Latest / Pod Save America / Kamala Didn't Have the Courage!

Transcript

Kamala Didn't Have the Courage! · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Levitt.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: We're back.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: We're back.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Good to see you guys.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: You too. You too. Missed this place. Quick announcement before
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: we start. Now that the election's over... We're going back
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to two episodes per week, Tuesdays and Fridays. Maybe the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: occasional episode on the weekends. More news on that after
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the inauguration.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We heard you loud and clear.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Do less.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Talk less. But for now, it'll be the three of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: us on Tuesdays, as it was. Dan and I on Fridays. And,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you know, less chaos for all of us on Wednesdays.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: So that's that. On today's show, we're going to talk
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: about how Republicans are gearing up to pass what Trump
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: is calling one big, beautiful bill that'll fulfill his campaign
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: promises on taxes, energy, and immigration. We're also going to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: talk about President Biden's final list of Medal of Freedom recipients,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: which was criticized by Republicans, including incoming Vice President J.D. Vance.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: But first, we're recording this on January 6th, a day
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: four years ago when Donald Trump incited a violent mob
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol, assault police officers,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and threaten the lives of elected officials, all in a
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: failed attempt to disrupt Congress's certification of an election he
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: knew he had lost. Four years later, most voters said, hey,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: let's give that guy another chance. And this time, the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: only clash outside the Capitol was a snowball fight.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: That looked fun.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it did look fun. More fun than four years ago.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: It took Congress about 30 minutes to certify the election.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: No one objected. And the final results were even read
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: by Trump's opponent, Kamala Harris, who as vice president was
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: obligated by the Constitution to suffer this final indignity. Let's listen.
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: The state of the vote for the president of the
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: United States as delivered to the president of the Senate
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: is as follows. The whole number of the electors appointed
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: to vote for President of the United States is 538.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: Within that whole number, the majority is 270. The votes
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: for President of the United States are as follows. Donald J.
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Kamala D.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes.
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: This announcement of the state of the vote by the
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: president of the Senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: of the person's elected president and vice president of the
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: United States.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: And here's Kamala Harris afterwards talking to reporters.
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: Obviously a very important day, and it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: Was about what should be the norm and what the
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: American people should be able to take for granted. Today,
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: I did what I have done my entire career, which
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: is take seriously the oath that I have taken many
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: times to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to hell, everyone.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, really.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Jesus.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: The current president, Joe Biden, weighed in on January 6th
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: with a Washington Post op-ed, as one does, where he
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: calls out the, quote, unrelenting effort to, quote, rewrite, even
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: erase the history of January 6th and implores us to
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: commit to remembering January 6th every year because, quote, any
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Feels like the horse is out of the barn on
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: that one. But what do you guys think? How is
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the country supposed to process the reality? that Trump's actions
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: on January 6th just weren't enough of a problem for
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: most Americans to keep him out of the White House.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Don't you guys feel like an op-ed about January 6th
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: is just the perfect encapsulation of how feckless everything feels
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: in this moment?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So this has bothered me for a while. Just indulge
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: me for a second. The quote is, those who do
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. But
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: it's not about countries. It's about people. And the actual quote,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: if you go back and look at it, is not
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: about like the magical ability to remember things like memories
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: do not prevent insurrections. Like that's not what the quote's about.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: What the quote's actually about is if you don't remember anything,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: you're doomed to do the same thing over and over again.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: But if you're too mired in the past, right? If
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: you become a, this is from the original philosopher, stubborn
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: like an old man, you also become doomed to repeat
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: yourself because you're not adaptable and you don't learn from
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: what's happening in the actual present.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: And so like, that's pretty on the nose.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is pretty on the nose, Tommy.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: At least, at least he got a, he gets to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: get placement in the post, you know, with Bezos owning it.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, good for him.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: He did have to start by praising Melania.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Speaking of coups, you know.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: First couple of paragraphs are about how Melania is looking
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: more and more beautiful.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I have to say that I was handling the election
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: results pretty well and did a good job disconnecting from
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: the news over the break. And it wasn't, and we thought,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I thought, okay, January 6th is going to be our
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: first pod. Like we should say something about January 6th
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: because whatever, it's the anniversary. When I started reading last
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: night and then this morning, I got so angry. It's
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: really started to hit me.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: It's awful.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: It's really started to hit me in a way that
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I was not expecting or hoping wouldn't happen.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: He just won by a bigger margin before. He will
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: now take office with both houses of Congress and a
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: court system that he stacked for himself a few years ago.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: So yeah, when it comes to fighting back his agenda
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: in Washington, we are a bunch of– our party– Is
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: one sad op-ed. We'll be doing messaging until the midterms.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: It's, you know, we are both remembering and repeating the past,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: seems this week.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, a coup attempt wasn't disqualifying and no amount
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of remembering is going to change that.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: You know, and it's like, look, Biden and Congress, to
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: their credit, Republicans and Democrats, passed a bill to make
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: it more difficult to overturn the results of future elections
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: on January 6th in the certification process. You know, they
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: can beef up security. But there's just no getting around
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the fact that Americans, most Americans used a free and
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: fair election to say that they're okay with a president
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: who tried to overturn a free and fair election. Like
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: we all have to live with that. Yeah, and I
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: also- For all of history.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And that's what I think is so like, and by
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: the way, like I know I'm just like, hey, we're back,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: it's a new year, time to criticize Joe Biden again.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: It's like, you're right. Like if we don't learn from
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: the past, we are doomed to repeat it. But one
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: of the things we should learn from the recent past is,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Democrats performing virtue, explaining over and over again why the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: insurrection was so terrible, it didn't work. This style of
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: politics is not working. And we should also probably remember
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the recent past ourselves.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not a remembering problem. It's a caring problem.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: And part of that, we don't need to relitigate the
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: whole election. Obviously, inflation was a big part of it
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: and people, how they were feeling economically. But a majority
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: of voters just decided that they were okay voting for
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: the guy who did the insurrection. And some of that
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: is propaganda and the power of autocrats like Donald Trump
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: when you have this media apparatus on the right to
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: rewrite history, right? I mean, it was not long after
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: the insurrection that people like Tucker Carlson were leading the
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: charge and suggesting that it was like an FBI op
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: and a false flag operation, yada, yada, yada. But most
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: of it was just people didn't care. And it's a
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: really sad story also about tribalism and the fact that
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: a lot of Trump fans from the people who stormed
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: the Capitol to his new billionaire buddies in the tech
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: industry just don't care. They hate Democrats more than they
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: care about what he tried to do to democratic institutions.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, to your point, Lovett, about how it like
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: sounds the same, it's like the same tone from Democrats.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: The problem for me is not necessarily like saying again
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: what happened on January 6th. I wouldn't mind that actually,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: because I do think like I mean, I read Sergeant Ganel,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: who was one of the police officers who was assaulted
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: on that day. He was writing in the Bulwark on Monday.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And this guy was served in Iraq for over 500 days.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: He said that of all those days, January 6th was
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the scariest day of his life, even considering like he
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: was in harm's way in Iraq, came back with PTSD.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: He was assaulted more than 40 times that day, lost
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: his job afterwards, couldn't, lost his health. And reading that
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: got me like really, really angry because at least it
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: was like, it puts you back in that day that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: what I couldn't handle on January 6th was like all
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the talk about the institutions and our democracy. And like,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: isn't it great that Democrats know how to do the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: peaceful transfer of power? And like, look, Kamala Harris just
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: is in a terrible position on January 6th. Like I
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: really feel for her. So I don't want to criticize
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: her for her comments as much, but like, Biden's op-ed
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: did not say anything. Most Democrats were like, this is
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: what it's basically like. This is what it looks like
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to lose, like us, like not be sore losers.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Good losers. That's what we are now.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: And look, I'm not, you could have easily said Donald
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Trump incited an insurrection and, and this, he, he, he's
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: tried to lie about it. He's tried to rate history.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: He's wrong. He's unfit. the American people disagree with my
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: assessment and other people's assessment, but I don't have to
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: pretend that everything's okay. You know, like you can still
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: accept the result without sounding like, pat myself on the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: back because I've defended institutions. Well, that's what it was.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: So like the op-ed by Joe Biden does not mention
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump by name. And I understand the logic of that,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: which is like, you're trying to, I don't know, perform
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: that You're performing normalcy to, I don't know, hope Donald
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Trump learns from your example. But it's privileging normal looking
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: behavior over being honest about the situation, which is you
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: are handing over power to someone who has promised to
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: use the pardon power and the powers of the Justice
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Department against his enemies in terrifying ways. ways. You are
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: doing that. That is what you believe is your responsibility.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: But you're not being honest about it. You say in
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: this op-ed, we cannot accept a repeat of what happened
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: four years ago. But just in how you're talking about
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: this right now, you're accepting it.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Well, he says like, you know, and on that day,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: democracy prevailed. And it's like, Yeah, maybe on that day.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: But like, guess what? Today feels like the coup worked.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: You know, it took longer than Donald Trump expected, but
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: it worked.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: I had similar mixed feelings. Like, I appreciate them modeling
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: adult leadership and respect for institutions and democracy and the
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: peaceful transfer of power. It is what makes the United
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: States special. But it also it did make me very
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: frustrated at Joe Biden all over again for running for reelection,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: in part because there were all these stories over the
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: break about Biden and his like closest, closest aides telling
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: people that they think he would have won. And it's like, boy,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: talk about doomed to repeating mistakes if we don't learn
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: from them.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: Like that is delusional. And anyone entertaining that kind of
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: delusional thinking is doing Biden and the Democratic Party a disservice. Yeah.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: And again, it's just it's the tone. And, you know,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I thought that now we and others have talked too
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: much about the whole made the whole point about like
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Democrats just can't be the defenders of institutions. We got
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to reform institutions. I was like, all right, we've made
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: our we've set our piece on that. But then today
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and I get it's January 6th and it's about democracy, whatever.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: So people talking about it, but like just the language,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: there is like an entire language that Democrats need to
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: just fucking throw in the trash about like institutions, democracy,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: sacred this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: It's like, no, it's like, OK, Joe Biden, I've read
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: your op ed. I've gotten to the bottom of it.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I'm doing it right now. I'm remembering January 6th. Here
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I am. I'm remembering it. There's no next step. There's
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: no next step for what you do to actually prevent
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: an insurrection or to prevent an overthrow of our democracy.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: There's no, there's, there's just, there's no kind of, I
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: don't know, like sense of agency. We're just passengers.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: That's good luck for four years.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Or like just attunement with the millions of people in
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the country who were probably wrestling with this, like we are,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: like other people are, and who just can't believe this
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: is about to happen. Like No acknowledgement that people are
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: angry and despair. You know, it's just sort of like
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: riding up here, you know, like surface level.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Whiplash from the campaign messaging.
• 12:13
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• 13:44
  Speaker 1: T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A dot com slash crooked. So more than 1,500 people
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: have been charged with crimes related to January 6th. More
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: than 170 who've been accused of using weapons to assault
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: police officers.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: 170.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: More than 1,000 have pleaded guilty. More than 200 were
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: convicted at trial. The Department of Justice is still weighing
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: whether to charge hundreds more. But of course, Trump has
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: promised to pardon these fine Americans on day one, though
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: he has said, he said to Time in late November,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do case by case, and if they
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: were nonviolent, I think they've been greatly punished. So unclear
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: what he's actually gonna do here. He certainly has the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: power to pardon any or all of the rioters, even
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the violent ones, though if he does, I think it
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: certainly comes with some pretty scary implications going forward. What
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: do you guys think? Are we supposed to just sort
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: of accept that most Americans didn't care enough about this?
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: No, I think this is very politically precarious for Trump,
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: no matter what he does. Because people may have forgotten
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: about January 6th or they just stopped caring about it,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: but it doesn't mean they agree with him. I think
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: the Washington Post had some polling around the three-year anniversary
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: that found people thought it was an attack on democracy,
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: not a peaceful protest or whatever Trump's narrative was. So
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: I think if Trump pardons violent offenders from that day,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: we need to lift those stories up as much as possible,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: especially the specific stories of, you know, a cop who
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: got beat up or this or that, right? Because the
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: horror of the day can get lost in kind of
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: the collective way we talk about January 6th. Like it
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: was one singular event. Actually, it was like a whole
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: bunch of awful things that happened to thousands and thousands
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: of people who stormed and rampaged through the Capitol. So
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: lifting up those individual stories is important. But If Trump
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: doesn't pardon all of these violent offenders, like the former
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: head of the Proud Boys is out there today demanding
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: a pardon. Enrique Terrio. Yeah. If Trump doesn't pardon guys
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: like him, then he's going to have a whole bunch
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: of rip shit MAGA types. And I think that's valuable
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: because we want to fracture the MAGA coalition. So I
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: think this is a pretty precarious moment for him. It's
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: like a real put up or shut up moment.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: No, I agree with that. You know, it's like in
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: the same way that like we talk about like how
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: it's Remember when like whenever North Korea would test a
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: nuclear missile the the State Department say well, this is
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: unacceptable It's like okay seems like then what you've accepted it.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: It's accepted Yeah, and so it's like are we just
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: gonna accept that that that all of these people that
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: that we're just gonna accept that The country's just gonna
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: move on from the insurrection. Well, like yes, it's true.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: That's what's happened but the question is what do we
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: do and also like again a Like, how do we
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: learn from the fact that this wasn't salient enough, important
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: enough for people, enough people as they voted to make
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: the difference?
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Some of it is just time.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Like some of the most right wing Republicans thought Trump
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: was finished after January 6th. Not just the like establishment types,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: but like real right wing Republicans thought he was doing
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: so much damage to himself and to the conservative cause
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: that he had to be pushed aside.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Now, Charlie Kirk, right after the insurrection, said, enjoy jail.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: To all the writers, like, enjoy jail. Let's get them.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Let's put them in jail.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: And so like over the years that followed, there was
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: this slow, deliberate effort to keep moving the kind of
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: politics on this from Donald Trump is finished to this
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: wasn't led by Donald Trump to this was a false
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: flag operation led by the FBI. Now we're at the
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: point where these are political prisoners and actually nothing. They
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: didn't do anything wrong. that Donald Trump won the election.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: And like, I do think it's worth thinking, okay, like, well,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: what's next after that?
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Well, and I do think part of what I hope
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: we can do and Democrats should do in the coming
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: years is like, tell people why they should care about
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: something that happens instead of just being outraged about it. And,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: you know, Matt Iglesias in his sub stack slow boring
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: today talked about how he's more alarmed today than he
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: was on January 6th, 2021. because at least then, you know,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: all those Republicans you just talked about came out and
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: it seemed like it was over for Donald Trump and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that was it. And, you know, and thinking about the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: pardon power here, which, man, pardons over the last month,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: my views on the pardon power, like I always thought
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: it was sort of expansive and dangerous. Now I'm really like,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: this is a real, Iglesias talks about how it's like
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: potentially a backdoor to dictatorship, right? And he sets out
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: a scenario, right? Like if Trump decides now to pardon
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: people especially the people who committed violent assaults against police officers.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: If he decides to do this, what that basically says
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: to Trump supporters and Trump aides or anyone else is
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: if you commit a crime, but you do it for
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, you can do it because he'll just pardon you.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, Matt was saying, imagine Kash Patel
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: goes into the FBI and starts ordering a bunch of
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: FBI agents to do illegal surveillance on all of Trump's
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: political enemies in secret. And they don't want to do it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: But he says, oh, no, don't worry. If you're breaking
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the law, like Donald Trump's got you. Or a Trump
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: aide or a Trump goon goes into Congress and shoots
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: a member of the opposition, you know? And you're in D.C.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And it's federal jurisdiction. And then Trump just pardons them, right?
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: And not to say that that's going to happen, but
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: this is where it leads to start pardoning people who
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: have broken the law, some for violent crimes, just for
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: political reasons.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and those are obviously extreme examples. But I thought
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Iglesias' piece was smart in that it recognized the reality
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: right now, which is, Usually after a president is elected,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: there's some sort of like rallying around the flag effect
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: of people are like, let's give them a chance. You know,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: let's come together for the country. And that's not really
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: what we're seeing this time. We are seeing a lot
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: of people, even Trump supporters, scared of him. Right. Like
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Tim Cook giving a million dollars personally to his inauguration.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: Big tech sucking up, cutting big checks, the inauguration. It
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: goes beyond just them. doing it for business reasons, they
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: are scared shitless of him. And even his powerful supporters
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: will not criticize anything about Trump. And like, you know,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: the way he spelled it on that piece makes it
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: makes you think.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And, you know, part of me thinks, OK, Trump, hopefully
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: here is a lame duck. And at some point, you know,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: what is the utility of constantly, you know, us talking
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: about Trump going after Trump? Well, first of all, he's
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: like the president for the next four years and his
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: agenda is going to matter what he does.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: But also, I think the Republican Party has learned from
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Trump that this kind of, you know, just loyalty above
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: all else, like this is the way you hack the system, right?
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Like partisanship above all, stick together, just excuse anything possible.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And so even when Trump's long gone from the scene,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: they continue this kind of attitude, this kind of strategy,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: like this is what we're going to get.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: And for the midterms too, right? We make them all
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: comment on it and vote on it.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Well, that's where I think there's some some little glimmer
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: of hope, right? Because all of that's true, right? Like Republicans,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: they're not afraid of right-wing media because right-wing media is
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: on their side. They're not afraid of the mainstream media
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: because they've now discovered that it's mattering less and less
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and less, right? They're only afraid of Donald Trump. Donald
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Trump's the only one who can hurt them. But that's
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: not true of a vulnerable House Republican who is up
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: for reelection and just wants to keep his or her job, right?
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Like there are still places where the reality distortion of
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Trump can be broken.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to our next topic, because for the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: next year, which is basically all the time they have,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: two years really to the midterms, they're going to try
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to pass everything they can, because as most parties do,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: they expect that potentially they could lose the House, right?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe the Senate, but the House is definitely in play
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: in 2026. So let's talk about their big plans for 2025.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Basically one giant bill that includes everything from tax cuts
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: for the rich to money for mass deportations. Some Republicans,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: mostly in the Senate, think it would be easier to
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: do immigration first and better to do immigration first in
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: one bill and then taxes in a second bill. Here's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: what Trump said about it on Hugh Hewitt's show.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: Well, I favor one bill. I also want to get
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: everything passed. And, you know, there are some people that
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: don't necessarily agree with it. So I'm open to that also.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: My preference is one big, as I say, one big,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: beautiful bill. Now, to do that takes longer. You know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: to submit it takes longer, actually. But so it's a
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: longer process. I would say that I'd live with that.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Build back horrible.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're there again. It seems like this is just
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a question of which path is more politically feasible for Republicans,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: one bill or two. But what do you guys think
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: are the considerations are here?
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: So there are some friction points in immigration, which we'll
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: get to in a minute. But immigration seems easier for
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: them than taxes. Taxes are hard because taxes... taxes get
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: back to kind of good old-fashioned Republican politics, which is
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the base versus the pro-business funders. So they think they
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: could do immigration first and get a win on the border,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: and they can keep everybody in line, which would be good.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: They want to get a quick win on the board.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: But they think they need immigration because tax is going
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: to be so tough, given they only have a one-seat majority.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: And that actually could become a two- or three-seat majority
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: once they have these special elections in a couple weeks.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: So the question is, do they jeopardize A quick win
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: that they could get on the border in order to
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: make a tax victory later in the year more feasible
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: because they can use both to kind of wrangle people
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: and sweeten the deal to get some people in.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Man, if I were them and reading the political wins,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: I would say Democrats are scared shitless on immigration. And
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: of all the things where we might have a chance
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: of getting 60 votes in the Senate, this might be it.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: And I might go for that.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: But I mean, depending on what they want, that would
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: be reconciliation, too.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Well, right.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: I'm saying like if you want to do multiple bills
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: because you only have one or two shots of reconciliation.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: So breaking into pieces requires you to at some point
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: go through the regular process.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: No, basically there's two reconciliation shells that they have.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. You do two reconciliation shells. The
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: counterpoint of like do a bunch of bills, get a
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: bunch of wins.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, a bunch. No, I think it's a question of
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: like can you do one reconciliation bill that's just immigration?
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: And then a second one that's everything else.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: But if you look at what they're talking about, depending
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: on what you read, there's proposals that this could be immigration,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: energy policy, tax cuts, maybe military spending. And then God
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: knows what members of Congress try to jam in there
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: or various lobbyists or whatever. So I was just reacting
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: to Lovett's point that, like, I do think their strongest
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: political footing is immigration.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: And so do they want to spend it and get
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: the win or do they want to use it to
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: try to get some of their more unpopular tax policies across?
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: The other thing they have to deal with is for taxes,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: there's a cliff at the end of the year. So
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: if they don't get, so say they do immigration and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: that takes up a lot of time. I think this
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is probably why they, one reason why they want to
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: do both together. So they take a bunch of time
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in immigration, they get a quick win, and then they
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: only have X amount of months left till the end
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: of the year. Because if the Trump tax cuts from
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: last time are set to expire at the end of
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the year, They don't do anything on taxes. They can't
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: agree on something. That means every single person in America,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: their income taxes go up. So like- Tough. Talk about
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: cliffs that like force you to do things.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: And so there's that part of it. And then they've also,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: there's another side of this, which is they have to
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: raise the debt ceiling. And they've promised in order to
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: keep the government open over the holidays- They promised $ 2. 5
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: trillion in cuts on top of that. So they have
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: built for themselves quite a, I don't know what you'd
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: call it, bear trap?
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Spending disaster. I mean, extending the tax cuts, the Trump
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: tax cut is the price tag from the CBO is $ 4. 6
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: trillion over 10 years. So there's no way they're going
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: to be able to pay for this.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Well, and some of them don't give a shit, right?
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And don't care about paying for it. But the Chip
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Roy's of the world and the House and the Freedom
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Caucus people, they've basically, I mean, to your point, they've
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: basically said, no, we're not.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: And this is where, this is for some of them,
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: it's truly is like, this is why they're there. This
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: is what they believe. It is genuinely motivating.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: It is a sincerely held belief. And this is where
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: they don't really care about Donald Trump.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: It's the one issue.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: It's not interesting. Like Chip Roy and some of these
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: people are like, they're fine. Donald Trump being mad at them.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Because they're like, look, we're here to, you know, eliminate
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: government as much as we can. But like $ 5 trillion?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, some of the pay-fors that they've been throwing around,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: the tariffs, which is just a tax on consumers, repeal
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: all the clean energy investments and clean energy jobs that
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden helped create with the Inflation Reduction Act.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: And by the way, just one note on those. Most
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: of those are red states. And a lot of that
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: money is already out the door.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Repeal student loan forgiveness and get some money from there.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And then cut the entire education department. They're looking to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: close down the education department. Food stamps, Medicaid, another $ 40
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: billion they can get by deciding that Medicare and Medicaid
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: cannot cover Ozempic or Wagovi or some of those new, yeah.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: Coming for the king.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: From my cold, dead hands.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, some of the idiots are still,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: even though, you know, Trump has publicly ruled it out
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and other Republican leaders, you know, they've talked about Medicare,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Social Security, and all the rest. Well, that's the rub.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: That's the only way you can actually pay for a
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: price tag this high is to go after entitlements.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know how they're, I mean, we'll see. We're
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: going to have a whole year to talk about this,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: but I don't know how they're going to square this circle.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Many circles that they have to square.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Look, we Democrats do, Republicans do it. There's some budget trickery.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: They can do right. They can sunset certain things and
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: set up a new cliff down the road like their
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: ways and get around.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: But again, like you getting that by Chip Roy and
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: those guys.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so there's that. But then there's also just
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump saying that Medicare and Social Security are off
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: the table means you're pushing for steeper and actually more difficult,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: far more difficult cuts to get through Congress on Medicaid,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: on food stamps, on on veterans. By the way, talk
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: about cutting veterans.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And the debt limit thing makes it harder. So the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: debt limit expires in late spring, early summer, which is
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons they're talking about April
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: or May to get this on Trump's desk, which like
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: good luck with that. Now, if you do debt limit
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: within a reconciliation bill, like either of these bills they're
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: talking about, then Republicans can lift the debt limit or
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: eliminate the debt limit on their own, right? They don't
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: need Democrats because Democrats aren't going to vote for this
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: because it's 51 votes. But if they can agree to
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: include the debt limit in one of these bills or
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: just one bill, if they do one bill, then they
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: have to negotiate with Democrats because then you have the
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: 60 vote threshold. And so like, but the hard thing
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: about doing the debt limit in the reconciliation bill is again,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the Freedom Caucus, because they're going to be like, oh,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: we're going to raise the debt limit and spend $ 5
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: trillion on tax cuts.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: It's just getting them all to agree, even just the
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Republicans in the House on everything you write down in
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: a bill about all these various issue areas seems almost
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: impossible to me, especially with a pretty weak speaker.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Do you guys have any thoughts on like, So Democrats
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: don't have the votes to stop any of this. And,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: you know, we can't call them feckless for it. They
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: don't have the votes. Everyone should know Democrats cannot stop
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: anything in Congress right now. Just they don't. They can't.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: They can try to make it more unpopular in a
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: setup for the midterms to try to take back the
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: House and maybe the Senate. do you have any ideas
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: on what to focus on? You could see many bad messages.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: That are, that are recycled from the last 10 years,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: 20 years, you know, like it's chaos again in the house,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: you know, like I just.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Make one pitch though, please. Just one thing. I just like,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: nobody say the phrase tax scam again. Uh, it's, I
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: don't understand the tax scam. It's a nonsense words.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: We land on that.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It must've protested well in some messaging document, but it
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: sounds fucking stupid. I hate tax scam. Uh, I look,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: I think the, the, the look, I think you can,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: They're trying to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, basic services
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: for people in order to pay for tax cuts for
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: their wealthiest benefactors, friends and cronies, and the biggest corporations
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: shipping jobs overseas. There's some basic stuff that you can do.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: My question is only, how much should Democrats get ahead
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: of the part of this, which is that some of
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: the tax cuts, a small portion of it, but some
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: of the Trump tax cuts were tax cuts for the
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: middle class, for the working class, right? And so you
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: need to get out there and say, Here's our proposal, right?
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: We would love to extend the tax breaks for the
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: middle class. We'd love to attend the tax breaks for
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: working people in this country. And we'd love to attach
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: it to a raise in the minimum wage. Donald Trump
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: says he's for working. And by the way, you want
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: to do no tax on tips? Here's our proposal for
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: no tax on tips. We'll do all the middle class stuff.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: And here's, and we know how to pay for it.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Now it's your turn. Because I think like that to
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: me is where they're going to try to say the
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Democrats are for a big tax increase.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: It's as simple as like, they want to cut taxes
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: for rich people and they want you to pay for it.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: That's it. You get the bill. It's not free. It's
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: a huge giveaway to them. You get the bill. That's it.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, like. Yeah, the 2017 tax. tax cut. The
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: households with incomes in the top 1% got an average
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: tax cut of $ 60, 000 in 2025 compared to the average
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: tax cut of less than $ 500 for households in the
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: bottom 60%, according to the Tax Policy Center. So you
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: just have to make the case that we are burning
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: trillions of dollars on tax cuts for the richest people
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: in the country. How do you pay for that? On
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: the back end, it's going to be cuts to Social Security, Medicare,
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: programs you care about. I also think you can- Or potentially,
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: and potentially tariffs, which is a big taxing- Yes, yes.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: And I do think you can find, I think we
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: should look for some kind of process point about how
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: bad this process is. Like Elon Musk was really mad
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: about the length of the omnibus spending bill back in December, right?
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Remember then they all were really happy that it went
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: from 1,500 pages to 100 pages. Like, way to read
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: this one, buddy.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I was thinking that when I was reading it today.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Like the whole, yeah, we- One thing we all missed,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: or hopefully you all missed it, over the holiday break
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: was the omnibus spending bill that almost shut the government
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: down because Elon almost shut the government down. And then
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Mike Johnson barely won the speakership. So if you think
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: anything's going to be easy to pass through the House
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: with Elon, to the point about Elon, though, I do
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: think that we got to make this more vivid for people.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Trump now has a cabinet full of billionaires. And fuck,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: it's like you're either a billionaire or a former Fox
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: News host.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: Literally, yeah.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: That's basically the whole cabinet. And then you got Elon there.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: You got the other tech bros. I would like have
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: pictures of them with what kind of tax cut they're
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: going to get. We can calculate it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's good.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Elon's getting this many billion. This one's Scott Bessemer or whatever.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: The new fucking Treasury Secretary is getting this much. We
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: got to make it.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Proud gay American.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: We used to do this back in 2010 and 12
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: with fucking the.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: You know, how much Warren Buffett's getting versus his secretary
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: being Warren Buffett actually offered that example. Like, why don't
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: we do that shit anymore?
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Remember the, uh, the corn Husker kickback? Oh yeah. That's
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: just not written in 2010 as part of the, uh,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the debate around the affordable care act, the Obama administration
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: or the Democrats are trying to get votes from Senator
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Ben Nelson in Nebraska. And basically the bill as one
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: written in one version gave massive subsidies to the state
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: of Nebraska, uh, to try to get his vote. And
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: it became a huge scandal, an example of pork barrel spending.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: And it ultimately got stripped out. And I think the
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Cornhusker kickback was part of the reason Nelson didn't run
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: for reelection in 2012. So you got to find that thing.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: You know there will be some dirty pool being played
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: by John Thune and Johnson and the congressional leaders.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Also, the Cornhusker kickback, he was... fighting for a kickback
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: for Cornhuskers. It seems like it should have been good.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Why wouldn't you like that? Don't you want your Cornhusker
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: senator to fight for Cornhusker kickbacks?
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Tip O'Neill did for his whole career.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I bet another reason they want to do it in
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: one bill too is because they are hoping to bait
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Democrats by including some of the worst sort of culture
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: war stuff in this bill, right? And immigration is obviously
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the prime example. And I'm sure they want Democrats to
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: focus all of our outrage on that and then just
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: quietly do the tax cuts in the background. Because, you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the hardcore MAGA people, they don't give a shit about
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the tax cuts. Like, I know we have told ourselves
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: that it's like, they're cutting this to pay for this,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and that is what they're doing. But the real MAGA,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: the Laura Loomers and the Steve Bannons, they don't give
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: a shit about the tax cuts. They just hate immigrants
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: and a lot of other kind of people. And they just,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you know, they want to weaponize the Justice Department. They
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: want to go after immigrants. And so I do think
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: that they will try to push the tax cuts to
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: sort of like the, the back rooms, right? And just
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: negotiate that and then like throw out bait for the
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: rest of us to like freak out about.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Which by the way, is also normal, old school Republican politics.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Yep, that sure is. It sure is.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: They're also smart enough to know that you think you
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: have two years until the midterms, but you really only
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: have a couple months because you're, you know, things happen.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Maybe a member of Congress dies, right? There's an issue
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: there about that, the size of the majority from natural causes,
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: I'm saying, happened to Ted Kennedy from the Democrats. And
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: if you believe the public stories.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Gunned down in his prime.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Foreign policy crises.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Exigent events. Yeah, foreign policy crises. Like, who knows?
• 34:11
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• 35:20
  Speaker 1: So one person who's already inserted himself in the debate
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: over Trump's immigration policy and basically everything else is our
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: pal Elon Musk. An intra-MAGA fight broke out over the
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: holidays that pitted Elon and the new MAGA tech bros
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: against the old guard MAGA immigrant haters like Laura Loomer
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and Steve Bannon. It all started when Loomer criticized Trump's
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: choice for White House advisor on artificial intelligence because he
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: is an Indian immigrant who's been a big supporter of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: the H-1B visa program. And that is a program which
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: allows American companies to hire immigrants skilled workers from overseas.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Elon weighed in with his support for the program, which
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: he's used at his companies. I think he said he
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: was an H-1B recipient himself when he was first an
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: immigrant before he was a citizen here. Then things got crazy.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Bannon said that if Musk doesn't watch himself, quote, we're
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: going to rip your face off. For his part, Elon
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: told H-1B opponents to, quote, fuck yourself in the face
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: and endorsed a post that referred to American workers as, quote, retarded.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Vivek Ramaswamy then jumped in to argue that American workers
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: are lazy because, quote, a culture that venerates Zack and
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Slater over Screech in Saved by the Bell or Stefan
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: over Steve Urkel in Family Matters will not produce the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: best engineers.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Incredible.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Trump finally settled the whole thing for now by coming
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: out in favor of the H-1B program, saying that he's
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: used it too, but we think he's confused because he's
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: used the other H-1B program, that is more about lower-skilled
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: workers that you can bring in front of his hotels.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Well, no. I don't know.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: H-1B2?
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Well, no, but H-1B, if you go look at it,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: it's actually defined really strangely. It says for H-1B that
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: it is for skilled workers and fashion models. And so
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: I actually think.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: It may— Oh, that's right.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: It is the fashion model.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: I remember that, yeah. And so I think it might
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: be because— Melania? Melania and others, but Melania.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: What do you make of this fight, Levitt?
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: It was a beautiful marketplace of ideas. What I thought
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: when I saw it is that it's as if all
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: these guys were kind of standing in an open field
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: and then somebody stepped on a twig and they all
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: started shooting. You know, it's like the piece broke. The
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: thing that was interesting to me is like, first of all,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: it's like, it's interesting just to see Elon Musk turn
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: his like kind of way of talking about politics as
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: somebody who is new to politics, which is just like,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: there's two kinds of people. your friends and retarded pedophiles.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: It's like, that's how we talk about politics.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: Terrific.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: But if you put the name calling part of it aside,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: it was interesting to watch Elon Musk. Like he said,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: he said, think of it like a pro sports team.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: If you want your team to win the championship, you
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: enables the whole team to win. which is not just
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: an argument for the H-1B visa, it's an argument for immigration.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: And he found himself just because he happened to have
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: experience with this one kind of immigration, defending the concept
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: of immigration. And because he is new to this, he
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: doesn't realize how anathema that is to all of these
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: anti-immigrant right-wing zealots.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: He and others in the tech world have let themselves
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: believe that the opposition to all the talk about immigration
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: from Trump and MAGA has really just been about the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: border and people who've come here who have been, you know,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: violent criminals and the Lake and Riley stuff and all that.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Like they let themselves believe that was the case, or
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: at least some of them have. And now, and some
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: of the just unbelievably straight up racist shit that was
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: said over the holiday break about this from some of
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: the Trump people was fucking wild. They were just like,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: to your point, when you said it, we're like, imagine
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: we're all on the same team. People on the MAGA
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: people were like, no, we're not on the same team.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: We don't want them on our team.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: We're racist.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: They should be in another country. They shouldn't be here.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: And, and, This is a rift. This is not new
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: to tech bros versus MAGA world. This is a Republican
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: fault line. When George W. Bush proposed comprehensive immigration reform,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: he included a guest worker program because the free market, pro-immigrant,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: pro-business right has always understood that when you give the
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: base the enforcement and border security they demand, you have to,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: for the sake of the economy, acknowledge in the law
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: that our businesses and corporations run on cheap immigrant labor.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: And so this has always been the friction point in
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: this debate for Republicans.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: I just think we need to spend one more minute
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: on the Vivek Ramaswamy Twitter screed because I think it
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: was written from inside a locker that he had been
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: stuffed in.
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Sometime in the 90s.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: He was like, we're a culture that elevates the prom
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: king over the math.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of Friends, more math tutoring,
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: fewer sleepovers. What are you talking about?
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Fewer sleepovers.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. You are
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: such a loser.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: And this led David Brooks in the Atlantic to write
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a piece titled, The Vague Ramaswami is Not Invited to
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: My Sleepover. I'm not even going to tell him. That's real.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: And by the way, I think I have the credibility
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: in this issue as the person who was at the
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Saturday math competitions and was not at the sleepovers. And
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: someone who was very clearly a screech, desperately trying to
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: figure out what are all these Zacks? I'm sitting at
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: a table with two fucking Zacks.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Someone pointed this out on Twitter. that clearly he did
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: not really watch Saved by the Bell, because if he had,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: like I watched every episode about three times. Zach did
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: better on his SATs than Screech. It was a whole episode.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: The big grand reveal that Screech is also stupid was tough.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: That Zach is not just lazy, but also brilliant.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: Terrific.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Great model.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: Thanks a lot.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Kind of make him a vague point.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: That's America.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: That's America.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: In real life, Screech's life took a turn, too. Mark
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Paul Gosselaar seems like a pretty nice, normal guy.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Anyway. Anything else about that?
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: This can be our Sputnik moment. He actually put that... Like,
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: the great thing about this tweet from Vivek is it
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: was universally destroyed. The far right hated it. The right
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: hated it. The left mocked it. It was a beautiful thing.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: One other interesting thing on this is that, like, some
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: folks on the left, like Bernie Sanders, have been... They
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: basically sided with... The Bannon's on this one, not by
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: being openly xenophobic at all. I'm not saying that. But
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: in fairness to them, people on the left have been
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: complaining about the H-1B visa program like long before Trump.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: That it's exploitative to workers.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And yes, Sanders' argument is it allows companies to hire
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: foreign workers for less money. And then they have more
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: power over those workers because if they leave the job,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: they can be forced to leave the country. So, you know,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: they use the term, which might be going a bit far,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: which is like they're indentured servants, you know. But in
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: Fanners to Bernie, he then called for reforms like increasing
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: guest worker fees for corporations, raising minimum wage for guest workers,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: allowing them to easily switch jobs, which I think are
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: all good reforms to the programs. But I do think
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: like a lot of folks on the left and center
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: left like jumped in to be like, well, Elon Musk
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: is right on this one, stuff like that. But if
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: we're thinking about the economy now, we're thinking about sort
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: of inequality and the angst that sort of drove this
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: election for a lot of people who drove a lot
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: of people to vote for Trump. I do think it's
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: worth pointing out that like Elon Musk and some of
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: these tech founders and tech CEOs, like they like having
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: cheap labor. They do. One reason they like the H-1B
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: visa program is because, you know, it's going to help
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: them get richer. And I think if we say that
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of these guys, a lot of these Elon
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: folks and the oligarchs who are now running our country,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: when they come out for something, it's because it's usually
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: going to make them a lot of fucking money.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: The, the, you know, Bernie also always- I think you can.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Be for immigration.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: More immigration in this country and still recognize what their
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: motivations are.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Well, Bernie has always been against, H-1B is a form
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: of guest worker, as is the farm worker programs that
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: have been always, that Bush has been proposed, that were
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: debated when Obama was proposing comprehensive immigration reform. And I'm
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: not sure if he's always been completely against it, but
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Bernie's always been, I think, ideologically and ethically opposed to
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: them because they are really ultimately about creating a kind
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: of second class status for a certain kind of worker.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: And the point that like, I can't remember which right
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: wing ghoul in between their racist rants went and looked
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: at the entry level positions that have been filled by
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: H1B visas.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: I think it was Loomer.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Uh, but like, yeah, like these are, this is supposed
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: to be, you can't find the person in the U
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: S and you're going to pay them what you would
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: pay a U S worker. And obviously as Elon knows,
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: and as all these right wing people know, that is
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: not how it is used. It is used to fill
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: a bunch of positions for, for, for, for less pay.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break. One quick thing
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: before we do that though. Uh, Four years after the insurrection,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: we're still examining the reach and the limits of presidential power.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: This week on Strict Scrutiny, Leah, Melissa, and Kate break
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: down what it actually looks like, why it matters, and
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: how we've seen checks on it from sometimes very unexpected places.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Tune into this very timely episode now, only on the
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny feed. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. What
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: do you want your 2025 story to be, John?
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. I want it to be the most beautiful
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: story ever told.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: I want it to be an American story, John.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: American story.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: I want it to be a story with a beginning,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: a middle, and an end.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Okay. That's good. That's a good start.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing that I keep coming back to. I
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever heard anybody say this before.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: I just think it's not about wringing your hands. That's
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: what 2025 is going to be about for me.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: What's the term?
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Rolling up my sleeves.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Look it.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Look at those.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: You can't see this, but mine are already rolled up.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: You can't roll up your sleeves while you're wringing your hands.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. Every January brings you 365 blank
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: pages waiting to be filled. Wow. In 2025, maybe you're
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: ready for a plot twist. Or maybe there's a part
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: of your story you've been waiting to revise. Life isn't
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: about resolutions that fade by February. It's about picking up
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the pen and becoming the author. Of your own life.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: I like that.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Think of therapy as your editorial partner, helping you write
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: new chapters and create the meaningful story you deserve to live.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: BetterHelp's great. Therapy is great. Therapy is important. I found
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: it incredibly useful over the last several years.
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, I haven't noticed any difference, but as long
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: as you feel different.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: You know what? It's not for you. It's for me.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 2: For sure. For sure. For sure.
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• 45:55
  Speaker 1: So Tommy, this wasn't Elon's only notable foray into politics
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: over the holidays.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: He's been busy.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He's now going, he's taking the show on the
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: road from the U.S.
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: To other countries. He's going on tour. I do think
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: this is an important thing to watch. Ben and I
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: are going to talk about this tomorrow on Pod Save
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: the World. So we all watched Elon turn Twitter into
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: a propaganda tool for Trump and then dump what, 100
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: some odd million dollars into pro-Trump super PACs. But now
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: he's starting to mess around in other countries. And so
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: I think it started in Germany where he has been
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: attacking the chancellor, this guy Olaf Scholz, social democrat for
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: a long time. But then over the break, he endorsed
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: the AFD, which is a very extreme, super far right,
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: pro-Putin party in Germany. In the UK, Elon has been
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: attacking Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, labor prime minister.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: But it got really ugly recently. Elon said that Starmer was, quote,
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: complicit in the rape of Britain and that he should
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: be arrested. And then he also said he was deeply
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes. He's
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: talking about this horrific, horrific scandal where a decade or
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: two ago, a bunch of young girls, like 1,400 or
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: more girls, were sexually abused in this awful, it's called
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: the grooming gang scandal. I won't get into all the
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: details of it, but Elon is dredging that back up
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: to attack Starmer. And then I think just today, Elon
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: went after, he started boosting far-right candidates in Canada, and
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: he's also been boosting far-right parties and candidates in the UK.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: He met with Nigel Farage, I think, in Mar-a-Lago. And
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: according to Farage said, he might spend up to $ 100
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: million on behalf of the reform party in the UK,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: which would be just an absolutely unprecedented amount of money
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: and probably illegal.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: And then turned on Farage.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: And said he needs to go because Farage doesn't support
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: this guy, Tommy Robinson, who is this right-wing Islamophobic. Basically,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: he's like a mix between a soccer hooligan and kind
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: of a far-right agitprop guy in Britain, whatever. But it's
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: a huge deal because Germany's got elections in February. Canada
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: has elections sometime later this year. Keir Starmer.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Where they will vote on whether they want to be
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: the 51st state.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they will vote on whether to join America officially. Honestly.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: We haven't even talked about it. I forgot that.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: Honestly.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: It's one way to make the Senate fucking.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Work for us. For those who don't know, Donald Trump
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: has been musing on Truth Social about Canada becoming the
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: 51st state, potentially bringing Greenland, annexing Greenland, or letting Greenland
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: choose to be the 51st, or letting Greenland choose to
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: be part of the United States.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: And we're going to take back the Panama Canal.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: And we're going to take back the Panama Canal.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: No bad ideas in a brainstorm.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: The canal, the Greenland thing and the Panama Canal are
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: kind of oldies but goodies.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Carter's dead now. We can get the canal back.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Calling Canada the 51st state is kind of a funny
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: new wrinkle.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Don Jr. was in Greenland today.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: I know. Was he?
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but apparently it was like not an official business.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: It's for content for his podcast. A source familiar said this.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: Hey, guys. Hey, everybody.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: It's cold.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Not everything here is white for the same.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Reason, right? I've dropped something.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: It is really hard to find.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: What were we talking about?
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: Anyway.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Sorry, Elon. No, I just think it's really bad. I mean,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: Twitter is a powerful tool. Although, do you notice that
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: Elon recently said that he's going to tweak the algorithm
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: to make it a more positive place?
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: Great. Yeah.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: This is after he called American workers retarded.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: And elected Donald Trump or helped elect Donald Trump.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: I'd like to see more content about Jews being good
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: at business.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: But like he's messing around these elections in these foreign countries.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: None of these leaders know how to deal with it.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: They're all kind of like, don't feed the trolls. Try
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: to ignore him and hope he goes away. He's not
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: going to go away. But then more broadly, like the
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: G7 is a mess right now. Like Trudeau resigned today.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: They've got an election coming up. The French government is
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: in this cycle of like collapse and then caretaker prime
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: minister and collapse. They don't have elections until 2027. The
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: German government dissolved. They're about to have an election. The
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: South Koreans, the president declared martial law. He did like
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: a self coup. Now the cops are trying to arrest
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: the guy, but he won't surrender himself. So they're trying
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: to figure that out. We're obviously a mess. Labor has
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: kind of stumbled out of the gate. And the most
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: stable part of the G7 meeting will be the Mussolini
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: fan running Italy. And it's just like, what the fuck
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: is going on here?
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: This goes back to my, like, liberals were like, maybe
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: we should leave the country after Trump. It's like, where
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: are you going to go? Where are you going to go?
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of safe harbors out there right now.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That Joe Biden farewell international tour is not going
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: to go so well.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: He's going to Italy.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: You mean with the Pope? Oh, yeah.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: He's going to see with the Pope.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: Great.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Have a good time with the Pope.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Tell me, are we going to get like a right-wing
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: government in Canada too now? Or are we going to
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: get like a right-wing, like a Trump puppet there who
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: then decides he wants to reunify with the United States
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: and North America?
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: Trudeau is just stepping down early, I think, to give
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: his party, the liberals, a chance of, you know, righting
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: the ship before elections. I think they're going to be
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: in October or September. So we've got a while, but
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: it's likely that one of these far-right guys will win.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Think Trudeau wants a pod? I don't know. He's been
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: in here.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: He sat at that very seat.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: We talked with him.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Well, contact us. Let us know.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Let us know what you're up to.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: All right. Before we go, on Saturday, in a ceremony
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: at the White House, President Biden awarded the Presidential Medal
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to 18 individuals.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Among them, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, NBA Hall
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: of Famer Magic Johnson, celebrity chef Jose Andres, Bill Nye
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: the Science Guy, philanthropist and lead singer of U2 Bono,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: and Democratic mega-donor George Soros, and cricket investor George Soros,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: just to, you know.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: A well-earned Medal of Freedom, if I do say so.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: There's a good one. Thank you, sir.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: There's a good one. You got one right. Allow us
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: to commend Joe Biden on this. Tommy, can you explain
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: to the audience what these medals are and why presidents
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: give them out? Not in a way that'll make sense,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: but I'll try. I mean, it's the highest civilian honor.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: It's bestowed by the president basically at his or her discretion.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: Nice and her or her there.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you. I mean, look.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe on the moon one day.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: Jesus Christ. The current Presidential Medal of Freedom, it exists
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: in this form thanks to JFK, who updated a previous
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: honor that was established by Harry Truman. But it doesn't
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: make any sense. You can give it to living people.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: You can give it to dead people. You can give
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: it to foreign nationals. Colin Powell got it twice for
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: some reason. You can add a with distinction to it.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: flag with no real explanation for what that means.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Biden also just gave it to RFK.
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Which I liked. I thought it was a cool move.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Now Trump can't do it. And George Romney, Mitt Romney's
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: father too. Lots of posthumous awards.
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Lots of, lots of posthumous.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Took a little, took a little pardon in there for
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: some of those people.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I was going to say like, what a fucking consolation prize.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Liz Cheney got the, Liz Cheney didn't get the medal
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: of freedom. She got the one that was like just
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: below it. Which, by the way, pissed off some resistance.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: Folks on Twitter.
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: They're so mad.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: They're like, how dare he give Magic Johnson the Medal
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: of Freedom and Liz Cheney our Hero Cup?
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: But it's also just sort of like.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: It's like, I bet Liz Cheney could use a pardon
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: more than the fucking medal.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: Why is there a silver in this? What are we doing?
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: What is this? What is this? That's the question. If
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: it's going to be... I will say, because Obama gave
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: out a whole bunch of them too, right? The most
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: of any president. Obama gave one to Biden.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: And Biden did not return the favor.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: That's interesting.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Uh, well, I guess they're not really, they're not really
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: on speaking terms, I suppose, after all that's happened.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: But the process is just like White House staff, some,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: some interagency White House staff, they all get together and
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: they talk about it and they drop a list. And
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: that's it. Like, if you want to make it like
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: special and a revered honor, like you kind of got
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: to have some kind of independent body that is just like, Hey, president,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: here's what we go with. You know, like David Rubenstein
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: got one who's like his house.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he loans Biden his Nantucket house.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like what? Come on.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: In his first term, George H.W. Bush gave a Medal
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: of Freedom to Ella Fitzgerald and Strom Thurmond. Make that
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: make sense. In 2009, Obama gave one to Stephen Hawking
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: and Desmond Tutu. In 2011, Obama gave one to Bob
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Gates and Yo-Yo Ma.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Like, what is this prize?
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: It's just a cool thing you can get. I do
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: think it's fun that you can do them posthumously, which
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: sort of means you can go all the way back.
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: I'm like, why not?
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Give him to Jesus.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc, yeah. Jesus, yes.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: Adam and Eve.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: And there was a whole... Yeah. There was a little
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: dust-up because Trump infamously bestowed the Medal of Freedom to
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh, and then to, like, Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: It's like, come on.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: George Bush gave it to Bill Cosby.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Ooh, that one you might.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Well, that just looked bad in hindsight.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Ben Jacobs, reporter Ben Jacobs on Twitter, said that the
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: collection of people that Biden awarded the Medal of Freedom
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: to on Saturday... looked like the National Heroes Garden for
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: MSNBC viewers.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: That's a great joke. It's a great joke.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: It's like Hillary Clinton and George Soros. It's a little
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: too on the nose. A little too on the nose.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: What was the meeting where they're like, no, Liz Cheney
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: gets one tier below. I don't get it.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: I don't either. It's a weird hodgepodge of political leaders
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: like George Romney. Got one, Ash Carter, who passed away,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: who's defense secretary.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Benny Lou Hamer, that's a good one.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: That's a great one.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: That's a great one. Ralph Lauren, great one. Jose Andres,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: great one.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, give that man a peace prize.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Ralph Lauren, that's the one you think that Ralph Lauren's
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: a great one?
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: You like those?
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: Well, it's weird.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, you're saying that's weird.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's weird.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: I thought you said it's a great one. No, no,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: Jose Andres. Jose is a great one. I don't have
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: a problem with Ralph Lauren, but I don't, I mean,
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: you know, I suppose it's, Nice to wear on a boat,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: but I don't think it's on the level of Desmond Tutu.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: I'm there with you.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: I'm there.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: You know that Bill Belichick turned it down?
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: Really?
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump offered it to him. He accepted it. Then
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: January 6th happened. So shout out, Bill. I guess January
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: 6th changed one thing.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Well, next year it's going to be 18 people who
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: are all fucking Capitol rioters.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: And that choir is going to sing.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: The shaman.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: He'll get one.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a very long time.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: Mike Pence.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: With you for the duration.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: Anyway, that's our show.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: Stick with us for these next four years.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: I wrote a book over the break called An Artist
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: And it was interesting because it was about what happens at.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Ooh, the book report section.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: This shows over. This shows over.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Give us three books that are.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: I will give you three books, John, but I'll start
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: with this one. What was interesting about it is it
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: was about what happens in a country after the fascist
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: fervor breaks and everyone's just looking around being like, why
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: did you do this to us?
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: And it was interesting.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: What happens?
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: A lot of people are pretty sad.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: A lot of death.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: But it was interesting just because it was this older
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: guy grappling with his involvement and the younger generation looking
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: at disgust at what they did to the country. And
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: it just reminded me as I was reading it that
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: there's a lot about what happens on the way in,
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: but there's also.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: A way out.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Well, it's also interesting that you just mentioned the fascist fervor,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: and it's like, I don't even think there's that much fervor.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: A lot of it is apathy or people being checked
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: out or denial or whatever. A lot of people probably
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: voted for Trump out of disgust with both choices. People
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: are going to be in for a rude awakening.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's that part of it. There's also a great
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: piece in ProPublica from a couple days ago called The
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: Oath Keeper's Militia Mole, I think is the title. It's
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: the militia and the mole. It's about this guy who
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: just decided on his own to infiltrate the three percenters
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: and the oath keepers and all these right-wing groups. And
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: his story about why he did that, even though he
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: didn't do it on behalf of the cops, he just
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: wanted to expose them. But the degree to which these
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: groups now feel ascendant and validated because of Trump's reelection
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: is very scary.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: And it goes back to the pardoned. issue too with
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: January 6th because if they see them getting a pardon,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: they'll feel pretty emboldened. So anyway, coming attractions.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: Should we do more books?
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: What else do you read?
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: I'm reading The Wide, Wide Sea by Hampton Sides. It's
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: about Captain James Cook, famous British explorer. Obviously a lot
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: of downsides to these guys running around the world spreading
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: diseases and rats and all killing off native peoples but
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: also kind of fascinating to imagine a period of time
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: when you could hop in a boat and go someplace
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: that no one you knew had ever heard of even.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: It wasn't on a map.
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: Tommy's getting ideas.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to get in a spaceship with you on.
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: Go.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: What'd you read over the break, John?
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: I'm reading, I'm doing the thing. You've done this before.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: I have been reading like many books at once now.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: I like doing that.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Reading Boy Mom, which is about raising young men and, uh,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: solid and, uh, you know, modern masculinity. And I'm reading
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Patrick Ruffini's book, which was about, uh, How the GOP
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: has been, or the realignment of the working class. It's
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: called Rough Riders. It's a good book. And Kevin Leonhardt's book,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Ours Was a Shining Future, about the American dream and inequality.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: I read Henry Kissinger's last book about AI that he
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: wrote with Eric Schmidt because it was very short. And
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: I was like, you know what? I want a primer
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: from the.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: Oldest man in the world.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: From the, I want the last.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Did he get a medal of freedom yet?
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: I'm sure he did.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: I want the last musings on a new technology from
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: a dying 100-year-old man. It was interesting.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: Oh, do you guys know Trump had a book called
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: The Art of the Comeback from 1997? Impressant.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I'll put that on your list.
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: We will be back on Friday with a new episode
• 59:31
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  Speaker 1: it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a
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