Latest / Pod Save America / The State Of the Union Is ... Long

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The State Of the Union Is ... Long · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Jon Pfeiffer.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Tommy Vitor. So that was the speech. It was the longest.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump just gave the longest State of the Union
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: in history. What was the final count? The final count
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: was 99 minutes. So that's the longest speech in history.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It was... I don't know. Anyone have thoughts off the bat?
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: It felt longer than 99 minutes.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: It did. It did. It was a lot of... Yeah.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: His speeches are always long.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: They're always long.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, look, it was a it was a greatest
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: hit speech peppered in with some new stunts and interesting,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: scary moments. But like a lot of what we've heard before.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: But he's really relishing in it. He's really enjoying his
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: he's really he's really enjoying his time up there.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, with Trump, it's always he can give his rally-esque
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: speech or he can give a more formal joint address.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: In this case, he decided to do both.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I would say it was not surprising in any way. No,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: nothing really new. Like it felt what I expected. We
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: said this before in our live stream, like a lot
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of accomplishments for most of the speech, very little news,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: new policy. I mean, we'll go through some of it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I think what was notable is at the beginning, You know,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: he did his, we've had the greatest month of any
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: president in history. Number two was George Washington. God bless him,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: he's bragging, bragging. And then early on, there was a
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: little bit of an interruption at the beginning of the speech.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So let's listen to that.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: We won the popular vote by big numbers and won
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: counties in our country. Mr.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Green, take your seat. Take your seat, sir. Take your seat.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: disruption of proper decorum, the chair now directs the sergeant
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: at arms to restore order. Remove this gentleman from the chamber.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So that was something. So Donald Trump does his whole,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you know, we've won seven swing states, greatest popular vote
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: victory ever.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: How much you even bench, bro?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. A bunch of Democrats start making some noise. Al
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Green of Texas starts interrupting him. And then, you know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Mike Johnson was ready for it and decided he was
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: going to tell the sergeant of arms to get rid
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of him. Yeah. What did you guys think of that?
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: So his line, right, is you have no mandate to
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: cut Medicaid. That's what he that's what he was. That's
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: what that was the message of his protest. So at least,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: you know, he's trying to make a moment about Medicaid.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: That's what that's all. So it's just too close to man. And,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: you know, it was an act of protest. Yeah, like
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: it didn't bother me. It didn't not like it wouldn't.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It's not what I would have done, but it didn't
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  Speaker 2: bother me.
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  Speaker 1: I kind of.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Didn't hate that it interrupted Trump and got him out
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: of his flow for like 10 minutes. Wait till the
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: Republicans compare it to January 6th. That's when this is
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: going to get really annoying.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: You mean when a bunch of protesters were in the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: chamber desecrating, breaking down the doors of Congress, and then
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Trump pardoned them all?
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  Speaker 3: I'm shocked that many of them weren't invited as the
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: guests of Republicans tonight.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought there would be more of that, more
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: January 6th.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Curry, if you ever go with them before January 6th,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: next time. I think there are a couple of points here.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: One is, if you... Watch the video.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: There's something really fascistic about the whole thing, the way Trump,
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: when he starts protesting, points at the door.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: And then J.D.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Vance starts pointing, and then you see Mike Johnson sort
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: of point at the Sergeant of Arms to tell them
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: to go get Al Green. Like, it is a deeply, like,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: we're in the United States Capitol here. Moments later, Trump
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  Speaker 3: will say he ended government censorship as he removes him
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: from it.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: This is why Mark Zuckerberg is so excited about him.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: It's just like they plan for this moment.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: They plan to use taxpayer funded law enforcement to remove
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: dissenting voices from the Capitol.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Well, we should tell the backstory. The reason they plan
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: for this moment is all bad things start with Axios.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Had a report that Democrats were going to like bring
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: eggs in pocket constitutions and try to disrupt the speech.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And there was a couple of reports and it was
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: like sourced to unnamed Democrats. And so then Republicans, some
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Republicans were like, There's a report from Axios that Democrats
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: are going to throw eggs at Donald Trump, which people
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: were saying that was not a report at all. And
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  Speaker 1: so then the House Freedom Caucus had a post that
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  Speaker 1: was like, if Democrats interrupt this speech, we will censure them. Which,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, now they're saying that Al Green could
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  Speaker 1: be censured. Oh, no.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.
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  Speaker 1: What was that going to do? A censure, by the way,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: is the House votes and says, you're bad. Seems very quaint.
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  Speaker 1: Other censured members include Marjorie Taylor Greene. And so they
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: were clearly all ready for this, which is why.
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  Speaker 2: But they were very much ready to do like a
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  Speaker 2: kind of hand gesture of like, get him. They're like,
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  Speaker 2: we want to do a hand gesture and like applauding,
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  Speaker 2: restoring order. I guess like what I can't I feel
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: like I feel conflicted about it. Right. Because, you know,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: like there are people joking like, oh, Democrats, if you
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: really think. Donald Trump is an authoritarian menace. Wearing different
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: colored hats is a very silly thing to do, right? Like,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: you know, in response to the authoritarian menace, we coordinated
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: our outfits. Like, that sounds ridiculous. But, like, then I think, okay.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: And we didn't because there were people in purple, people
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: in white.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: He thought he was going to lie, but we had
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: signs that said false. Right.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And then, like, some people coordinated in pink and purple
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: and white. And then it's like, well, that's just a
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: bunch of different outfits.
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  Speaker 1: But, like, the.
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  Speaker 2: then you think, okay, so what should Democrats do, right?
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  Speaker 2: Should they just like this, you know, don't lend Donald
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  Speaker 2: Trump the pomp and circumstance of the state of the union,
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  Speaker 2: or really a joint address to Congress, to be exact.
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  Speaker 2: But like, then you say, all right, Democrats either walk
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  Speaker 2: out or they don't show up. Like, what does that
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  Speaker 2: get us, right? Like, we kind of look childish. We
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: look like we're not being, like, we look partisan. So
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the right thing to do is. Like,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if protesting is. I don't know if
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  Speaker 2: sitting there is. It's tough because it's hard to feel
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  Speaker 2: because we don't have a lot of power.
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  Speaker 5: It's worth remembering, though, when MTG, Marjorie Taylor Greene, interrupted
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  Speaker 5: Joe Biden, he then had that back and forth with her.
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  Speaker 5: He looked really strong and like he was kind of
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  Speaker 5: sharp and, you know, making light of it, kind of
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  Speaker 5: making fun of her a bit. And it was a
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  Speaker 5: good moment for him. And, you know, I don't know
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  Speaker 5: if MTG keeps standing and won't sit down and keeps screaming.
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  Speaker 5: Maybe the sergeant of arms kicks her out. But I
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  Speaker 5: do think Dan's point is right. That it did look
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  Speaker 5: a little authoritarian in the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But he also didn't like Marjorie. I mean, didn't she,
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  Speaker 2: she sat down and Al Green didn't. The thing is
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  Speaker 2: also Trump didn't have like a whole exchange. He kind
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  Speaker 2: of didn't. No, he was just like, get her out.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: It just not to go all Daniel Dale on this,
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  Speaker 3: but everything Al Green's right. There is no mandate for
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  Speaker 3: Medicaid cuts. And what Trump said about his mandate was
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  Speaker 3: fucking absurd.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, Getting up there, President of the United States,
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  Speaker 1: getting up there to talk about the seven swing states
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  Speaker 1: you won, the popular vote, saying that the president who
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  Speaker 1: was before you was the worst president in history, like,
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't rate high on the decorum scale.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's popular vote margin is smaller than every popular
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  Speaker 3: vote winner since Al Gore in 2000. Hillary Clinton won
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  Speaker 3: the popular vote in 2016 by more than Donald Trump
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  Speaker 3: did in 2024.
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  Speaker 1: He sticks a violent mob in the Capitol. What are
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: we doing? None of this, like, it's... Was it effective?
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  Speaker 1: Was it not effective? It doesn't matter. It's where we're
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  Speaker 1: like way, we're through the looking glass now. Al Green
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  Speaker 1: getting kicked out or not. It's like, it's not even,
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  Speaker 1: who cares? I think, but.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I guess the reason, it's like, I know I
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: have the same, like we're through the looking glass. And
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I was like, okay, well, what should they do?
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: They're still sitting there.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: We're on the other side of the looking glass. We're
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: on the wrong side of the fucking mirror. We're still here.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: So what do we do all day?
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Well, you stand up, you get kicked out or you don't.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I really don't think either matters. I don't think it
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: either has an effect. I don't think we're going to
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: remember this much longer, is I guess what my point is. Okay.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: So then he keeps going. He does the accomplishments. He
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: does keep going, yeah. Does the accomplishments. He gets to,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and then he gets to Doge. And when he gets
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to Doge, first of all, he says that Elon Musk
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: is the head of Doge, which is interesting because in
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: court they're arguing that he was not the head of Doge.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: He's just support staff. That's what he said at the
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: cabinet meeting.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So some plaintiffs in a lawsuit immediately, you know, filed...
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: to the court and saying, oh, by the way, Donald Trump,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the president, just said that Elon Musk is head of Doge.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And then he went through some of the Doge cuts.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: Forty million dollars to improve the social and economic inclusion
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: of sedentary. Migrants, nobody knows what that is. $ 8 million
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: to promote LGBTQI +. In the African nation of Lesotho,
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: which nobody has ever heard of. $ 8 million for making
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: mice transgender. $ 10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique. $ 20
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: million for the Arab Sesame Street.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: In the Middle East.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: $ 8 million to make mice transgender? And $ 8 million to
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: turn them back. And some of those mice, by the way,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: what's so fucking terrible is that some of those trans
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: mice then kind of defeated a bunch of other mice
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  Speaker 2: in all these mazes.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: And it's like, is that fair to have trans mice
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: competing against cisgender mice in a maze?
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know what's nice is that he brought one
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: of those trans mice to the State of the Union
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that was sitting right next to Melania.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, made him head of the Park Service.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: And that's all you need to know about the speech. Oh,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: my God. Sign the EO right there. Stupid speech. Yeah. So,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: first of all, like, I haven't looked all this up.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing a lot of that probably isn't true.
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  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: For sure. The reason I know that is not just
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: because I'm guessing. Then he did the long thing about
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Social Security where he repeated the whole thing about, like,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: 150-year-olds and 300-year-olds getting benefits and this and that, none
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of which is true. Not only has it been fact-checked by, like,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: every media organization, but Donald Trump's head of Social Security,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the person that's now the administrator after everyone else resigned,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, by the way, 200-year-olds aren't getting Social Security.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: So even his own administration has said that's wrong. And
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: he just went through the whole thing, did the whole thing.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: 200-year-olds are getting this and this, which went on and
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: on and on.
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  Speaker 2: For like five minutes. He did every age bracket.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: He did every group. The doge cuts that he mentioned
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: are probably not accurate either. But I don't know what
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: you guys thought about that.
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just a bunch of people who don't have
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: a date of death associated with their record. They're not
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: getting benefits. You know, they're just making this part up.
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: And the Mozambique grant for circumcision was to a nonprofit
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: to do HIV and AIDS prevention. Like, you can explain
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: all these things. It just takes time.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, ultimately, all of these battles over government spending
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: is about specifics and who can get the more evocative examples.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: And like, probably, even though it's mostly bullshit, this was
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: one of the more effective parts of the speech for Trump.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: He's got to go up there and there's a bunch
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: of programs that most Americans would be concerned in the,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: in the unfair context in which Trump delivered it, because
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: of other taxpayers going to that. Then we stand up
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: with our much smaller, teeny tiny megaphone. And we talk
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: about all the cuts that are coming from Doge. Well,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: not our false signs, but like we have been winning
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: politically the battle over Doge because the focus has been
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: on cutting, you know, the people in charge of protecting
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: nuclear plants, the FAA air traffic controls and the, you know,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: headstart department of education, those sorts of things.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: And that's the battle we're going to be in for
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: the next year on these budget things.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, people go into this, uh, thinking that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of waste and inefficiency in government. And
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: so when he lists those programs, people are probably like,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, I thought it was bad, but I
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: didn't know it was that bad. That's probably the normal
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: reaction to that. I'm sure that you don't know that
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: it was all bullshit or exaggerated or whatever.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: It's also look again, it's like, you know, defending these
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: programs is always a trap. And it's like, fine, we
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: live in a world where defending really good things is
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: a trap. But a lot of science sounds ridiculous until
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: it makes the world a much better place. You could
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: probably go back and describe research into stealth airplanes. It's
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: like they're trying to make invisible airplanes so.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: You can come up- You're for the mice.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm for a process of assigning grants
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: that allow you to do medical research in all kinds
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: of ways. We study all kinds of things in mice
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: before we study them in people. And like, of course,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: of course.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: We did a few of those lines in Obama's State
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: of the Unions. Got the salmon, got the milk.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: We were talking about this earlier, that it is like
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a central conceit of the movie Dave. Yes.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: And in Dave, right, he goes through and he says, like,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: we're spending money to convince people they were right to
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: buy a car they already bought. It's like, isn't the
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: government stupid? And that's what the 90s did. And now
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: we live in the fucking aftermath. Stupid 90s.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Here we are. Yeah. So it took him a while
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to get to the central concern of most voters, which
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: is the cost of everything and affordability. The first issue
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: he talked about in depth was trans athletes, talked a
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: lot about that. And then finally, somewhere in the 30-minute mark,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: 40-minute mark, I don't know what it was, I lost track,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: he got into inflation. And he did mention the price
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: of eggs, but he had someone else to blame.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: of control. The egg price is out of control.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: He blamed everything on Joe Biden. He ran harder against
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden in that speech than he did in the
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: campaign at times.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: It was constant.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: What do we think about the inflation stuff and the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: cost stuff? Did he.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Well, he's just sort of like he's still in a
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: window where it is like plausible to blame your predecessor.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Like I think it's ridiculous. It's no longer apparently ridiculous
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: and embarrassing to brag about your political victory and then
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: spend a few minutes blaming your predecessor for all of
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: your problems in like such explicit detail.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Especially in your first speech. Right.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: It used to be that that would have been seen
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: as ridiculous and beneath the office and contemptible. But we
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: don't feel those things anymore, I guess. But like, okay.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: All right. Still Joe Biden's fault. Is that going to
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: be true in three months, in six months? I mean,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: not a guy who's known to lean into challenges.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: That's right. Well, let's see if you can break that record.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: But like, you know, he's he has only been president
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: for a month. So he has some leeway to say
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I am still taking like that's not not that he's
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: a ridiculous person, but that's not a ridiculous position.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: There's a specific question of blaming Joe Biden for the
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: price of the current spike in egg prices.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Right. You think that lands with people?
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: No, but I think people, as we know, people are
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: not particularly interested in the cost of inflation. They're just
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: mainly interested in blaming the person in charge when it happens.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: But the bigger issue here for me is inflation is
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: the number one issue. In the CBS poll, 80% of
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: people think it should be a top priority for Joe Biden.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Sorry, God damn it.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: 80% of people, like Joe Biden, I should do these
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: things this late at night. 80% of people think that
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: inflation should be a top priority for Donald Trump. 29%
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: of people think it is a top priority. He spent
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: two minutes on inflation. He said nothing about lowering the
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: cost of housing, groceries, day-to-day costs.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: He did energy and drilling.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: He did nothing, no short-term relief for anyone right now.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Inflation concerns are going up. Our friend Peter Hamby has
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: something in his Puck newsletter tonight about polling of Gen
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Z men. And Trump's approval rating on inflation has dropped
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: 14 points in a month. People are souring on the
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: economy on what they care about. It's what the people
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: who put him in office, people who will decide the
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: midterms care about. And he did not bother to talk
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: about it for more than two minutes. He basically hand-waved
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: to the whole thing. And I think that is a
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: massive strategic blunder over the long term, because it kind
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: of speaks to the mentality of the administration. And you
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: just can't ignore the main thing that got you elected.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If you really wanted to focus on inflation and
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: take it seriously, you would, and you wanted to, you know,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: indirectly or even directly blame the last administration and say,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I inherited this mess, the costs were high, and now
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take it seriously. And, you know, Scott
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Besant said on, the Treasury Secretary said this weekend, I
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: think on the Sunday shows, we're creating an affordability czar
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: or something like that, which is, of course, bullshit. But
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: In a State of the Union.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: You could say that.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you could say that, and then you can add
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: some policy around it. You can do this thing. He
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: just kind of... He didn't even try. I mean, we'll
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: talk about the tax... He talked about the tax cuts.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I guess we can talk about that now.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Talk about tax cuts, talk about energy prices.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But also the tax cuts. He's like... He did
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: the no tax on tips. He did the no tax
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: on overtime, no tax on Social Security benefits. He added no...
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: The loans on a car loan, the interest on a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: car loan will be tax deductible. Keep in mind, none
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of this... none of that is in the Republican budget
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that passed. So like it's Trump's party. He's like, maybe
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: they'll get in later. Maybe the Senate will do it.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: But none of the stuff that he talked about, the
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: tax cuts for like actual working people, middle-class people are
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: in the budget that passed. It's like largely tax cuts
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: for rich people.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: And the taxing interest on car loans look like a
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: very regressive tax.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: And just like all of these things, no tax on tip,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: the social security, making social security tax deductible, all these
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: things are ways of saying you're doing a bunch of
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: middle-class tax cuts when in actuality you're going to do
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: a giant tax cuts for the rich and only bring
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: down rates for the middle class a tiny bit and
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: spend a little bit extra if you do it at
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: all on some of these other ways of lowering taxes.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: But of course, like, okay, so you've decided you're not
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: taxing tips for somebody that's a waiter, but if you're
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: a barista and you don't make as much on tips,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: you still pay the rate you paid before. Like, why
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: do those people not deserve a tax break?
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Like I'm fine. Cut the taxes on tips, but like
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: you're choosing between different working class people to make that
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: part of the bill cheaper while doing a massive multi-trillion
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: dollar tax cut for the richest people.
• 19:39
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• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the big news today leading up to the speech was
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that the long-awaited tariffs on Mexico and Canada that he
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: had paused for a while finally went into effect. It
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: is 25% tariffs on everything from Canada and Mexico. It
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: was an additional 10%. on everything from China. The stock
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: market did quite poorly today. I have two days in
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a row that it did quite poorly. And Trump talked
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: about it a little bit tonight. So let's listen.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Mexico and Canada.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Have you heard of that?
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: Words like Jeff's remind us that tariffs are not just
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: about protecting American jobs. They're about protecting the soul of
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: our country. Tariffs are about making America rich again and
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: making America great again. And it's happening and it will
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: happen rather quickly. There'll be a little disturbance, but we're
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: okay with that.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: It won't be much.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: No, you're not.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Feels like that's going to come back to bite him
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: in the ass.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: The tariffs?
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: The little disturbance.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. It's very like Dr. Strangelove. I'm not saying we
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: won't get our hair messed a little bit, you know,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: like very like, you mean the disturbance being like a
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: possible recession or rising costs, people being unable to afford
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: the basic cost of life. That's the disturbance.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Not only that he said disturbance, I hadn't caught until
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: we just heard it again, the second line, we're okay
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: with that. It's like, are we? Who's we? Don't look
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: at me.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Billionaires might be.
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: The tariffs he put in place today are a huge deal.
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: Canada and Mexico account for 40% of US imports and
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: exports last year. 40% of cars and trucks sold in
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: the US are imported. The Canadians slapped a bunch of
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: retaliatory tariffs on us. The Chinese, their statement was like,
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: fuck you, this means war. So depending on how long
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: this lasts, it could end very, very badly. And I
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: don't know that brushing it off in the State of
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: the Union is a very smart play.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: This issue cannot be that dismissive of jacking up people's
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: costs at a time of high inflation.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: So Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary today was like, you know,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: we're talking to Canada and Mexico and we might as
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: early as tomorrow announce that there's a reduction in these tariffs,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: not a pause, but maybe a reduction or whatever. Do
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: you guys think that he's going to keep this going,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: this trade war? Because after the stock market today, there
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: was a segment on Fox News, some reporter at a
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: car dealership, and the guy who owns the car dealership
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: is like, yeah, I got this this truck sitting on
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: the lot was $ 80, 000. Now it's going to be, I'm
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: not sorry. He did say it wasn't, it wasn't.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Cause it's trying to lose $ 80, 000. Now it's going to
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: be another $ 20, 000. No one's going to buy it. And like,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I think this could be really bad for him. I
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: know we say that about everything with Trump, but like,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Price is getting jacked up that high
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: for a long time. It seems. Yeah.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: It absolutely is deeply politically dangerous for him because it
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: gets at the, but he has staffed, he has, When
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: inflation went with Biden, you could talk about all these
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: other things, but he has decided to make a specific
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: policy decision that he has talked about. He says it's
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: his favorite word in the English language, to make your
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: costs higher. And will he stick with it? That's an
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: open question. He tends to run at the first sign
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: of distress, so we'll see what happens here. He did
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: stick the Chinese tariffs in his first term, stuck with
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: them the whole way.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: But they were more targeted than this. They were more targeted.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: And then he had to spend all of the money
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: and then some that could be from the tariffs to
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: get the farmers.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: He didn't exempt energy from Canada. So, like, gas prices
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: are going to– Well, this is– The energy tariffs are
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: only 10%, not 25%. Which is based on lobbying from
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the oil industry.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: But, like– Right.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: But it's still– like, energy prices already went up today.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: And it's not just about– it's not just about what
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: we import. What we import. Like, if you– you know,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: he's obsessed with this trade deficit. We have a trade
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: deficit with Canada because of oil, because we use an
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: incredible amount of oil that comes from Canada. If you
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: put that aside, we have a trade surplus with Canada.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Canada is our biggest customer. They are our biggest client.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: They buy a ton of stuff from us. Like they
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: are a customer, right? For everything. Put oil aside. They
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: are a customer. We need them in terms of what
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: we trade. They buy more from us than we buy
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: from them, which means we need them. And so it's all,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: it's all farce. That's why, you know, Canada is like,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: fuck you. You know? So, yeah, like, I don't know
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: how bad this has to get, what kind of, like,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: whether he wants a fig leaf on this. I do
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: think if he does lift it, like, that's the thing.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: If he now lifts it really quickly, he looks pretty
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: weak for having put it on for a couple of days. And, like,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: so these tariffs were always more powerful for him prospectively
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: than they are now that they're in place. So I
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: just have no idea.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I also think that, like, the polling on this, you know,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: you get some polls that show that people are somewhat
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: favorable to to tariffs on China, on Chinese goods, but
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the Canadian tariffs are very unpopular. Mexico's pretty unpopular. They're
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: not popular now. They're going to be even less popular
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: when people are paying a lot more for shit. We'll
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: see how the stock market does, but I think this is.
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: I don't get the end game, but this is what
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: he's been promising to do for a long time. It's
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: the only thing he talks about. He's relentless.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: He's hell-bent.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: So it doesn't make sense, but I think he's going
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: to keep doing it because why build up a bunch
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: of nonsense and then stop?
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I just don't get why he.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Would do this. And maybe he reduces the Canada and
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Mexico ones, but he spoke at length in the State
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: of the Union tonight about the reciprocal tariffs that are
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: going to affect on April 2nd. Not April 1st because
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: he didn't want everyone to think it was an April
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Fool's joke. That's what he said.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: The tariffs on Canada are ostensibly because fentanyl is coming
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: across the border. That's just completely made up. 0.2% of
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: all seizures of fentanyl come across the Canadian border. All
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: of it is coming from Mexico. So why the fuck
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: are we tariffing these people? He can't explain it. And
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: Trudeau took a bunch of steps to try to address
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: his concerns. They named a fentanyl czar. They spent a
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: bunch of money. They put like Black Hawk helicopters on
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: the border and drones and like he tariffed them anyway.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: So fucking stupid. It's like he made up a fake problem.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Canada has to then make up a fake solution to
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: the fake problem. And then we still get the tariffs,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: which have real consequences.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy. So then he gets into, starts talking
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: about the rest of the world. I guess that was
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a segue, talking about Canada and Mexico and the tariffs. And,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you know, he had a little bit to say about
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: all the important problems in the world right now.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: And I also have a message tonight for the incredible
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: your own future, but we need it, really, for international
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: world security. And I think we're going to get it.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: One way or the other, we're going to get it.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: The United States has sent hundreds of billions of dollars
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: to support Ukraine's defense.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Do you want to keep it going for another five years?
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, you would say Pocahontas says yes. A lot
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: of things are happening in the Middle East. People have
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: been talking about that so much lately with everything going
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: on with Ukraine and Russia. A lot of things are
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: happening in the Middle East. It's a rough neighborhood.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: That was the Gaza section.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: It's in-depth. If you showed this to Republicans five, ten
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: years ago and said, this is going to be what
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: you'll be applauding, I'd be like, you're full of shit.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: No fucking way. This is the dumbest shit I've ever seen.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: It's going to get Greenland one way or the other.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: attacked Elizabeth Warren on Ukraine, and then the Middle East
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: is a tough neighborhood.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, as you know, as you guys know as speechwriters,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: the amount of time spent on an issue in the
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: State of the Union is, in the administration's eyes, directly
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: proportionate to how much we care about it. And so
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: by that definition, his top foreign policy priority is getting Greenland.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's probably right.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: We didn't get there, but he also talked about getting
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the Panama Canal back as well.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he... He talked about getting the Panama Canal back,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and then that segued into some love for his Secretary
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: of State. Let's hear that clip.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Now we have Marco Rubio in charge.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Good luck, Marco.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: Marco's been amazing, and he's going to do a great job.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Think of it. He got 100 votes.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: You know, he was approved with actually 99, And I'm
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: either very, very happy about that or I'm very concerned
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: about it.
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: The bar on the Panama Canal keeps changing. Do we
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: want the full canal? I thought we just wanted cheaper
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: rates or maybe to pass through for free. Before, it
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: was about Chinese influence. But today, this Hong Kong-based holding
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: company that owned two ports on either side of the
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: canal sold them to BlackRock. So I thought he was
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: going to take the win on that. I thought he
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: was going to do more on that, too, when I
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: saw that story.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Right. Has he even talked about that story?
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Not that I've seen.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: It seems like he's getting what he wants before it
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: became a whole thing.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: That was a great story. I thought it was perfectly
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: timed for the State of the Union. That's why they
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: rolled it out.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I thought the Rubio shout-out was notable because I think
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: that Rubio is his patsy on foreign policy. It's so great.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: He said it tonight, and I think he means it.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: When things go wrong, he's going to blame it on
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. His planned annexation of Panama, Canada... Greenland, Gaza. Yeah,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: it's all on Marco. Marco fucks it up and that's it.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: There were a couple of stories about Rubio feeling like,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: you know, he's got his magaminders around him. And there
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: was another story about how he's worried that he's not
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: getting the influence he thought he was going to have.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: And part of me thought this was a little bit
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, at least seeing those or hearing about those
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: and kind of like bucking him up, you know, kind
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: of giving a little shine in the State of the Union.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: I felt like it was Michael Corleone kissing Fredo. But like.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: You know, maybe Middle East is a tough neighborhood, covers it.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: But the Gaza ceasefire is currently falling apart.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: Israel is currently blockading all aid shipments into Gaza. Things
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: are not on a good trajectory. You think you might
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: talk about it.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: In a normal presidency, I would have taken that, the
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: absence of talking about it, because Trump would normally tout
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: his role in getting that ceasefire as evidence that they
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: think it's falling apart. But who the really fuck knows here? Like,
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: they just decided they want to talk about it.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: Right, but why not take the win on getting the ceasefire,
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: getting the hostages back, and then using it as a
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: moment to get everyone in that chamber to applaud for
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: whatever you say about Israel and condemn Hamas? That's where
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: you could have gotten everyone on their feet.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: And just hold on to your seat here, but what
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: if he actually used the speech to send a message
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: about what he wanted? That is the one takeaway from
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: the entire speech is at no point is he using
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: the speech to try to accomplish anything.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Right. I think he sent a pretty powerful message to
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: the Danes. The Danes are shitting their fucking pants right now.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: He started that section on Greenland by saying, we support
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: whatever the people of Greenland want to do, but we're
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: going to get you one way or the other. That's
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: how he ended it. And there was some stuff in
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: between about how he was going to take Greenland to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: new heights.
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and initially when he made that comment.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: What heights?
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: What is he gonna do in Trump? Trump Greenland?
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: And I don't know if you guys noticed, when he
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: first mentioned Greenland, J.D. Vance and Speaker Johnson kind of
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: started chuckling, and then by the end they were like, oh.
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: They were excited about the Greenland question.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's real.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: It's one way or the other. So that was foreign policy,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and then he did a bunch of, he called out
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: people in the guest box, he does that, a couple stunts.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: What else stood out to you guys in the speech?
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: And then there was like five endings. that were like
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: literally copy pasted from other Trump speeches. It's about like
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: crossing new frontiers and going to the moon and all
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that bullshit.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: We should talk about the stunts a little bit. Some
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: of the stunts, right? So we had, there was one
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: moment that was actually like kind of sweet where there's
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: this boy that had had some kind of cancer and
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: is like, wanted to be a police officer. And clearly
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: they didn't know how long he was going to live.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: So he became honorary police officer. And then he made
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: him an honorary member of the Secret Service, and he
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: had a really sweet look on his face, and I
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: found that moving. And then some more cynical people ripped
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: me to fucking pieces. But then it became, and actually,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: RFK Jr. is going to look into the chemical causes
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: of various illnesses, and by.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: The way, we're going to go after autism. He insinuated
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that it came from chemicals, which Maha's got to fix,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and then we've got to go to autism. It was
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: a really weird transition.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: And then you remember that he's currently gutting The National
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Institutes of Health, that's where the transgender mice research was done,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: but also some cancer research that you might have been
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: familiar with. And he's going after Medicaid, and he's going after... And,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: by the way, he launched an insurrection against the police
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: at the Capitol in which this event was taking place. So, yes,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: it is a cynical thing, but the moment did work
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: on me. He did admit one guy to West Point, too? Yeah,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: that was good, too. That was good, too.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Want to rank the stunts? I can't remember... specifics, but
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I remember him doing this in like his previous state
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: of the union. This is during his first terms. Like
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: they weren't just calling out people in the box when
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: the first lady's box, it was like, like announcing something
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: for them, some kind of award. He gets, not just
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the Rush Limbaugh.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: He gets very Oprah here, right?
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he resigned in executive order.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Jay Mark called it his Ed McMahon section of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the speech.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Really dated cultural reference even for us.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: And then there was like the slightly, not slightly, then
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: there was like the darker version of it, right? Which
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: is like kind of going through people that have been
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: grievously harmed by whether it's immigrants or a trans athlete
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: and then like naming a national preserve after the victim
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: of a terrible murder and like, to draw attention to,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: you know, anti-immigrant sentiment and all the rest. So like
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: that was, that was pretty ugly, but like the most,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, because a lot of the speech was like
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: sort of a mix of yes, it's sort of normal,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: normal speeches as president and his stump speech is sort
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: of grievance, some speech, like the kind of the parts
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: that did stand out other than like Greenland was, were
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: these stunts.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Only time Medicaid was mentioned the entire night was Al Green. Nice.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump never mentioned Medicaid or Medicare. which I thought
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: was kind of interesting. Usually he'd do the, I'm going
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to protect it and I'm not going to cut it
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: in this budget, but he didn't even mention it at all.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it is noteworthy that if he
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: does not pass a tax cut bill, taxes will go
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: up on nearly every American. And that's a very challenging
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: thing to do. It's not a nice to have. It
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: is a must do. It is an absolute must do.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: And I would also say embedded in that exact bill
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: is the bill to lift the debt limit. So he
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: has to in order to, if he does not pass
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: this bill, we're going to default and everyone's going to
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: get a tax increase. And he has Congress before him.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: He has a massively divided Republican party. They're divided on
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: both the policy, the spending measures to pay for this
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: and the legislative process to accomplish it. He used none
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: of this speech with all of them there to try
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: to rally them to any sort of cause. He talked
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: a little bit about the tax cut, but like they
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: have no plan to solve this problem. And he did,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: he was not, he could not be bothered to try
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: to get into the minutia of trying to pass a bill.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Well, but it makes sense when you realize that he
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: is not trying to make a case, um, that wins
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: him any kind of public opinion. He's not trying to
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: pressure these people in public because what the white house does,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: what this white house does is just like threaten them
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: in private. And so he probably thinks I'm going to
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: talk about my accomplishments and have a good time. And
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going to deal with getting the sausage made with
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: my people on my own. Right.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I think, right. I also, it's just like, it's sort of,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: It's an unsolvable problem. There's no rhetorical fix for it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: The circles in the Venn diagram do not overlap. Tom
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Cotton stood up at some Senate Republican caucus meeting today
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: and is like, hey, guys, we're far apart from what
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: the House wants to do. We're talking about all these
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: tax cuts for the rich. We've got to focus on
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: the parts that are for the working class. There's no
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: solve right now for this. What's he going to say?
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: He's not persuading people to anything.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: And it's because Thune said before Tom Cotton got up,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: the House is asking for a trillion dollars in cuts.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: We've never done that in a reconciliation bill. Like I
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: could see the most we've done is like $ 400 billion
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: in cuts. And I still think that they are going
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: to try to, the easiest thing for them to do
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: is not go deep on the cuts and say that
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: the bullshit Doge cuts, you know, puff them up and
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: lie about how much money they saved, do a huge
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: tax cut. because they can get everyone on board with that,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: figure something out about the debt limit, which I don't
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: know what it is, and maybe he's gonna fucking mint
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the coin or get rid of the debt limit or
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: say it doesn't matter, and then just pass something that
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: just adds to the deficit, couple trillion dollars, gives rich
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: people a tax cut, and then cuts where they can.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: That feels like the way that they'd get out of this,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: or the whole thing falls apart.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, you would typically use that moment to at least
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: express urgency to be able to get your shit together
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: in that moment, And you're right, like maybe the old,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: there is no solution here that does not involve a
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: large swath of the Republicans voting for something they swore
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: they would never vote for.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: One way or the other, right?
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Unpaid for, paid for, cut Medicaid, don't cut Medicaid. Or
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: they can just fucking lie and just put some, you know,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: do some gimmick in there about, yes, the Doge cuts,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: but say, look, we're going to do this amount of
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: cuts in the coming years, right? They can do some
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: trickery with math. Well, they could also sunset some of
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: the tax cuts to keep the costs a certain way down, right?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Push a decision on tax cuts like, you know, do
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: cuts over 10 years, do the tax cuts over three.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Like there's like, there's games they still have room to
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: play with.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: But even when they get to that, there's still a
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: massive delta between the money going out and the money
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: coming in.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. And they can't, they can do all their games,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: but that's, someone's going to report that.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, math is math.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Any other things that stand out to you guys from
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the speech?
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: I thought it was really weird when he had Kash Patel,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: his new FBI director, stand up and get a standing ovation.
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: It just felt like the Praetorian Guard was all in
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: the room and we were supposed to see them. It
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: just bothered me a lot.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he also called out Pam Bondi a few times. Yep.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: She's going to get the dead people collecting Social Security
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: that don't exist. Right.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: She's going to arrest a spreadsheet, I guess, with some
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: names on it of dead people.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Filing error.
• 39:22
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  Speaker 1: That's squarespace.com slash crooked. Should we talk about the Democratic response?
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, the Democrats.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Lissa Slotkin, new senator from Michigan. She gave the Democratic response.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And then there were other Democratic responses. We already talked
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: about Al Green leaving. There was also a bunch of
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Democrats that held signs up that said false. They were
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: dressed in different ways. And then a bunch of people just,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a couple people left the speech.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Some of them came back.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I was going to say, like, I think
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Maxwell Frost and someone else left early. And then Later,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Bernie left, and then a couple other people left. There
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: was no specific words that triggered them leaving. I think
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: if I were them, I would have left just because
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I was very bored, and it was very long, and
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I was tired.
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: We're in West Coast time, and we're tired. We were
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: always walking out of a movie just to show you
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: hate it. I walked out of a pretty bad production
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: of Rent once, but it wasn't a protest. It wasn't
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: a good production. I was ready to go home.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I think Alyssa Slotkin did a good job. I think
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: those speeches are the hardest ones ever. to give of
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: any speech. I don't even know why people still do
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: state of the union response. Like they are, they are
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: remembered if you fuck up and if you do well,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: they're not remembered. Um, I think it was, it was short.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: She delivered it well. And she like hit the message
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: that I'm sure is going to, uh, pull well, like
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I bet it, I bet it probably did what the
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: speech did well with whatever focus groups of voters, uh,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: were watching it. And then there's this debate that's happening
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: online right now about like, should Should the Democrats have
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: gone at all? Should they not have gone at all?
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Which we sort of started talking about.
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: On the slotkin thing, if I were to offer her advice,
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: I would say ditch the cliches. We don't need to
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: say things are as American as apple pie. I would
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: say if you can do the setting over again, have
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: some people there, give it some energy, not just sort
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: of in a random room.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I agree. She delivered it really well.
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: It was tight.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: It had a message.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: It was coherent.
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: It was just like a little bit. It felt like
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: it was from a pre-Trump era. And I think in
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: the post-Trump era, we all need to think about ways
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: to really get people's attention and make a speech memorable
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: in a way that will go viral on TikTok and
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: Instagram and be seen by more people than whoever's still
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: watching MSNBC.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: It's an interesting thing because it is a format optimized
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: for the free television time.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Right. Because the networks carry it. They all carry it.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: And so more people will see Alyssa Slotkin's speech than
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: any speech given by a Democrat this year by a
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: factor of 10.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: 15, 20, more maybe. In full-on television. In full-on television, right.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: But if you were trying to monitor and communicate, you
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: would not give a 10-minute two-camera response. You would do
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: a 10-minute podcast interview or whatever, or like a conversation.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's three things. One, if you're going
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: to go all the way to Michigan to deliver it,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: why are you standing in front of a standard American
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: flag set that could have been a closed room anywhere?
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: So I sort of didn't understand the setting. I thought
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: the speech was solid but like i and it's not
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: even a criticism of her or the speech it's like
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: yes there's the question of like well is you know
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: this is it's it's a it's a television format not
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: a social media format but then there's just this this
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: part of it i don't have an answer but it's
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: like we just watched a carnival barker lie and kind
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: of squeal for 90 minutes vilifying all kinds of people
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: willfully lying making things up about social security kind of
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: attacking president bragging about his electoral record just sort of
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: like just showing like utter contempt for the country And
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: then we do kind of what is the kind of–
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: the adult in the room standard. Here's the response, the
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: message that tests well, the proper.
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: Kind of– Reagan references.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: And just sort of like this is designed to meet–
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: to appeal to a broad range of people. We do
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: normal politics. And I don't know like what the alternative
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: to that is that works. But there is just something
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: dissonant about it. There's something wrong about it. Like Donald
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: Trump does what Donald Trump does. And then we get
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: up there and we do what we would do if
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Mitt Romney had won or if Marco Rubio had won
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I know. And I think the challenge is half the
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: country thinks that we are in normal politics. The guy's
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: got a, you know, approval rating of At worst, depending
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: on the poll you look at, 45%. Best, 51%, 50%.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: So that's like a whole bunch of people who, if
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: she had gotten up there, any Democrat had gotten up
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: there and said something like, this is a moment of
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: urgency and can you believe that? Or just that guy
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: was crazy or he was a carnival barker, all the
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: stuff that we've been saying. A lot of people would
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: land like, eh, I don't know. But you know what?
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing I'd say about that.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: But I know that's what I'm saying. So I think
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: there could be room for that, but then the question is,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: what is the goal of a response? This gets to
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: the heart of the entire Democratic response, the people on
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: the floor, Al Green, everything else. What is the goal
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: of what we are trying to do in responding to
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's speech? And who are we trying to reach
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and who are we trying to convince?
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: So there's a big dilemma here, which is without fail,
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: the best testing messages, the ones that show up as
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: most persuasive, feel incredibly small ball compared to what's happening here.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: And not that cutting Medicaid small ball, because that is
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: a devastating thing for so many people. But it just
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: feels like we're on the brink of authoritarianism in this country.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: And it feels like we're just using the same message
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: we used against Mitt Romney in 2012. Doesn't seem like
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: the right feel here, but the polling is crystal clear.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: The one piece of advice that I would give to Democrats,
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: and I've been wrestling with this myself for the last
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: couple of weeks.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Here, is There is no election tomorrow, the next day.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: There's not even, there are elections in November, but they
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: are state elections. We do not have to respond to
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: how people think about Donald Trump right now. We have
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: to make how people think about Donald Trump be different
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: by November of 2026.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: And that, I think, is, I think that implores us
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: to step away from the quote-unquote best testing message right
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: now and do a little bit more what I think
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: Chris Murphy is doing, which is to be a little
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: more sort of just sort of authentically ranting about the
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: dangers that are happening. And like, this is this, this
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: is the fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans is Democrats
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: find out where we're voters are. And then we try
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: to meet them there. And Republicans try to get the
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: voters to where they want them to be. And I
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: think we have to, we have to just think a
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: little bigger here, play a bigger game than we have
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: been playing.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: I think then I feel like, I feel like I'm
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: going crazy having this debate over and over again, because
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: we like keep going on both sides of it. Like,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Kamala Harris loses the election, and we're all like, it's
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: too much democracy, too much scary, this, that, the other thing, authoritarianism,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: people don't care about that, should have talked more about cost, inflation,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. And then, okay, great. So now all
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the Democrats are like, we've got to talk about the
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: price of eggs, we've got to drive a message about inflation,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: we've got to talk about cost. And then, Donald Trump
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: does what he does over the last month, and it's like,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: we can't fucking talk about that. And I'm there. I'm like,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: we have to talk about it. I would respond to
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: it like Chris Murphy has responded.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: But I think this is how you square the difference, though.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris has been in a very difficult position because
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: she only had 100 days. she couldn't like a third
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: of the country completely woke up to the threat of Trump.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: A third likes it. A third was more concerned about
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: their daily experience, what was happening in their lives and
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: waking them up to the threat of democracy just wasn't
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: going to happen. We didn't have the credibility. She didn't
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: have the credibility.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: So you have to camp. So that's where the mistake
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: there is.
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: But now like, let's try to wake some more people up.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Like, no, yes, we can talk about the price of eggs,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: but like we have to, I think we should like, like, yes,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: I think that we can't just assume that this is static.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Like Donald Trump is an authoritarian threat. Not enough people
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: care about that. Not enough people care. when he sides
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: against Ukraine, when he pulls all these stunts, when he
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: talks about evading Greenland, right? Like too many people are
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: kind of, uh, uh, inured to it or asleep to
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: it or not paying attention. And that's part of why
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: we're in this mess.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: I think the one, like one way that I think
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: also helps square the circle is to start talking about
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: the corruption. Like, I'm not saying we should use the
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: word kleptocracy to describe this because that is a ridiculous
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: term to use.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: But that is the story.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: Like we have a bunch of oligarchs running this country.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: We have the world's richest man ruining through things. And
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: the value of corruption as a message is one, it's true. Two,
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: it allows us, if we could get our heads out
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: of our asses to become a reform party again, because
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: we're not trying to defend the status quo. We're trying
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: to reform it in a way that actually helps people
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: instead of just burning the fucking thing down. And that
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: at least is, it's, you know, there's a point where
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: this is sort of moved around, which is, is it,
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: is it crazy change? That like is chaotic and hurts
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: people or is it real change that can actually help people?
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I thought that was, I thought that was strong.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: And I thought, and like, it's funny because as I
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: listened to that speech, I thought the strong part of
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: the speech was the end when she talked about democracy.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: And then there's like the little part of my head
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: that's like. probably not the most popular part of the speech,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: but I was like, that's what, I feel like that
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: resonates and it was true, you know?
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I do think part of that too is
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: we're so far from an election that Democrats getting up
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: there and saying, here's exactly what I'll do to help
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: on the economy just rings a little hollow right now.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: So we gotta get closer to the election where you
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: can have like an agenda like, You know, you back
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: up a corruption message with we're going to make white
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: collar crime the priority of the Justice Department again. Like
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: we're going to go after these taxis. We're going to
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: go after the crypto fraudsters. Like you need you need
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: like that kind of energy and a kind of list
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: of things that you can do.
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: Imagine a version of her speech that is entirely focused
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: on Elon Musk and Doge cuts and going through all
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: the mistakes and fuck ups in great detail like he did.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: Like she did a little bit of this.
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: She did the things that we've all been hitting, the
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: nuclear weapons people who were fired. the Social Security Health Administration.
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: But imagine you tick through all of that. It's like,
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: Doge is this unbelievable threat. It's the only thing we
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: should care about.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Here is my focus.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: It's a really interesting idea. That's just different.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: That's actually a really smart way to think about that,
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: not a crudity, which is use that free 10 minutes
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: of national television time and attention you get to try
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: to win one battle, not try to win.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: The entire war.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: Which is an impossible task given to any person in
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: any party.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Although the thing I saw a lot of, like...
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: media outlets and God bless them. This is their job.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: They're supposed to give us the facts. There's like a
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: lot of fact checking after the speech. And I was like,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I can't do the fact checking. I don't think it,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think fact checking him is, I mean, it's
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: helpful to point out that he's bullshit, but like, I
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: don't know where it's getting us.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: I think there are parts of it. Like the social
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: security thing is very important to point out.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Cause you're just going to have conversations with people. Like
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: that's the sort of thing that people would be like,
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: you're like, Elon Musk is a fucking nut job. Well, well, Yeah,
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: but I heard that they were paying off, you know,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: a million, 150-year-old Social Security. Like, having the facts to
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: that is a helpful pushback.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: It's also, by the way, like, at this point, like,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: I agree. Like, these stories specifically, I don't know what
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: they get us. But then, like, we just don't really
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: know or have a good way of measuring. Like, okay,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: some creator somewhere is going to take that and make
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: a TikTok or make a video that kind of walks
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: through the ways it was a lie. One of them
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: will take off. It will get in front of a
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: lot of people. And so I, like.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Well, this is... And this is where I was... At
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: the beginning, we were talking about Al Greene, and I was, like,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: a little flippant and being like, I don't think it
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: matters either way.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: We're having this debate over, like, what's the most effective message?
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: What's the most effective Democrat? I guess I don't blame
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: any of them for trying, right? Like, if you wanted
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: to hold a sign, if you wanted to walk out,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: if you wanted to stay, if you want to give
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: a Lissa Slotkin type speech, if you want to do
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: something else, like, whatever. Like you said, the election is
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: not till 2026. Everyone should try. Some stuff's going to
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: take off. Some stuff isn't going to take off. As
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: long as people are, like, you know, going out there and.
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: Giving it their all. Do you guys see this CNN
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: Instant Snap poll? Is it, let's say, 44% very positive
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: reviews of Trump's speech, 44% very positive, 25% somewhat positive,
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: 31% negative.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: That's actually not that, for a State of the Union,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: that doesn't matter.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: He has traditionally had positive reviews of the States of
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: the Union that aren't as positive. Here's a little more numbers. Yeah,
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: I know what I'm saying. They're all positive, but his
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: are not.
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: 66% say his policies will move the U.S. in the
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: right direction, 34% the wrong direction. That's a little better
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: for him. 80% say Congressman Al Green's interruption. was inappropriate
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: yeah that's shocker i mean these.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: Are always worth noting polls of people who actually watch
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: the speech which almost always skews to the party of
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: the person giving the speech.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah this also by the way goes this is what
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: i was saying on the live stream about the the
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: protest walking up because like you know what people thought
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: joe wilson was an asshole when he said to barack
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: obama that he lied people thought marjorie taylor green and
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: lauren bobert were assholes when they interrupted joe biden like
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: when you interrupt someone most people think you're asshole but.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: This is part of the thing when you're when you're
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: like if the message donald trump did not bring up
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: medicaid Al Green brought up Medicaid, right? Sometimes we're not,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: no election for two years. Sometimes the shit that's going
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: to drive an important message maybe doesn't make you look
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: good for a beat, right? Like it doesn't always have
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: to be like, we're down to Al Green's, Al Green's
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: in a safe district. You know, it's like, he got
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: people to talk about the Medicaid cuts. I think that's
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: a good thing.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: I will have no patience for people complaining about the
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: etiquette of it.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: No.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Well, I also have very little patience for people like
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Al Green's outburst didn't help Democrats as if like, a
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Democrat who's not Al Green is going to somehow be
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: hurt by what Al Green... Like, I have no.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: Do you think it'll be more or less impactful than
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: Donna Brazile's book right before the Virginia government's election?
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: That's a deep... That is a deep... Wow. I don't
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: even remember what it was about. I know. I don't
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: even know the full story.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: But do you remember it?
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course I remember it.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: God, I do remember that. But what was it?
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: We'll talk off mic. All right, before we go, we
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: did the live stream before, and we all bet on
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: how long the speech was going to be. And so...
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: We had Price is Right rules. And let's see. Tommy
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: guessed 62 minutes. The next person was me. I guessed
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: 81 minutes. Dan guessed 85 minutes. But the winner... is
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Love It.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: I won?
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: With 86 minutes.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I know. We thought originally it was Dan, but Adrian
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: corrected me. And we have a trophy.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, look at that.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Look at that.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Love it figured out.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: I've never done well in any kind of game show before, famously.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: So this has been great.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Congratulations.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: This is what it would have been like to make
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: it through one fucking vote.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Who were the big winners of Donald Trump's speech tonight?
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: According to the polls, Donald Trump. But according to us,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: John Lovett.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks a lot. No, that feels really good. It
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: feels really good.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: All right, everyone. We'll be back with an episode. Dan
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: and I will be back with an episode. What day
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: is it?
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Friday.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Friday we'll have an episode. We'll talk to you then.
• 56:15
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• 56:17
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• 56:21
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• 56:24
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• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari.
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  Speaker 1: our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by
• 56:55
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• 56:59
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