to be covered by medicare you can choose that and
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: if you really don't want that and you really want
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: your private health insurance plan you can choose that and
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: the idea would be that medicare would be so popular
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: that more and more people would buy in and we
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: would eventually transition to a system where medicare covers.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: Everyone there's a lot of yes that was a sort
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: of a form of a public option but like you
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: lower the medic like you know the public option was
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: killed from obamacare And it was killed by a bunch
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: of senators. They all hid behind Joe Lieberman. It was
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: killed by a bunch of people. But one thing that
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: Joe Lieberman personally killed was the Medicare buy-in for people.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: And that was just a policy to help. If you
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: are between the ages of 60 and 65, that is
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: where you're healthy. You're not yet in Medicare, but you
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: still are in the age where you're starting to have
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: more and more health problems. It's an extremely expensive group
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: to insure. If you get laid off when you're 58,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: it's incredibly expensive. There's a huge bunch of problems that
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: happen there. And Joe Lieberman personally killed a Medicare buy-in.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: But like, if we could get the Medicare age down
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: to 60, it costs about $ 25 billion a year, but tiny,
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: tiny fraction of the budget. And that alone would bring
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: healthcare costs down for fucking everybody just by dint of
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: getting this pool of expensive people to insure off. But like,
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: these are the kinds of things I think we should
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: be talking about, like simple fixes that get us on
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: the road to Medicare for all. Because if you're, if you,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: if like, if like, like Rose, Ro Khanna said, like,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: Not surprised by the reaction. There's an incredible amount of
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: anger and antipathy towards health insurance companies. We should target it.
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: We should direct it towards a political aim that could
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: actually help people.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: As soon as possible. Well, guess what? If there were
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Democratic majorities in Congress and Democratic president, we'd get a
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: public option. We didn't last time around, even though Joe
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: Biden proposed it because we had Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: If we had won the Senate this time around and
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: won the House and won the presidency. then we'd be
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: talking about a public option for a second term.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: And these should be part of the, like, when we
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: talk about, like, what are Democrats for? We spent a long,
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: you know, what is our big agenda for the future? Like,
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: these kinds of big changes have to be part of it.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: All right. Before we go, if anyone's looking for a
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: last-minute stocking stuffer, we do have a gift for you.
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: My new Trump fragrances are here. They make a great
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: Christmas present. I've named them Fight, Fight, Fight because they
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: represent winning. We all want to be winning. We have
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: to win as a nation. We want to win as
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: a family. This fragrance is all about strength and success
• 57:48
  Speaker 6: and confidence for men and for women. Get yourself a
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: bottle and don't forget to grab one for your loved
• 57:54
  Speaker 6: ones too. They'll thank you and they'll even smell good.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: How is that real?
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: I hadn't listened to the end.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: How is that real?
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: They'll even smell good.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: Hey, did a raccoon with Axe body spray wander into McDonald's? No, no,
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: that's my new cologne. That's my new cologne. It's fight, fight, fight. Fight, fight.
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: I'm wearing my Donald Trump-scented cologne. It's fight, fight, fight.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump was in Paris this weekend at the reopening
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: of the Notre Dame Cathedral. The First Lady was there,
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Jill Biden. Apparently they were sitting near each other. They spoke.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: It was a pleasant exchange. There's a picture of Trump
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: talking to Jill Biden where she's smiling. Trump posted that
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: picture with a caption, That said, a fragrance your enemies
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: can't resist. Used as an ad for fight, fight, fight.
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: Look, I think you don't want to, the fucking liberal
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: media doesn't want to face it. Jill Biden wants to
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: fuck Donald Trump. That's in Notre Dame Cathedral in a
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: holy fucking place. That's what the news won't fucking cover it.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: The news won't talk about it. The news won't talk
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: I will say there was a lot of laughter from
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: the coach. Farrah's draw dropped.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: It's like he.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Kept rolling out these products during the campaign. And I
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: was like, maybe he thinks he's going to lose. and
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: he's just getting like one last grift in. But now
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: he's president and he's rolling out a fragrance. Come on, man.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: You have so many avenues for corruption.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: You're going to be just fine.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: You don't need a fragrance.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: I always want more. I always want more.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Get the crypto.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: It's called Fight, Fight, Fight because it represents winning. That
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: just doesn't make It doesn't make a lot of sense.
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: You got to smell it. Listen.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Smell like a winner.
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: You got to smell like a winner.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: That would have been a better tagline.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: You got it.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: Trump fragrance. Smell like a winner.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: You got to go in the store and smell the fragrances. What,
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: are you going to trust it based on a brand?
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: It could smell like anything.
• 59:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: There needs to.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Be some place to buy this stuff where the money
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't go to him, like a secondary sale, you know,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: kind of used stuff. fragrance store.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: I don't want to give him money, but.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I would love to have a bottle around the office
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: and squirt it on you guys.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: Fight, fight, fight.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: That's our show for today. If you have smelled Fight, Fight,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Fight cologne, please let us know what it smells like.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: If you bought it, sell it to me.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if anyone's looking for a present for me,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: you know what to get me. That's our show for today.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: We'll be back with a new show on Wednesday. If
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free or
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: get access to our subscriber Discord and exclusive podcasts, consider
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: joining our Friends of the Pod community at crooked.com slash
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  Speaker 2: Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are
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  Speaker 2: David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
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  Speaker 2: Reid Cherlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is
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  Speaker 2: support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by
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  Speaker 2: Haley Jones, Phoebe Bradford, Joseph Dutra, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman,
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