Latest / Pod Save America / Biden vs. Trump on January 6th

Transcript

Biden vs. Trump on January 6th · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: John Favreau is off this week. His friend Joe Coy
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: asked him to help him with material for the Golden Globes,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: but he'll be back. John is on parental leave, but
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: he will be back as soon as next week because
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: he has a sickness. Yes, he does. And this is
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: The Cure. On today's show, it's the January 6th anniversary
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and Biden and Trump got us speeches. Congress, as always,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is trying to fund the government as a shutdown looms.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's mysterious hospitalization over New Year's leads
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to questions about the chain of command and Republicans continue
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to fight the culture war on college campuses. Plus, New
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: York Times congressional correspondent Annie Carney joins to talk about
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Schumer and Johnson's deal, Republican impeachment inquiries, and Elise Stefanik's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: war on Harvard. But first, late last week, President Biden
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: marked the third anniversary of the January 6th attack on
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the Capitol with a speech setting up the threat posed
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: by Trump and the choice in the 2024 election.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Today, we're here to answer the most important of questions.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Is democracy still America's sacred cause? Trump won't do what
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: an American president must do. He refuses to denounce political violence.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Now these MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: on January 6th have abandoned the truth and abandoned the democracy.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: They made their choice. Now the rest of us, Democrats, independents,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: mainstream Republicans, we have to make our choice. We all
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: know who Donald Trump is. The question we have to answer.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Is, who are we? Saul, you did a great job
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: taking out the applause. Tommy, what did you think of
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the speech? Happy January 6th anniversary, by the way.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: No, it's three years flies when you're having whatever we're having.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Storming the Capitol, yeah. Got you some bike rack. I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: thought it was good. I thought it was powerful.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think speech on threat to democracy can
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: sound a little abstract, but really he walked you through
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: some of the worst moments of the Trump presidency in
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: He talked about January 6th. He talked about Trump refusing
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: to call off the violent insurrectionists in the Capitol. He
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: talked about Trump inciting political violence and laughing about it
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: like he does with Paul Pelosi all the time still,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: even though we know the full story there. He talked
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: about the suckers and losers comment. So, you know, it
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: was a good compilation of all the ways that Trump
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: is a threat to democracy. He also reminded everybody of
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: the legal challenges that Trump lost, including in red states.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: and with Trump judges. And so that cuts to the
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: heart of Trump continuing to say that this election was
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: stolen or rigged or whatever you want to call it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: And so, look, I don't think it was a one-off
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: thing either. Biden reprised a lot of the speech in
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: South Carolina again today. And I think this will all
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: fold into a broader argument about just how extreme Trump
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: is on a whole host of different issues.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of people that have been saying,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: draw the contrast. The campaign has to begin. The campaign
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: has to begin. It doesn't mean he's trying to do that.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: There are a few ways he sort of frames the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: fight against Trump. One is that Trump is out for
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: himself and not for you. One is that Trump is
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a loser. Another is that Trump is violent and anti-democratic.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Was there any one that stood out to you? Any
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: one that you thought was the strongest version of an
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: attack from Biden? You know what I liked?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: One line, I don't know if this is the strongest
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: version of an attack, but a line that jumped out
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: at me was, Trump is trying to steal history in
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: the same way he tried to steal the election.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I really liked that.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: And it spoke to the way he's trying to rewrite
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: history in memory hole. what we all watched happen live
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: on TV, what, three years ago.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: He's clearly very like personally frustrated. I also appreciate it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: We've talked about this a lot that like threats to
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: democracy can sound abstract. I'm glad that there was no
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: reference in the speech to schedule F government employment rules
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: as much as it's important. I agree that it's important.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: We agree. He really tried at a few places, not
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: for the first time, but I think clearly like recognizing
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: that people don't totally get the connection to their daily lives.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Like Democracy is the place where we go to make change.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Democracy is the place where we try to make sure
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: people get opportunities. It's where you can be yourself. He's
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: trying to find a way to make it relate to people.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Part of this is you can really feel Biden's genuine fury. Yes,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: there's strategy in it, but I do think this comes
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: from this place where it's just very personal. You mentioned
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the Paul Pelosi piece of it. Can we play the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: clip of when Biden talks about that?
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: At his rally, he jokes about an intruder whipped up
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: by the big Trump line. taking a hammer to Paul
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Pelosi's skull.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And he thinks that's funny. He laughed about it.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: What a sick.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: My God. I think it's despicable, seriously.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I was just repressive for any person to say that.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: You really feel like he can't believe it. He just like,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: he can't believe we're talking about this.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a moment where he seemed genuinely angry
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: and emotional. The other moment where he seemed genuinely really
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: angry and emotional was referencing Trump calling dead soldiers suckers
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: and losers because he brought up Beau, his son, who
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: passed away. Joe Biden says repeatedly because of inhaling toxic
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: fumes from burn pits when he was deployed overseas. So yeah,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: those are a couple of moments where you can tell
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: he really feels this one.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like there's the moral indignation of it, but
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: it's also- his continued disbelief that the country would get
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: behind someone like that. So he makes the point, talks
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: about all this, and he says that the country rejected
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Trump in 2020, but also that the country has continued
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to reject election deniers as they did in 2022. How
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: much of this is a message to voters? Surely it's that.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But how much of it is also, this is a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: speech geared towards engaged Democrats who have been doing a
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: ton of hand-wringing to remind them that we have a
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: winning message and that Joe Biden is the person who
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: can carry it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that it's a lot of that. It's
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: a lot of reminding everybody what the stakes of the
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: election are. Even if you're frustrated about something that's happening
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: right now, he's trying to paint this bigger picture of
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: the true threat this guy poses.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump poses.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: And I do, you know, for people who listen to
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: this show, it probably seems like bizarre to suggest that
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: you would need to do that. But Donald Trump's been
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: relatively out of the limelight for a while and off
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: the front pages and off Twitter. And so there's a
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: lot of, regular voters who have kind of forgotten.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: And it's sort of like there was a divorce. We
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: don't like living with mom. It's not as nice as
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: we thought it was going to be. We're not as happy,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: but we forget that there's nothing in dad's fridge, that
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: he doesn't take care of us. It's fun. He's kooky.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Doesn't have HBO. There's no HBO. You just don't feel
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: safe when you're a dad.
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: No.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: You just don't feel safe. At no point in the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: speech does President Biden seem to acknowledge that there's a
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Republican primary Based on your experience in Iowa, is he
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: wrong to dismiss Nikki and Ron and Vivek at this point?
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: There has not been a good poll out of Iowa
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: in a while. That will change this week. I'm pretty
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: sure the register is in the field right now and
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: Iowa State, a bunch of outlets. But Trump does not
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: seem at all worried about winning on Iowa. I went
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: to see Eric Trump near Des Moines. His warm-up act was,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: remember Matt Whitaker?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. He's like a toilet salesman slash temporary attorney general.
• 7:31
  Speaker 7: Right, right, right.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: So normally in Iowa, you kind of like try to
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: play the expectations game and you say we have to
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: do well, but you want to say we have to win, right?
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Matt Whitaker said, we need to set the record for
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: the largest margin of victory in Iowa caucus history.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: So they want to blow that out. Well, I was
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: thinking about that because the largest margin in Iowa history,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: like he's on track for that right now with some
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: room to spare, right? Like it's not, It's not close.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: They're worried about complacency.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: They're worried about their people thinking, we got this in
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: the bag, so we're just going to stay home. Because
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: it might be the coldest Iowa caucus day in history.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's supposed to be seven degrees. Where's that
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: climate change?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about. So they just want to
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: make sure their folks turn out. But he's not worried, no.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: And you were just in Iowa. I'm doing a natural
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: segue to a plug. So you have a two-episode special.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Two-part series. This is Tuesday, right? Tomorrow, Wednesday. The 10th.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: And Friday. The 12th. Nailed it. We're coming out. Right? Yeah.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And you were in Iowa. Just in Iowa.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're literally like, I was editing the second
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: episode before I came in. I'll continue editing it after,
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: but we're going to record the rest of it tomorrow.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: And yeah, we're going to drop it. Nice. We're excited.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: It was very fun.
• 8:45
  Speaker 7: It was great.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: We saw a bunch of events.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: We actually got on Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign bus and interviewed him.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: So all that's coming up.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: You talked to Vivek?
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: And you liked him? We had a great time. And
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: you liked him? We swapped numbers.
• 8:54
  Speaker 7: Oh, really?
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: No. I don't think he likes me, to be totally honest. Well,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: that's probably good. He doesn't seem like someone you want
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to be liked by. He said, I think after I
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: interviewed him, he said that was less disappointing than I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: thought it was going to be. Oh, that's what my
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: parents have said. This is really condescending. Anyway, check it out.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: It'll be in the Pod Save America feed tomorrow. There
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: were two stories this week, one about President Obama in
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the post suggesting that President Biden needs to empower the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: campaign more, and one about Jim Clyburn worried about the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: campaign not breaking through. Everybody's sort of grappling with the
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: fact that we face this radical, extreme, politically unpopular movement,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: and yet poll after poll shows how rough a political
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: environment it is. Let's take them one at a time.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: What did you make of the story about the meeting
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: between President Obama and President Biden?
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: So the Washington Post said that Obama's message was basically,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: You need some senior people on the campaign staff that
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: you trust and that are empowered to make decisions so
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: you don't have to run everything through your White House staff. That,
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: to me, was like a very nuts and bolts, very
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: tactical observation about how a campaign can be run well. Obama,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: I think, gets that this is a 50-50 country. It's
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: going to be a tight race. It was pretty banal
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: and inoffensive. Like the Post tried to make it a
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: bigger thing about their relationship. And is it really a bromance?
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: And seemingly talked to some people who are still mad
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: that Obama discouraged Biden from running in 2016.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: But my reaction to that is, guys, he's Biden's president.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Like we got to get past this shit. Yeah, it
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: was not that big a deal. It was a strange
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: it was strange because like it was such a it's
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: also like an incredibly mild critique about like management. Basically,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: just so people know, like it's a slightly unusual structure.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: The campaign itself for a long time was very, very small.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: It stayed small. And his closest advisors have been in
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the White House as opposed to, say, like David Axelrod
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: or David Plouffe who were in the campaign. It's like, OK.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's a good idea. I don't know. Maybe they
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: can hop on a Zoom. I'm not sure. Yeah, it's
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: like six of one, half dozen of the other. I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: have no idea.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: But this was Obama's take and it doesn't seem offensive or,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: you know, it doesn't sound like he was sounding the alarm.
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Very tactical and small. Then there was this Clyburn story
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: which came out of an interview he did with Jake
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Champer on CNN. Let's roll the clip.
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: He promised to relieve student loan debt and he has
• 11:09
  Speaker 6: done that. But one part of his promise he was
• 11:13
  Speaker 6: not able to keep because six Republican attorneys general and
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: the United States Supreme Court with 63 vote stopped him
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: from doing so. But he sought another way and he
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: is forgiven $ 132 billion to 3.4 million people in student
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: loan debt. But nobody writes about that. Nobody talks about that.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: It was I'd like to because it's sort of like, what?
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: That's a that's a compliment.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this that was a whole their classic. Sir, you
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: don't have any policy problems. You have communications problems.
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: Observation.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: People were sort of like spitting this up because, you know,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: he said that that the Biden campaign is having trouble
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: breaking through the MAGA wall. And fair enough. I have
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: CBS poll found that even though there's been an uptick
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: in the share of Americans with a positive view of
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: the economy, Biden isn't receiving any credit. even in the interview,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Jake says to Clyburn, sounds like you should go hit
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the trail for me. Like you're making a really good case.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: How much of this is just, like Clyburn's basically saying like,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: let's have a campaign, right? Like I don't.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: We're all looking at the same polls.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Everyone's anxious about the same numbers. The New York Times
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: poll of swing states that showed some softness with Biden
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: among traditional Democrats and younger voters of color.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: It was concerning. And I think everyone's reacting to that still.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: The campaign is ramping up.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I was talking to some Biden staffers who say, We're
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: going to see more travel by the president and vice
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: president soon. They're going to speak to these anxieties you're
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: hearing among Democrats. They're going to reconnect with supporters. They're
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: going to send staff to key states. You're going to
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: see the VP doing a reproductive freedom tour. So they're
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: getting things going. It's awkward when you don't have an
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: opponent yet. The State of the Union is a little
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: later than usual this year.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: It's going to be March 7th.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: So that traditionally is a big kind of moment in
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: these campaigns and in the reelect. So I think it's
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: all happening. It's happening a little slower now. than folks
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: want on the communication side and also just on the tactical,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: you know, kind of getting up campaign infrastructure.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: It also is like some of this is people are
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: genuinely and I think rightly concerned about Biden's liabilities. And
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the question I think everybody has fairly is will those
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: shift when the campaign begins in earnest? Now, that's when
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: this should be happening. It's here. 2024 is here. The
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: 2024 campaign was always going to happen in 2024. But
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I do think people wanting it to happen right now is,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I think, a response to wanting to basically they feel
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: this incredible pressure. They feel that the reality that like
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: these polls are fucking terrible. They're terrible. They're concerned. They
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: want the numbers to be better.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: I think the the challenge would be rolling out some
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: big policy speech or announcement right now in the midst
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: of a Republican primary is probably just not going to
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: get covered.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of these problems. Basically, Clyburn was saying,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: you've done a lot of great stuff. Voters don't know
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: about it. I really think we are just so far
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: past the point where like a good surrogate operation is
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: going to solve that problem. I think it's going to
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: take billions of dollars in paid media and that's all.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: And there's no answer to it. It's going to take everything.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It is actually, it takes billions of dollars in advertising.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: It's going to take surrogates. It's going to take people
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: actually in their own lives, talking to their friends and
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: family and posting about it. You know, this fact about
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: how much student debt Biden was able to eliminate despite
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the fact the Supreme Court stepped in to stop the
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: whole plan is a really good fact. It's not a
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: fact people know. And sometimes I think it's like, okay, yeah,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign should do everything they can to get
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: that fact out there. But at a certain point, it's
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: just a criticism of society. We need them to do everything,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: but actually it's going to be on individuals deciding they're
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: going to be surrogates for the Biden campaign.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sort of absolving the White House of
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: responsibility or saying they can't have done more or done better.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: I just think that every White House ever always says, oh,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: the last guy didn't sell his accomplishments.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I will do that.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: And I think the reality is that the swing voters,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: the voters that aren't paying attention, they're just not consuming
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: the media that we need them to consume. And you're
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: going to get them through paid advertising and surrogate operations
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: and a field campaign and all the things.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: And yes, we should ramp that up. sooner than later.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: That's for sure. It also just depends on a, yes,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: we need the body campaign to do everything they can,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: but also it will require the country to pay attention
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and they will. And we have to just sort of
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: be there when they're paying attention to that point.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, you would be, I was walking around Iowa
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: two weeks out from the caucuses talking to Republican Iowa
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: caucus goers who are presumably some of the most politically
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: engaged people you will ever meet. The number of people
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: who told me they hadn't made up their minds yet
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: is always astounding. It's like the majority of people I
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: talked to were like, ah, I'm still undecided. Now, that
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: could be because I wasn't at Trump events and I
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: was at, like, Nikki Haley events and DeSantis events.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: But, like, people just, you know, they don't think about
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: this stuff until they have to. In Tommy's home state
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: of Iowa, Trump took a very different approach to marking
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: January 6th. Let's roll that clip.
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: What they've done, and they ought to, you know what
• 16:04
  Speaker 7: they ought to do?
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: They ought to release the J6 hostages.
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: They've suffered enough.
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: They ought to release them.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I call them hostages. Some people call them prisoners. I
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: call them hostages. Release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release them, Joe.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: You can do it real easy, Joe.
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: Fuck.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: That's so weird. Why does he do it like that?
• 16:28
  Speaker 8: Joe.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: It's menacing. Is that pejorative? Was something wrong with the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: name Joe? I don't know. It's something like it feels
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: vaguely violent. I don't know why.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: Joe.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: That was unsettling. It's like a nightmare. It feels like a...
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I don't like it. I don't like it. Uh... Trump
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: is not alone in referring to the January 6th insurrectionists
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: who've been convicted by juries of their peers. As hostages,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Harvard alum Elise Stefanik said this.
• 16:55
  Speaker 7: I have concerns about the treatment of January 6th hostages.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I have concerns.
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: We have a role in Congress of oversight over our
• 17:03
  Speaker 7: treatments of prisoners. And I believe that we're seeing the
• 17:06
  Speaker 7: weaponization of the federal government against not just President Trump,
• 17:11
  Speaker 7: but we're seeing it against conservatives.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Do you think she stares up at night? I just....
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: It goes back to that Biden line. Trump is trying
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: to steal history in the same way he tried to
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: steal the election. I mean, these guys are trying to
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: rewrite history and memory hole what happened and treat. I mean,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: there was a video clip that came out late last
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: week shot by one of these insurrectionists through a hole
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: in the glass door between them and I think either
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: the House chamber or the Senate chamber where you can
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: see a police officer aiming a gun at them. And
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: these insurrectionists are saying, if we have to hang a
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: couple of congressmen, we'll do it. You know, I mean,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: there's just no doubt that these people were incredibly violent
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: and deserve to have been arrested.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that's sort of the part, again, it's
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: like Biden's indignation coming through, but he talks about that
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: in the speech. He says, after it happened, Republicans acknowledged
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: that this was a humiliation, that this was dangerous, that
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: this was terrible. But over time, they've come to this position,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: but the American people saw what happened on television. And
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I had to believe that's still true. I mean, Republicans
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: have slowly but surely embraced the lie, but I do
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: think what Biden's counting on, which I think is right,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: is that most Americans are not in this right-wing bubble
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: and find the idea of referring to these people as
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: hostages to be despicable.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I forget what the exact description was, but I
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: think the Washington Post had a poll last week that
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: said like 55% of the country think it was a
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: horrible moment in our history or something like that. It
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: is definitely the case that more and more Republicans have
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: been sold these conspiracy theories that federal agents or the
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: FBI were in the crowd. They were inciting people that
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: they set up these January 6th protesters, that they're being
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: treated unfairly in some way. But I don't think most
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: of the country buys that.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Did any of those, did you meet any of those
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: people on your little road tour there? Any J6 types?
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: No, but like going to the Eric Trump event, you
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: saw the culty nature of it. Like there was a
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: family that was big enough that they, you know those
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: kind of like shuttles you take to the rental car
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: place at the airport.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Family was big enough. They needed one of those.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: And they all had matching sweatshirts on with little American
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: flags and Trump 2024 and then different accomplishments on the
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: back that were like fairer trade pack on like a seven-year-old.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: The group of people that come out for Eric Trump,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: those are not undecided voters. Can I tell you something?
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: He was really good. Oh, come on. The speech was good.
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: No.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: It resonated. Come on. What do you mean good? What's good?
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: It brings me no pleasure to relate this information. Maybe
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: you wrote for Joe Coy.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: He was resonating with the audience. We talked to a
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: woman who said he got her to switch her vote.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: Wow.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Eric, man. Who knew? Is Eric the one? Is
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: he the air now?
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Well, SNL convinced us that he was the dumb one
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: and that Don was the smart one based on their sketch.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. don't think that's fair Trump also he truths That
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Joe would be right for indictment by weaponizing DOJ against
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: his political opponent me Joe has opened a giant Pandora's
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: box and So now he's basically openly threatening to indict
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Right. While also asserting that he has immunity.
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, right.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: That if he either, there's two possibilities, right? Either he
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: has immunity. Don't question it. Or he doesn't have immunity,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: which means Joe Biden should fucking die in jail. Right.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Either way, it makes total logical sense. So the question
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of immunity is before the Supreme Court. Late last week,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court also agreed to decide whether Trump is
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: eligible for Colorado's Republican primary ballot vote. You know, I
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: had this, we had Lawrence Tribe on, and again, I'm
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: just reminded that he's a, we're just two smart lawyers
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: talking about the news. I continue to believe that this
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: is nuts and that there's like, we're all just, it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: all a big cycle waiting for the Supreme Court to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: say that, of course, Colorado's court can't decide Trump's not eligible.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: But what do you think?
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, could I imagine some small percentage chance where
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: a bunch of so-called originalists read the statutes? In the
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: original way and decide that Donald Trump can run?
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: But I think what they'll probably say, he wasn't convicted
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: of anything yet. Let the voters decide, is my guess.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: And then, and then will I, yeah, and then we
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: can have Lawrence Tribe back on. I'm back on. You'll just,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you'll just shut him down. It was so, he was,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: he was, he so thoroughly defeated me in that conversation.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: What are you going to say? I don't know. This
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: man's like read the Constitution inside out and studied it.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: You know, but I prepped for like an hour. I
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: still think it's nuts. Again, all I am is an
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: LSAT score and a lot of confidence. One other story
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: that broke just as we were about to record, the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: threat of political violence, it's very real. This isn't speculative.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: It's not speculative of us. It's not even speculative to
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the people inside of Trump's orbit who view political violence
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: as a means to them gaining and retaining power. Audio
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: came out today as we were recording that has Roger Stone,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Trump advisor, longtime right wing freak, rat fucker. Yep. Trump
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: commuted and pardoned Roger Stone, okay? Directly, explicitly threatening Jerry Nadler,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Eric Swalwell, as well as DOJ prosecutors in a conversation
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: with Sal Greco and off-duty NYPD comp. I think we
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: have the transcript, but we don't have the audio. What
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: he said about Swalwell and Nadler is, it's time, this
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: is how explicit it is, it's time to do it.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Let's go find Swalwell. It's time to do it. Then
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: we'll see how brave the rest of them are. It's
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: time to do it. It's either Nadler or Swalwell has
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: to die before the election. They need to get the message.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Let's go find Swalwell and get this over with. I'm
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: just not putting up with this shit anymore. Yeah, he's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: talking to a guy named Sal Greco. Great goon name. Great,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: great name.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Former NYPD officer, served as security for Stone. They also
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: talk about Aaron Zielinski, the deputy to Bob Mueller. Stone
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: says he needs to be punished. You have to abduct
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: him and punish him. That has to be done. It
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: will be easy to abduct him because he is a weakling.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Roger Stone says they're AI. About to find out. Assuming
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that this is not artificial intelligence, it's pretty wild. Yeah,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that seems bad.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a good reminder that it only takes
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: one person to commit political violence. One maybe disturbed person
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: and something really bad can happen. So, yeah, I don't
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: think anything Joe Biden said in that speech is hyperbolic.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it also, like, a lot of times when
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: we talk about Trump and political violence, we talk about
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: people taking Trump at his word and the kind of random...
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Disgruntled aggrieved angry fucked-up person taking Trump's rhetoric to its
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: logical conclusion and then you know Trump can stand back
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and say oh I was just giving a speech at
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the Capitol and these other people went too far I
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: was just saying that they're poisoning the blood of our
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: country It's now I'm not responsible if someone goes and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: shoots up a fucking store But this is a case
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: where a Trump adviser someone very close to Trump explicitly
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: directly seeking help from someone who was in law enforcement
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: to help him go and do violence against his political opponents. Yeah,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: very scary person. And it just tells you, like, that's
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: who these people are. That's their attitude towards what they
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: should do to people that stand in their wake, right?
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Because these are Nadler, Swalwell, these prosecutors, these are all
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: people that were making Roger Stone's life hell.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Roger Stone was also caught on tape saying, the day
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: before January 6th, fuck the voting, let's get right to
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: the violence, shoot to kill. That's what he's telling a
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: bunch of proud boys and other people in the audience.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: So these people are inciting violence.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: This is an odd story. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: he was hospitalized on January 1st for complications from an
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: elective procedure he had on December 22nd. But there was
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: one problem. Nobody knew about it until days later. CNN
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: is reporting that even Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks was kept
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: in the dark about his stay at Walter Reed, which
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: is a problem because she would have been acting secretary
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of defense during that time. Austin has apologized, but is
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: this a big deal? And what happens if you need
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the secretary of defense, but he's not returning your texts? Yeah,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: that's a, that's a good question.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think if this story was just the
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: department of defense failing to notify the press corps in
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Congress about Austin being in the hospital, that would still
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: not be okay, but it wouldn't necessarily be surprising. These
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: are organizations, I think they have different, they value, uh,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: privacy and whatever.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And you get a quick Brazilian butt lift. You don't
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: need to fucking tell the Washington Post about it.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, you could imagine an embarrassing elective procedure that
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: he just didn't want to tell anyone.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Whatever, that's fine. HIPAA or something, right? Yeah, HIPAA. What
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: makes this story so weird.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Is the Pentagon failing to notify the White House or
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: even the Deputy Secretary of Defense, who had assumed some
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: of Austin's responsibilities.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: That's the other part of this.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: She had assumed some of the responsibilities and still didn't
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: know that he was in the hospital.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I don't even understand that, by the way. Like, how
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: do you, just quick follow up, why?
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think there are times when you're
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: going to be busy or something where you can delegate
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: some operational responsibilities to your deputy just because, I don't
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: know why, maybe you're on a flight, who knows.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: But although the Secretary.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Of Defense would never be out of communications touch because
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: of the plane he flies around on.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: He's not on Alaska 737 Maxis. He's not getting thumped
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: out the door.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: The doomsday plane, which is famously connected to everything, can
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: launch nuclear missiles. But The Washington Post and Politico said
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: that Lloyd Austin's chief of staff was also out very sick.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Full disclosure, she's a friend of mine. We worked together
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: in the Obama days. Watch your feet.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Names are dropping.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: It seems unfair and ridiculous to suggest that only Kelly
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: could notify people.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people in the Pentagon. I don't know.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: If any building would trip all over itself and create
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: a problem like this because of overly rigid job descriptions
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: and reporting structures, it would be the Pentagon. Big picture,
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: do I think this is a political problem for Biden?
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Probably not, but we don't know the full story.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: So who knows?
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: And also Republicans are very good at making non-issues into
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: huge deals, like look at Benghazi. But my guess is
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: no one's going to talk about this in a month,
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: but it's just, it's weird.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: It is weird. The question I had, which isn't clear from,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it was clear in what you
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: saw that like Was he awake and just sort of like,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, or was this an
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: anesthesia situation? If you're going in because you're having a complication,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: but you're still kind of copus mentis, like maybe that's
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: why you're justifying, like, this is my business, you know,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: getting this laser hair removal went really south on me.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: And I don't want anybody to know.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, there was a military strike taken in,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: I think, Iraq on January 4th. And there was some
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: reporting that said he was monitoring it. So I don't
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: know if that means he was awake the whole day
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: or who knows.
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: It's all pretty opaque. I think it sucks because I
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: think more broadly, Austin's done a good job, especially the
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: work to like cobble together this coalition to.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Support Ukraine. And we know Biden really likes him. So
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's going anywhere.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: There were people calling for his resignation, but it does
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: seem like a pretty good case of I won't do
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: it again.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Lesson learned here, pal. Yeah. It was a real oopsie.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, then we get this brow lift
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: or whatever else is Peck implants. He can he can
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: make sure he text somebody.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: But I mean, if you're Jake Sullivan or Jeff Zients
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: or someone at the White House, you're probably calling over
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: and saying, like, you guys got to clean this up
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: right now.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Well, he did issue he did issue a statement. It
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't like a full apology. It was sort of like
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it's a statement, but not an explanation.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: I think that Congress will demand the latter.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Last story. I touched on this a bit with Andy
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Carney later, but the fallout from those college presidents whiffing
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: on that anti-Semitism hearing somehow continues. Claudine Gay resigned from
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Harvard after facing plagiarism allegations. Republicans are also planning more
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: hearings to go after, you know, what they describe as
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: sort of woke policies on college campuses. Do you think
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Republicans are overplaying just how much people care about what
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: happens on a few elite campuses? That's a good question.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Why do we care so much about what happens at
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Harvard versus any of the other many campuses in this country? Look,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: we talked about that hearing on December 5th where all
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: these college presidents whiffed on the very easy answer is
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: saying genocide against Jews bad.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Or something that would get you in trouble. Obviously, anti-Semitism
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: is bad.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: It's a serious problem. It's gotten worse since the October
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: 7th attacks. And they did not address it in a
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: way that was at all sufficient. What happened with Claudine Gay,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, do you.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Care about plagiarism? I can't get myself worked up about this.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Here's what I like. I just don't care. I only
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: care in so much as when it happens to kids,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: sometimes they get really fucked. And when it happens to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the professors, everybody can kind of be a little bit
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: more kind about it. I don't like that way in
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: which institutions protect themselves in any kind of context. But
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the issue I have with all of this is these Republicans...
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously they're hypocrites. It goes without saying, but
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's worth noting, like they are doing their
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: version of what they decry the left does, which is
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: someone said something that they didn't like. That's why this
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: is all happening. In institutions, they already were pissed about that.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: They already found deplorable in various ways. Someone said something
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: dumb or bad that got them in trouble. And so
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: they wanted to cancel them. So they went combing through
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: their stuff and they found problems, right? It seems as
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: though basically like there, there was, you know, unattributed stuff.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: It was very funny when Harvard called it like unattributed
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: undersourced material or something like that, because they didn't want
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to call it plagiarism at first, which was adorable, but
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: they couldn't get out of it. But it's like, okay,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: so you have a problem. You don't, you didn't think
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Claudia and gay was a plagiarist. You just didn't like her.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: You didn't like what she represented for a variety of reasons,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: including the fact that she was a black woman leading
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: this institution. And so you went and found something unrelated
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: that you could use to get rid of this person.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: That's what cancel culture, if it means anything, that's what
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: cancel culture is. That's it. You wanted to get rid
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of someone who said something you didn't like, so you
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: found a way to do it. So obviously that, that
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to me is a problem, but like stepping back, do
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I think most people give a fuck about what happens
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: at a few very fancy colleges? I don't, I just,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I don't under, like, I get the value of it
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: to their base. I see that hyper-online right-wingers, hyper-online anti-woke
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: people love this topic. They are winners who want to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: feel like losers. Nothing makes them feel more aggrieved than
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: saying they can't say what they want to say. I
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: get all that, but I have to imagine a typical
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: person who's not paying close attention is like, I'm sorry,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: what is this hearing about?
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, unless you're sort of in the right-wing ecosystem, this
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: will probably just completely pass you by. I do find
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: it unsettling the kind of... So there's this guy named
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Bill Ackman. He's a billionaire investor and egomaniac. And he's
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: sort of decided to become this Twitter vigilante.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: And he's leading this movement.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: It started with going after students at Harvard who are
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: members of student groups that signed a letter saying that
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Israel was solely to blame for the Hamas terrorist attack
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: on October 7th.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: That is obviously... an idiotic, inaccurate statement. Well, right. Yeah.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: So the letter was terrible, but what he decided to
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: do was if a student organization signed the letter, he
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: then went and found students who might belong to that group,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: whether they had anything to do with the letter or not,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: and tried to make it so that they couldn't get jobs.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: He demanded that Harvard release a list of all members
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: of each group so that business leaders, he said, could
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: blackball them. Now, nevermind the fact that a lot of
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: these kids, they never saw this statement before it went out.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: And they were like, what are you talking about? I'm
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: just a part of this group. I didn't see this letter. Anyway,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: but then Bill Ackman decided to go after Claudine Gay.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: And then Business Insider reported that Bill Ackman's wife also
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: committed plagiarism in her academic writing. In response, Ackman freaked
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: out on Twitter, said it's out of bounds to go
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: after his family, and then said he's going to conduct
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: a plagiarism review of all current MIT faculty members, its president,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: and its governing body.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: He's putting the system on trial.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: And then said that Business Insider wrote this piece because
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: they're anti-Zionist and his wife is in Raley. And now
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider, said it's
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: going to review the coverage of Ackman's wife, not because
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: there are any factual errors, but just because they're gonna.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: So this whole thing is just weird. And I don't
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: know what Bill Ackman's doing. If I had a billion dollars,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: I think I would not spend my time on Twitter
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: writing 8,000 word statements. It's You know, I don't care
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: about this fucking guy. Someone sent me this....
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I logged out of Twitter and I'm very proud of myself.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Pat myself on the back. Good for you. But someone
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: sent me this manifesto. It's really long. I couldn't believe
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: how long it was. I couldn't believe how long it is.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: And it's only three quarters of the way down that
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: you realize that, oh, someone accused his wife of plagiarism
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and he's really upset about it. And, you know, this
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: is somebody that has been going after people so hard,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: showing no grace, just sort of being so vindictive. But
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the second it affected him personally, all of a sudden
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: he's like, there's a part in this manifesto where it
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: says something like, Business Insider is the height of what's
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: wrong with journalism. We were on vacation. I loved it.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I loved it. I loved it. But I actually was
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: reminded of this, oddly enough. So at the Golden Globes
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: over the weekend, Ricky Gervais' dumb stand-up about how you
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: can't say anything anymore won for best... I don't know,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: comedy specials, a new award. And they show a clip
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: of Ricky Gervais saying, there was a lot of backlash
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: to my last special for saying things you couldn't say,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: but guess what? I said them anyway, round of applause.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: And there is this like whole group of like successful, wealthy, powerful,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: connected people with a ton of opportunity, a ton of freedom.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: They can say whatever they want. They can do whatever
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: they want. And for whatever reason, the thing they want
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: most of all is to feel like victims in some way,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to feel like we can't say anything. We can't do anything.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Everyone's stopping us. Donald Trump is part of it. And like,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: this to me is like, just, it's a stupid, small,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: but like signal example of that whole mentality. Like you're
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: a billionaire. You can, you can say whatever you want.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: You've sort of, Like, you're okay, man. You won.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: They're like, anti-Semitism is a real problem in this world.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: There's got to be a better way to tackle it
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: than going after random Harvard students or the president or
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: now every member of the.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Faculty at MIT. And I guess the bigger picture, like
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: there was a moment when people who grew up in
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the social media era started getting elected.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: And there was, we all started to wonder like, uh-oh,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: everyone said stuff. Everyone's got bad photos out there. Is
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: there going to be like kind of a detente situation?
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: where some of this stuff is declared out of bounds.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: I wonder if we're reaching a similar moment with AI
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: in everyone in academia, because it's become so easy to
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: review everything you've ever written against everything else that's ever
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: been written.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And look, I've said this before, and I'll say this again.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Social science is not real. And that's important. You know,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: that's an important part of this debate. Social science is fake.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: And we all know that. But unfortunately, AI is going
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: to make that, I think, a little bit difficult to hide.
• 35:43
  Speaker 7: Sure.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: You know, and that's my official position on social science.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: Please send your complaints to John Lovett. I was a
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: philosophy major.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Leave me alone. And you use that every day, do you?
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: I do.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Well, kind of. Hey, are you a Cartesian dualist or what?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Where's your head at on that? What is the soul?
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: It doesn't weigh anything. Don't be such a cunt. Look
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: at that. Look at that. Can I get away with that? Oh,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: you know what I saw? Speaking of philosophy, this really
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: bothered me. What was I listening to? What was it?
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I can't even remember. But, oh my God, I know
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: what it was. It's so embarrassing. It was Bill Maher
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: talking to, what's his name, who created Family Guy?
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: Seth MacFarlane.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Seth MacFarlane. I watched the whole thing. It was really
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a devastating thing. Oh, I watched the part about vaccines.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: It was on social media. But at some point during the, yes,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: that's why I got into it, but then I kept
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: watching it. But then midway through, they were like, you know,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Obama made a really good point once. And the point
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: was that if you could wake up as a random
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: person in a random society at any time in history
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: or any place, you choose America today. And both of
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: them are like, wow, that's a really good and smart
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: analogy from Barack Obama. And I was like, hey, guys,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: it's the veil of ignorance. It's from John Rawls. That's
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: what I thought when I was listening in my car,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: wasting my own time. Remember the veil of ignorance? Not really.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I remember it exists. Don't worry, guys. John
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: will be back.
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: Don't worry.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Don't worry. Keep us in your feeds. Keep us in
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: your feeds. All right. When we come back, Annie Carney
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: of New York Times. There's a lot happening in Congress.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Republicans are threatening to impeach the Homeland Security Secretary. Hunter
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Biden is about to be held in contempt. Elise Stefano
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: continues to serve as volunteer HR coordinator for the Ivy League.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: And as yet, another government shutdown looms. We got news
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: of a deal between Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker of
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the House Mike Johnson to fund the government. Here to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: walk us through it, it's New York Times congressional correspondent
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Annie Carney. Annie, welcome to the pod.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me on the pod.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: All right, let's start. with the news over the weekend,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: a deal between Schumer and Johnson. Can you give us
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: a little bit of the lay of the land about
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: what they've agreed to?
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 38:11
  Speaker 8: So they announced yesterday that they had a deal on
• 38:15
  Speaker 8: government spending, like top lines. And basically it keeps, it's
• 38:21
  Speaker 8: basically the spending levels that were agreed to in the
• 38:24
  Speaker 8: debt limit deal that McCarthy and Biden signed into law
• 38:27
  Speaker 8: last year.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: That was the beginning of the end for McCarthy.
• 38:31
  Speaker 8: And that is sort of where this was always going
• 38:35
  Speaker 8: to end up because that was the law. But that's
• 38:40
  Speaker 8: what Johnson agreed to. And of course, it should therefore
• 38:44
  Speaker 8: come as no surprise that the ultra conservative wing, the
• 38:48
  Speaker 8: far right members say that it's totally unacceptable to them.
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: And that's where we are. Same dynamic, new players.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the Freedom Caucus tweeted that the deal was
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: even worse than we thought.
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: I don't know.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: I wonder how Kevin McCarthy feels watching this unfold from
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: wherever he's ensconced. How long can Mike Johnson get away
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: with making the same deals Kevin McCarthy made just by
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: being less hated?
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the question of his speakership.
• 39:25
  Speaker 8: Um, I think that there's first, I think the anger
• 39:28
  Speaker 8: is already like any honeymoon that existed is over. I
• 39:32
  Speaker 8: think Chip Roy, who's a far right member from Texas,
• 39:35
  Speaker 8: is positioning self to be kind of the Matt Gaetz
• 39:40
  Speaker 8: to Mike Johnson's Kevin McCarthy, like the guy leading the
• 39:44
  Speaker 8: opposition here. I mean, Democrats are giving him the benefit
• 39:47
  Speaker 8: of the doubt saying like, look, he was hemmed in
• 39:50
  Speaker 8: by an agreement that Kevin McCarthy made, but that's not
• 39:53
  Speaker 8: buying him any goodwill with the right. The only thing
• 39:56
  Speaker 8: I think that makes it different is that I don't
• 40:00
  Speaker 8: really sense that anyone wants to touch the hot stove
• 40:03
  Speaker 8: again and vacate the speakership again. That was such a
• 40:06
  Speaker 8: disaster for them. And you're right that there's just, he's
• 40:10
  Speaker 8: a relatively clean slate. There's not these years and years
• 40:13
  Speaker 8: of hatred and broken promises and festering like it was
• 40:18
  Speaker 8: with Kevin McCarthy.
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: It's, it is almost as though because he, because Kevin
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: McCarthy was so had so little trust, then when he
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: said this was the best we could get, people didn't
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: believe him. But now it seems like there are some
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Republicans that seem to be willing to go along with,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: with Johnson, but the freedom caucus is furious and, Are
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: there ways they can gum up the works? And can
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you just talk a little bit about the position they're in,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: given the way their majority has already slammed, has shrunk
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: even more? Yeah.
• 40:53
  Speaker 8: So first of all, we have a tight time crunch
• 40:55
  Speaker 8: now because we have only like probably a single digit
• 41:00
  Speaker 8: number of work days before Congress has to pass this
• 41:03
  Speaker 8: before a government shutdown. And Johnson has promised them that
• 41:08
  Speaker 8: they can get in their policy, their hard right policy
• 41:11
  Speaker 8: things through riders, which is like an amendment, but those
• 41:14
  Speaker 8: amendments will never pass the Senate. So we're going to
• 41:18
  Speaker 8: see what happens with how he's going to try and
• 41:21
  Speaker 8: thread this needle of telling them they can still get
• 41:23
  Speaker 8: some of what they want into this bill.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: So just to break that down a little, Scalise is
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: out for medical treatments. They've had resignations. So their majority
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: is down to, is it two? Is it two votes
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: from whatever it was? And, and obviously, uh, um, uh,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Katara is gone, uh, George Santos. So On the one hand,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: that means if they're going to pass something with just Republicans,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: they need every Republican. But because the Republicans are so fractious, basically,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: it sounds like what Johnson is saying is, yeah, you
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: can propose any bills you want. They'll either won't get
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: a majority of Republicans, at which point we need Democrats,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: so it's dead, or it dies when it hits the Senate.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Is that basically the gist of it?
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, there's no way forward without Democratic votes, which
• 42:05
  Speaker 8: is the reality that Kevin McCarthy faced. Also, the majority
• 42:08
  Speaker 8: is so slim that, like, I mean... I think that
• 42:13
  Speaker 8: some Democrats are wondering if there's a moment this Congress
• 42:16
  Speaker 8: that they actually regain the majority before 2024. I mean,
• 42:20
  Speaker 8: some of these members have announced they're not seeking reelection
• 42:22
  Speaker 8: in 2024, but are staying. But that could change really easily.
• 42:27
  Speaker 8: I mean, a good job offer comes along. They think
• 42:30
  Speaker 8: it's a miserable existence to be in this Congress. I
• 42:34
  Speaker 8: can see some members leaving before the term is up.
• 42:37
  Speaker 8: It's really like way too close for comfort.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: You've talked about why it's so miserable. Obviously, we know
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Congress is dysfunctional, but I think people don't necessarily appreciate
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: how historically dysfunctional it is. So can you talk about
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: just how little Republicans were able to do in the
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: last year? Yeah.
• 43:01
  Speaker 8: So last year, 2023, was the most unproductive year in
• 43:07
  Speaker 8: Congress in decades, even by the lower standards of divided
• 43:11
  Speaker 8: government when one party controls the House and the other
• 43:15
  Speaker 8: party controls the Senate. Compared to 2022, when Democrats controlled everything,
• 43:20
  Speaker 8: they passed the first bipartisan gun safety bill in decades.
• 43:24
  Speaker 8: They passed the Inflation Reduction Act. They passed some really
• 43:27
  Speaker 8: landmark stuff. Last year, they managed to avoid catastrophic default.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: Not bad.
• 43:37
  Speaker 8: I mean, it was really a year of like, Congress,
• 43:40
  Speaker 8: you had one job and they did do it. But
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: other than that, not much to write home about. I mean,
• 43:45
  Speaker 8: they passed like two bills to kind of kick the
• 43:49
  Speaker 8: potential government shutdown into 2024 and a bunch of small
• 43:54
  Speaker 8: bore items no one cared about, like the Duck Stamp
• 43:57
  Speaker 8: Modernization Act, my favorite one. And this is because of
• 44:02
  Speaker 8: what really this Congress was about so far was you know,
• 44:05
  Speaker 8: the speakership races, deposing the speaker, centering members of Congress.
• 44:10
  Speaker 8: The fact that they, Republicans, it's not just divided government,
• 44:14
  Speaker 8: but the Republican conference in the House is just divided
• 44:18
  Speaker 8: completely against itself.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: Also, can I just say one thing about, like, it's
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: all about personalities.
• 44:23
  Speaker 8: And even in this, like Marjorie Taylor Greene is opposing
• 44:27
  Speaker 8: this funding agreement between Schumer and Johnson. Like she supported
• 44:32
  Speaker 8: the identical thing when it was McCarthy because she and
• 44:35
  Speaker 8: McCarthy had some sort of friendship and deal. And now
• 44:39
  Speaker 8: she's against it. Like it is all, so much of
• 44:42
  Speaker 8: what of these positions come down to alliances and who
• 44:46
  Speaker 8: you like and who you don't like.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: They don't seem to have any concrete policy agenda. They're
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: much more interested in, you know, they want to do
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: their kind of anti-woke performance and they want to go
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: after the Biden administration. Speaking of, there was a push to,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: begin an impeachment inquiry against President Biden. That was something
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: McCarthy had to be dragged to. And then he held
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: that press conference where he opened an inquiry. Johnson has
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: now gone along with it. It seems as though they've
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: kind of realized that that might not be as politically
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: palatable for a lot of their members in Biden districts.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: So they've shifted to potentially pursuing an impeachment inquiry of
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
• 45:26
  Speaker 8: I don't know that they've shifted, but the Biden impeachment
• 45:29
  Speaker 8: is not dead by any means.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: But yeah.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Well, right. That's fair enough. Fair enough. They're, they're, they're
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: more enthusiastic right now about Mayorkas. There's more, there's more
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: conversation about it at this moment. What is the law?
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Do you know the law that Mayorkas is ostensibly breaking?
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Like do, have we, have they said what the high
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: crime or misdemeanor is?
• 45:51
  Speaker 8: No, but you know, Johnson, I think over the weekend
• 45:54
  Speaker 8: said it's just for, it's just broadly for these policies
• 45:59
  Speaker 8: of the border that he thinks Mayork, that he's claiming
• 46:02
  Speaker 8: Mayorkas is perpetrating purposefully to, you know, ruin the country. Uh,
• 46:08
  Speaker 8: it's coming at an incredibly awkward time though, because Mayorkas
• 46:11
  Speaker 8: is the in the room negotiator right now with bipartisan
• 46:16
  Speaker 8: group of senators working on a immigration deal with the
• 46:19
  Speaker 8: white house. And, uh, what I'm hearing from people on
• 46:22
  Speaker 8: that side is like Republicans like Lankford, the lead Republican
• 46:26
  Speaker 8: in the room there, like they, really like Mayorkas. They
• 46:30
  Speaker 8: are glad he's in the room. So he's the lead negotiator.
• 46:36
  Speaker 8: They're supposed to have some deal on paper this week.
• 46:40
  Speaker 8: The House is supposed to impeach Mayorkas on Wednesday. It's
• 46:44
  Speaker 8: just a super awkward moment to be impeaching the lead
• 46:47
  Speaker 8: negotiator on a border deal.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really captures, even as the whole Republican Party
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: has shifted to the right, the kind of what is
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: left of the kind of normal Republican party in the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Senate versus the kind of completely unhinged way of doing
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: politics in the House. I mean, it'd be one thing.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: There hasn't been an impeachment of a cabinet secretary in
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: about 150 years. It would be unprecedented to impeach basically
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: over a policy difference, right? This would be impeaching someone
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: just over a bad situation, right? Because it's not as
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: though like they're trying to pin the whole border crisis
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: on Mayorkas, but apprehensions are up They're saying it's failure
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: on fentanyl, but arrests for fentanyl-related crimes way, way up.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: They say, oh, he's letting terrorists across the border. Arrests
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: for people on the terrorism watch list is roughly the
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: same as under the Trump administration. It does seem like
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: this is just genuinely a way of making the most
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: of a news cycle that in a way that might
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: get moderate Republicans on board because they know how unpopular
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Biden administration immigration policies are.
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 47:56
  Speaker 8: I mean, from what I'm hearing that it would have
• 47:59
  Speaker 8: the vote, the Mayorkas impeachment would have the votes.
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: In the house.
• 48:02
  Speaker 8: You know, I think everyone agrees, even I think the
• 48:06
  Speaker 8: Democrats would agree that Biden has a problem on immigration.
• 48:09
  Speaker 8: I think that's why the white house is willing to
• 48:12
  Speaker 8: be negotiating right now with the Senate about doing something.
• 48:15
  Speaker 8: They think it's probably politically benefit to them too, to
• 48:18
  Speaker 8: make some to crack down a little bit on border policies.
• 48:23
  Speaker 8: Impeaching Mayorkas, I don't think, has a real political blowback
• 48:26
  Speaker 8: even for vulnerable Republicans. At the same time, I don't
• 48:31
  Speaker 8: think that, I mean, there won't be the votes to
• 48:34
  Speaker 8: convict him in the Senate, but I do think we'll
• 48:37
  Speaker 8: see that vote happen.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but even in just the next few days,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: like how does it, what happens when, it's quite possible
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: that on the same day, they announce a bipartisan immigration
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: proposal that involves Mayorkas and the Republicans in the house
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: impeach Mayorkas for failing to have a border policy.
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: It's really awkward. It's very strange. It's really a split screen.
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: I mean, the same thing is happening.
• 49:09
  Speaker 8: Johnson is trying to negotiate directly with Biden while also
• 49:12
  Speaker 8: pushing forward on impeaching the president. It's, what they have
• 49:17
  Speaker 8: to do to refill their red.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: Meat tank a little bit, I think.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: I hate that red meat tank. It's gross. But it
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: is like, there's a part of me, look, I don't
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: like the House Freedom Caucus, but it is funny that
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: they really do keep getting, you know, The deal of
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: spending levels that Biden, Schumer, and McCarthy agreed to, that's
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: what you get. And then what you give is a
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: press conference at the border calling for impeachment. So it
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: does seem as though what a lot of, in part
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: because they don't care about policy, they care about the soundbites,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: they care about the red meat. The far right really
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: is exchanging policy, not losses, but certainly not victories, policy
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: concessions for political theater, right? Like that's what they get.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: They get air. They don't get anything actually real. Like
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Mayorkas- as you pointed out, is not going to be
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: removed by Senate Democrats.
• 50:13
  Speaker 8: I mean, look, they started the Congress by getting a lot.
• 50:15
  Speaker 8: They got a lot of concessions from McCarthy to make
• 50:18
  Speaker 8: him speaker in the first place. But those haven't panned
• 50:21
  Speaker 8: out yet in terms of passing policy. I mean, part
• 50:25
  Speaker 8: of that is because it's divided government. And that isn't
• 50:28
  Speaker 8: how people of that ilk want to govern. I mean,
• 50:32
  Speaker 8: that's not what they do. They don't compromise. They throw
• 50:35
  Speaker 8: bombs and stake out a very far position and don't
• 50:39
  Speaker 8: compromise on it. So they don't have legislative wins to
• 50:43
  Speaker 8: show for it.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: So one thing that you've covered recently is what happened
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: with these hearings around anti-Semitism and college campuses. We've now
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: had two of the participants, the college presidents, most recently,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Claudia and Gay, resign because of the fallout from those hearings.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: There's now going to be more hearings about what's going
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: on on college campuses. What is the goal? I mean, obviously,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Elise Stefanik, there's PR goals. You know, they like, they
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: enjoy the issue. They revel in the issue. But what
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: is their actual goal in these hearings, in making all
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: of us talk about what happens on a few elite
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: college campuses?
• 51:27
  Speaker 8: Well, I think they think that they have political gold
• 51:31
  Speaker 8: here because they're doing this on behalf of antisemitism on campuses,
• 51:37
  Speaker 8: which you can argue that that's totally hypocritical when they
• 51:44
  Speaker 8: are people who did not call out Trump's rhetoric about
• 51:47
  Speaker 8: Charlottesville or say anything about him alluding to Hitler and
• 51:51
  Speaker 8: his rallies. But the actual issue of antisemitism on campuses,
• 51:56
  Speaker 8: you can't just completely ignore it as a real issue.
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: Like it's a real thing. Uh, So it's like, it's complicated.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: It's kind of like both ends.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of when there was that whole Gamergate
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: thing and they were like sort of attacking video and
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: they kept saying it's about ethics and video game journalism.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Remember that? That's what I'm sorry. It's sort of what
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: it reminds me of. Like, this is about ethics and
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: video game. Is it? Is that what this is about?
• 52:18
  Speaker 8: They found a really like heady mix of things here
• 52:22
  Speaker 8: that allows them to go after elite universities go after DEI,
• 52:26
  Speaker 8: which is a longtime obsession of the right. So they're
• 52:29
  Speaker 8: not going to let go. I mean, they want to expand.
• 52:31
  Speaker 8: They've hired new staff to expand this investigation. They're going
• 52:36
  Speaker 8: to expand it to other schools. Like this is going
• 52:38
  Speaker 8: to be a big focus of what the education committee
• 52:41
  Speaker 8: does this year.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: There's a focus group that I always think about that
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: happened in Michigan. And Somebody was asked basically about Republicans
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: going after trans people in the bathroom they use. And
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: this person in the focus group just sort of laughed
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: and was like, I don't care about that. Obviously, this
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: is a big issue in a certain bubble of Twitter people, rich,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: super online types, certain parts of the right that are
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: obsessed with college campuses, obsessed with woke, anti-woke nonsense. Who
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: gives a shit? Who cares? I don't understand why anyone
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: cares about who's in charge of Harvard or Yale or
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: any of these places. Like, why do they care? I mean,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: obviously they care about it because it's a way to
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: get at some of these other issues. But is there
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: any sense from any of these people that at some
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: point you can make an issue of the fact that
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: they're focusing on the most ridiculous and provincial, like little
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: right wing sort of hot button issues? Is there is
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: there any part of them that worries about that?
• 53:49
  Speaker 8: Well, you know, I think that a lot of– I've
• 53:53
  Speaker 8: talked to some Democratic and Republican pollsters who say they're
• 53:56
  Speaker 8: definitely like they're over– there's not really that much political
• 54:01
  Speaker 8: upside in this stuff.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: Like, yeah, like who cares? And actually some of these
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: issues have broad support.
• 54:06
  Speaker 8: Like DEI generally has broad– most people think it's a
• 54:10
  Speaker 8: good thing across the country.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Last question. Last question. Speaker Johnson invited President Biden to
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: give the State of the Union on March 7th. Late
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: State of the Union. Any nefarious purpose in there?
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: Not that I've heard of.
• 54:26
  Speaker 8: I think it might just be the amount of stuff
• 54:31
  Speaker 8: they need to get done before February to avoid a
• 54:32
  Speaker 8: government shutdown, to make sure that we're not in a
• 54:34
  Speaker 8: shutdown when the city isn't supposed to happen. There was
• 54:37
  Speaker 8: like some conspiracy theories that he wasn't going to invite
• 54:40
  Speaker 8: Biden at all last week. But I think that Again,
• 54:44
  Speaker 8: this is a.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: Congress full of show horses.
• 54:48
  Speaker 8: I think a lot of Republicans love the State of
• 54:50
  Speaker 8: the Union because, let's be honest, the speech is often boring.
• 54:55
  Speaker 8: It's a moment for like, what do you remember State
• 54:59
  Speaker 8: of the Union? I remember Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 55:01
  Speaker 8: heckling the president. They get kind of viral moments out
• 55:06
  Speaker 8: of this big night when people are tuned in to
• 55:09
  Speaker 8: watch the joint session. So I think they're happy to
• 55:13
  Speaker 8: do it. And probably happy to criticize whatever he's putting
• 55:18
  Speaker 8: out there.
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: Maybe also March. He's a month older, you know, and
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: every little bit helps. Annie Carney, thank you so much
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: for your time. It's so good to talk to you.
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: You know, stay out of the red meat tank. It's gross.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you to Annie Carney for joining us. Tommy, welcome back. Thanks.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: Good to be here. Welcome, Teddy, to the world. And
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: we'll be back with a regular episode on Tuesday. But
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: we are now going to have episodes. So starting with
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Tommy's Iowa special, which you're going to be able to
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: hear on Wednesday and Friday. Pod Save America is going
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: to three days a week. It finally happened. It finally happened, Tommy.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: So you'll be able to hear new Pod Save America's
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Tuesday morning as always. And then Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning.
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: So.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: You know Tuesday Wednesday Fridays.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: We got a lot to cover because the primaries are
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: going to heat up at least through Super Tuesday so
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: yeah extra episode.
• 56:17
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