Latest / Pod Save America / Will Trump Win Back Haley Voters?

Transcript

Will Trump Win Back Haley Voters? · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Donald Trump pivots to the general election
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: with a series of speeches that remind us of why
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: he lost the last one. And later, Melissa Murray and
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Andrew Weissman talk to Lovett about all the latest legal
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: news and their new book, The Trump Indict. What's that about?
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: But first, Trump won the South Carolina primary on Saturday,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: beating Nikki Haley by 20 points, 60 to 40 percent.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: This is the first time a Republican who wasn't the
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: incumbent president won the first four primary contests, a full sweep.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and certainly the first time a candidate did so while
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: facing 91 felony counts. Nikki Haley lost the home state.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: She also served as governor. She has also lost her
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Koch network funding. But she's heard our prayers and said
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: that she'll be staying in the race through Super Tuesday.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: Today in South Carolina, we're getting around 40%.
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: Of the vote.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: That's about what we got in New Hampshire, too.
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: I'm going to count it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: I know 40% is not 50%. But I also know
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: 40% is not some tiny group. I said earlier this
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: week that no matter what happens in South Carolina, I
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: would continue to run for president. I'm a woman of
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: my word.
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: We're headed to Michigan tomorrow.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: And we're headed to the Super Tuesday States throughout all
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: of next week.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Nikki! Nikki!
• 2:03
  Speaker 6: Nikki!
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Nikki!
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Nikki! You can hear my voice in there.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: It's like a sad Howard Dean Iowa speech at the
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: end there.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: It's awesome. 40%. Look at that.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: So much.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Moral victory.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Go Nikki!
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: What is it, 38.6?
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: No, it's 39.8. Ooh. It was very close.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Hey, almost there.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And Trump was like 59.7 or 8 or something.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So I know you guys were probably up late Saturday
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: night digging through the South Carolina results. Any big takeaways?
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: What do you got, Lovett?
• 2:31
  Speaker 6: So here are the, I just, from the exits, here
• 2:33
  Speaker 6: what I found interesting, that here's who Nikki Haley won.
• 2:38
  Speaker 6: She won moderates, which we already knew, and she won independents.
• 2:42
  Speaker 6: She won people who decided this month, and she won
• 2:45
  Speaker 6: first-time primary voters. And I just found that To me,
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: these are people that have been watching this unfold. And
• 2:51
  Speaker 6: the late you think the late deciders at this point
• 2:52
  Speaker 6: would be like, I want to be with the winner.
• 2:54
  Speaker 6: I want this to be over. But that the late
• 2:56
  Speaker 6: deciders are saying, I'd like this to keep going. I
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: thought was I don't know what it means.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: It was interesting.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I kind of think that if you and this one,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: this would not apply in the general election between Biden
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and Trump. Everyone knows them. But if you are undecided,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think you break towards Donald Trump because, like,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: you know, Donald Trump. You've made up your mind about
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. You love him. You're either with him or
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: you're like, eh, what else do I do?
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: Yes, but you're leaving your house on a Saturday to
• 3:24
  Speaker 6: go vote in a pointless primary.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: You know who would do that if they lived in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: South Carolina? this gang of assholes.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:31
  Speaker 6: Well, that's, well, and, and it wouldn't be, it wouldn't
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: be that informative about the future.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I know.
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: So Dave Weigel, uh, was reporting from South Carolina and
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: he described the four type of Haley voters as longtime
• 3:44
  Speaker 6: super fans, Republicans picking her as the strategic electable choice,
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: independents who legitimately wanted her to be president and Democrats
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: who would support her as a thumbtack under Donald Trump's tires.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: That's us. Yeah.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: That's us.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And the question is how many of those different groups.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: You're not the longtime Haley fan? I'm a super fan.
• 3:59
  Speaker 6: I've only recently discovered her work. I, you know, I'm, I'm,
• 4:03
  Speaker 6: I'm exile. I'm exile Carolina horse.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I was going to say you were more into the other, uh,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the other candidate from South Carolina.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about him.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: We'll talk about him.
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: And then just the last thing I, that the two
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: other things that jumped out at me from the exits
• 4:13
  Speaker 6: are only 13% of people said the most important quality
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: is can defeat Joe Biden.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They don't cause they read polls because they.
• 4:21
  Speaker 6: Read polls and because the vast majority of Republicans believe
• 4:24
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump won. Right. Which is always like, If you're,
• 4:26
  Speaker 6: you know, Haley's winning people who think that she's the
• 4:28
  Speaker 6: more electable choice, fine. But basically, Republicans believe that whoever
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: they nominate is going to win. And do you think
• 4:35
  Speaker 6: that's worth remembering? And then the last, just that 36%
• 4:38
  Speaker 6: said if Trump is convicted of a crime, that's not
• 4:40
  Speaker 6: 36% of Haley voters, that's 36% of the primary voters
• 4:43
  Speaker 6: say that if Trump is convicted of a crime, he
• 4:45
  Speaker 6: is unfit, which just continues the thing, what we saw
• 4:48
  Speaker 6: in Iowa, what we saw in New Hampshire.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Et cetera. I think the big takeaway, obviously, is that
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: the primary has been over since Iowa. I was going
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: to say, that was my big one. I mean, apologies
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: to the cable networks that had 10 pundit pandals on
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: a Saturday night. Like, look, we're all trying to squeeze
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: some more life out of this primary with content, but
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: it's over. I had the same thought as you, Lovett. Like,
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: electability is just not an issue for Trump. Like, Haley's
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: got a better case, but no one cares.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: They don't care.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Public voters could care less. Trump won 71% of non-college-educated voters.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: He struggled the most in counties with the highest educational attainment. Um,
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: I saw that Trump lost voters with postgraduate degrees pretty badly.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: So if you've got some friends in red States, you
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: can tell them a PhD is only six years away.
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: I did, but I was like, right, I guess who
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: are the, who are the PhD candidates turning out for
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: this thing?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: It's not, it's not in politics.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Get yourself a philosophy degree. Oh no, we offended them
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: one time. I was a philosophy major. Don't get mad
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: at us.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: Silver linings.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Um, Yeah, no, I mean, I think the primary is
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: pretty much over. The Trump campaign put some numbers to that.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: They argued in a memo afterwards that even if you
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: give Nikki Haley her 43% that she got in New Hampshire,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: which was her high watermark so far, in all the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: contests in the upcoming weeks, Trump would secure the delegates
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: needed to win the nomination by March 19th.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not a really.
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: I would say, you don't really need to break out
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: the Excel spreadsheets. She hasn't won anything.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: And she's not on.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: And she said she is an accountant, which I didn't know.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I learned that.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: You didn't know she was an accountant?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't know she was an accountant.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: She always brings about that when she talks about the budget.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: That's her most boring talking point.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: As soon as she talks about the budget, my eyes
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: glaze over.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: But it's funny.
• 6:26
  Speaker 6: It's just like we have a memo and we've put
• 6:28
  Speaker 6: our smartest number crunchers on it. And because she will
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: not win a single state, there's no path for her
• 6:33
  Speaker 6: to become the nominee.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Did you guys notice that Trump did lose to Haley
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: in counties with a heavy military presence? Which is sort
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: of interesting and notable.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, he did.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Because I saw 70% of veterans voted for Trump. Yeah,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of interesting. But I didn't know.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe they're in cities.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: She won cities, so that's what.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: They're probably all in Charleston. I mean, Trump does keep
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: slightly underperforming his polling average. It could be that we
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: just have a bunch of kind of freaked out Democrats
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: turning out to vote for Haley in these primaries. But
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Notable.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: So that, yeah. And we will find out more about
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: that on Super Tuesday.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: When you talk to Dan Thursday.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, well. Tell us what Dan said about it.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Well, you all read the message box.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I hope.
• 7:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's what I do. That's what today's pod is.
• 7:12
  Speaker 6: We reprocess Mesh's box.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: So we're going to, well, Dan didn't put this in
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: his message box, but we will find out more about
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: this on Super Tuesday because there's a lot of closed primaries.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So we're finally going to know what her, I would
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: imagine that in a closed primary, that's a Republican only primary.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: she only polls 25% because she's winning around 25% of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Republicans in all these states.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right. In South Carolina, if you
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: don't vote in the Democratic primary, you can vote in
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: the Republican primary. Right.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: But it'll be interesting to see, and there's been limited
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: polling in the Super Tuesday states, but it'll be interesting
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: to see if Trump's polling in those states matches better
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: to hit the final result just because in some of
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the closed primaries. So we do know that there's a
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: non-insignificant number of people voting in Republican primaries who, at
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: least from their exit poll answers, seem like they will
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: be unavailable to Trump in November. South Carolina, 31% said
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: he's not physically or mentally fit to serve as president
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: or physically or mentally. Maybe they picked one. 36% believe
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that Biden won legitimately in 2020. She won those by
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a lot, unsurprisingly. And then more than one in five
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: voters told the AP vote cast exit polls that they
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: won't back Trump in general election. So You know, Mike Madrid,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: who's a GOP strategist with Latino Vote, said in February
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of 2020, only 6% of Republican voters were saying that
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't support Trump in the general election, according to
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: these exit polls. And in February of 2024, we are
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: seeing like three times that number in polling and in
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: some of these focus groups. So I was getting excited
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: about that. And then I decided to temper my excitement,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: as I always do, by looking back. So in June
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: of 2008, A week after Hillary Clinton endorsed Obama at
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the famous Unity New Hampshire event, guess what percentage of
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Clinton voters told pollsters that they would vote for Obama
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: in the fall? Who wants to guess?
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: 68.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: 52.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: 54%.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Only 54%. You know what Obama ended up getting from
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Democrats in 2008? 89%.
• 9:20
  Speaker 6: That event, where Hillary Clinton went and did the uni event,
• 9:24
  Speaker 6: I believe that's where we included a classic line, which is.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: George W.
• 9:30
  Speaker 6: Bush and John McCain are two sides of the same coin,
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: and it doesn't amount to a whole lot of change.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Fucking A, man.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: It's so good. So, so good. So, so good. So good.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: That was your line.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: So good.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: It was your line.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Not as good as Pokemon Go.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: To the polls, but pretty good.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I will say that You can see Clinton voters warming
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: up to Obama maybe a little more than these Haley
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: voters warming up to Trump. Again, because Obama was still
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: relatively unknown. They had Donald Trump for four years. years.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: So if they're saying they don't want Trump, maybe it's
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit better.
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: I do think that this is you can you can
• 10:06
  Speaker 6: you can blur your eyes and make it a good
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: fact or you can blur your eyes and make it
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: a bad fact. The reality is right now the polling
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: is real Joe Biden up against sort of gauzy imaginary Trump.
• 10:17
  Speaker 6: And in some ways, that is going to be people
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: telling pollsters that they would never vote for a convicted felon. Well,
• 10:22
  Speaker 6: I bet if you ask them in August of 2016,
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: if they vote for somebody who was accused credibly of
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: sexual assault and had the had, you know, grab them
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: by the pussy, they'd say they never vote for somebody
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: like that either. And they come home at the same time.
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: And there's a lot of people who still don't fully
• 10:35
  Speaker 6: grasp that Donald Trump is about to be the Republican nominee.
• 10:38
  Speaker 6: And once that comes into full relief, we'll. hopefully come
• 10:41
  Speaker 6: back in these polling. But I just think we don't know.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: But that is the hope.
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: But it is all hope that the polls will change
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: because the polls are fucking terrible.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: I too am worried about the revealed preference that might
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: come out in an election.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: So, you know, we have no idea what Haley voters
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: are going to do in November, but at least what
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: she's done for us and what she's continuing to do
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: for us is she is giving the Biden campaign and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Democrats a universe of voters that they can target with
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: persuasion efforts. And obviously that's not going to matter too
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: much in South Carolina, but Super Tuesday has most of
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the swing states. And so figuring out what percentage she
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: gets in Michigan and Arizona and stuff like that, like
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: we will be able to know where those voters live,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the demographics of those voters, and the Biden campaign will
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: be able to go and target Haley voters. Will you
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: get them all?
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: No.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: All you need is some. All you need is some.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: And the point Dan makes, like step up.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: It's a terrible result.
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: Like, yes, Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. Obviously,
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: Haley is not winning. This is who the Republican Party wants.
• 11:42
  Speaker 6: But the fact that Donald Trump has not been able
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: to consolidate this party, that the results are so consistent,
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: is not a good fact for him.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: It just isn't.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think about that, Tommy? So, Dan,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the title of Dan's message box, for those who aren't
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: frequent readers, which, fuck you if you're not.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's harsh.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Sorry.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: If you're not, you don't know what you're missing.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: It's so good and exciting.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And it's a quick read.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Cashmore flies with honey.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: The title of Dan's message box was yet another underwhelming
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Trump primary win. Agree? Disagree?
• 12:15
  Speaker 6: I want you to know something. I didn't read the
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: message box before I also had that opinion.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Great. And I just want that out there.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: I appreciate you lining up the sequencing.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe you should write a sub stack. Maybe get it
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: out before Dan.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: I'm going to take the other side of the Dan
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: take here. I think 60% of the vote is a lot.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: I think we should be honest that Trump barely tried.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: I heard that he spent about $ 1. 2 million in South Carolina.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: He barely visited the state. Haley did like 50-some-odd events.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: It was her home state. That's got to help her
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: a little bit where she has universal ID. There's also
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: just the weird fact that this is a zombie primary.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Your folks aren't really that fired up to turn out
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: for you. Well, maybe they are. I don't know. We
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: don't really know what it does to turn out where
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: everyone knows that the campaign— over. I do think a
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: bunch of Democrats turned out and probably tipped the numbers
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: a little bit in her direction. So I don't know. Like,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I think he's crushing her and it is.
• 13:09
  Speaker 7: What it is.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know that we can look at these primary
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: results or any primary results and extrapolate out to the general. Like,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: it's possible that what we're seeing from these Haley voters
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: are people who, again, will not vote for Donald Trump
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and things are bad for him. I Certainly hope so.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I just don't know if we, I don't know if
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: these results can tell us that. And I'm remembering that
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: 2008 race when we, I mean, the March primaries, the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: April primaries, and every time Hillary Clinton just clobbered us
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: in one of those primaries, in those late spring primaries,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: everyone's like, well, Barack Obama's not bringing the party together.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: He's going to lose in November. This is going to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: be bad. What's happening? And then it wasn't a problem
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: at all.
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: Well, it wasn't a problem in part because there was
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: a concerted effort to unite the party. And ultimately brought
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: a financial crisis and a financial crisis. But also like,
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: you know, Hillary Clinton speaks at the convention. There's a
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: few dead enders who do sort of ridiculous things. But really,
• 14:08
  Speaker 6: for the most part, the party obviously came together. Their
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: policy platforms were virtually indistinguishable. You know, will Nikki Haley
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: endorse Trump? We can hope not. We can we can
• 14:17
  Speaker 6: now be more.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Look, we've been on the side.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Of burning just her and Chris sitting at this table.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. New Friday pod just dropped.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: John Thune, one of the last holdouts in the Senate,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Republicans endorsed Trump after this.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Thune rather than Lehner.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Not a moment Thune.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's what you were doing.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: You didn't laugh.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I was like, that's a good one.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: He didn't get it.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: He didn't get it.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Philosophy to grow.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Even worse than Thune. There's a time story today that they're, they're,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: smoothing over the tensions between Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: so that Mitch McConnell can ultimately endorse him.
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: What's funny is not even smoothing it over, like behind
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: the scenes or smoothing it over. And then Trump is like,
• 15:02
  Speaker 6: I think he sucks.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, it has been a while since Trump brutally
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: attacked Elaine Chao with all kinds of racist statements. So
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: it has been a while since then.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: They haven't spoken since December of 2020. Okay, Trump, this
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: is Ted Cruz territory if he endorses. Trump called Mitch
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: McConnell's wife Elaine Chao, who served in his cabinet, Coco Chao,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: which we all believe is a cocaine reference. Somehow she's
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: a drug trafficker. She did resign in protest, so that's it. Yeah,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: with like seven days left. He referred to her as
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Mitch's China-loving wife. Apparently, these talks are being brokered by
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Chris Lissavita. I don't know how to say his name.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: The Swiftboat Veterans for Truth guy is running the Trump campaign.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Chris Lissavita.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: And this pint-sized, high-heeled-wearing lobbyist, Josh Holmes, who's just a
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: real jerk.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Can I.
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: And.
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: And jerky may well be, Thomas, but you put this
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: on social media. You said, of course, McConnell's, again, pint-sized
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: lobbyist is greasing the skids for Mitch's inevitable Trump endorsement.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Why are you reading my tweets?
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Gotta keep those.
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: Lobbying shop going to afford all those high-heeled boots. Now, Tommy,
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: what is it about them not being flats that's so
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: offensive to you? What is it about his stature that's
• 16:10
  Speaker 6: so worthy of your condemnation? Perhaps he is not a
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: tall person. I don't think it's his problem. I don't
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: think it's his problem. Sure, people can be unethical. Before
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: we walked in here, you said that people don't get funerals. Okay,
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: so let's just start there with this fucking.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Bit you're doing.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Second of all, I'm stealing Tim Miller's joke.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: So all of you are anti-short.
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: This guy's the scummiest little lobbyist ever.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I think we need a new segment on this show.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Just defend your tweet. You did the tweet, now you
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: have to defend it.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: I stand by it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Anyway, what do we think? The more important thing is,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: aside from Chris Christie, and maybe, hopefully, Nikki Haley, but
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: let's be real. The whole fucking Republican Party is getting behind...
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: All of the officials of the Republican Party are getting
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: behind Donald Trump after so many of them said on
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the record that he was responsible for a fucking insurrection
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and trying to steal the election.
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: The people who stormed this building believed they were acting
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: on the wishes and instructions of their president.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. That's Mitch McConnell.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: It's despicable. It's despicable.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: But it's going to have... I mean, that has... Back
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: to those Haley voters... There is a concern that if
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: you are a person that pulled the lever for Haley,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: that you see every Republican politician that you voted for,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: everyone in the party just backing Donald Trump, and you're thinking,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I don't like him, but this person did and this
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: person did.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: It's big for money. It's big for donors. That's what
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell brings you. It's the institutional support. It's the
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: big money donors. It's the billionaire class that kind of
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: stepped away from Trump and thought he was you know,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: kind of an untouchable for a while, that money will
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: all come flooding back.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I do think it's a bit of a, that's very true.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I do think it's a permission structure.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: I think so too.
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: I think the permission, that is, that is so much
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: of like the, that the establishment getting behind Trump in
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: 2016 gave permission for a lot of people who were
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: hesitant to say, well, it's for the courts.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: It's for this.
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: I mean, McConnell's whole thing was that, that, that it
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: was worth it because we got the Supreme court. He
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: then hits his limit. His wife resigns in protest from
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: the cabinet. He says, Trump has gone too far. And
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: it was this Flowers for Algernon week where they all
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: kind of found their kind of moral.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Why was it Flowers for Algernon?
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: A book you read in eighth grade?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Because they had a... It was, in fact, eighth grade.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: But the analogy is they had a week of finding
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: their moral courage, and then right when they could have
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: impeached it, it all faded back away.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Well, Lane Shaw left to spend more time with her cocaine,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: is what Trump told me. Yeah.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Nothing from you two?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Cocaine?
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Coco Chow? It's a callback to the joke.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's okay.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: They're not all winners.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: We have other cocaine jokes.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And we have other cocaine jokes.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: We have a lot of cocaine content. So, just before
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: we leave this section, Joe Cunningham, a former South Carolina
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Democratic congressman who's now a leader at No Labels, said
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: that they would be interested in having Haley on the ticket.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Her campaign said she's not interested. They've said that many
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: times now. But something to worry about are Our boy
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Dean Phillips also said he'd be open to being VP
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to Nikki Haley on a no-labels ticket.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: What an embarrassing person. That gelato's getting pretty warm. Gotta say. Unbelievable. Incredible.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: Where is everybody on their on-again, off-again anxiety about no-labels?
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: I can't keep track.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Well, they haven't been able to find a candidate.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's... So we're off again. In this interview, Joe Cunningham,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: before they asked him about Haley, he was like, I'm
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: not saying anything, but we've been talking to a lot
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of exciting people whose names we're about to. release soon.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: But it's getting late, but I don't know. I still
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: have concern. They're on the ballot in a lot of states,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: certainly more than. rfk is we talk more about rfk
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: but he's not on the he's on the ballot in
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: fucking utah and that's it and he.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Got smoked at the libertarian convention over the weekend smoked
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: one funny one person he got one vote he had
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: one vote at the libertarian convention in california i don't
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: think that's happening for him was nervous about that but
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: i do think the labels is still one of.
• 20:14
  Speaker 6: The worst smokings of a kennedy in politics in some
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: time oh.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: My god what no no cut that why what do
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: you mean Making assassination jokes?
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: No, I'm talking about Joe Kennedy losing in Massachusetts.
• 20:27
  Speaker 8: Oh.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, sure.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about? Oh, my God. What did
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: you think I meant? Okay. Okay.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Hillary in June of 2008.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: Remember that? It was like a South Dakota newspaper ed board.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: You know what? Dropping.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: That was tough.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: That was tough.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: She did not mean that.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: That was tough. She didn't mean it. She didn't mean it.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: That was tough.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Look it up.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to explain it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: According to my emails to reporters that week, she meant this.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: for being honest about what we were doing for a
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: living at the time. Tommy on the grass, you know,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: taking Hillary out.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. This is good stuff.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not associated with this. Leave it all in. Anyway,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: there's another problem that Hayley.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Try as you might, you are associated.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: This is true. There is a... I fund it. There
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: are sore loser laws, which is going to... that could...
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that Hayley and Chris Christie... Although, after talking... after listening
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: to Chris Christie's interview with you, He keeps being mentioned
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: as a no-labels candidate. I don't think so. I feel
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: like it's not going to happen after listening to.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: But in 47 states, there are laws in the books
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that say if you are a candidate in a primary,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that in the general, you cannot... Or at least it
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: severely restricts your ability to run in a general, either
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: as an independent, third party, or the other party. And
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: so there is different... There are differing views, legal views,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: on whether that would apply to a presidential race.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: But.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Regardless, it would have to be litigated.
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I will say that the argument that all of
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: the justices just got behind that says the 14th Amendment
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: doesn't bar Trump because states can't do that does seem
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: like it's like all of a sudden the states are
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: determining Nikki Haley can't be president even if the Constitution
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: says she can.
• 22:01
  Speaker 8: Interesting.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: But I feel like hopefully that's the least of our worries.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: So even though Haley's sticking around for a few more weeks,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Trump is allegedly turning his focus to his general election
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: rematch with Joe Biden. Here's an NBC News headline. Fewer grievances,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: more policy. Trump aides and allies push for a post-South
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Carolina pivot. That's a real throwback. I haven't seen something
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: like that since 2020. So this was his team's spin
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: ahead of Trump's speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: or CPAC. They told the New York Times that Trump would, quote,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: present a brighter vision for the country brought about by
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a second Trump term. So here's how that brighter, grievance-free
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: vision sounded over the weekend at CPAC.
• 22:54
  Speaker 7: I stand before you today not only as your past
• 22:57
  Speaker 7: and hopefully future president, but as a proud political dissident.
• 23:02
  Speaker 8: I am a dissident.
• 23:04
  Speaker 7: For hardworking Americans, November 5th will be our new Liberation Day,
• 23:08
  Speaker 7: but for.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: The liars and cheaters... and fraudsters and.
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: Censors and imposters who have commandeered our government. It will
• 23:19
  Speaker 7: be their judgment day. And then I got indicted a
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: second time and a third time and a fourth time.
• 23:26
  Speaker 7: And a lot of people said that that's why the
• 23:28
  Speaker 7: black people like me, because they have been hurt so
• 23:31
  Speaker 7: badly and discriminated against. I'm being indicted for you, the
• 23:35
  Speaker 7: black population. We'll have 18 million people, in my opinion,
• 23:40
  Speaker 7: in our country that shouldn't be here. And they do
• 23:43
  Speaker 7: come from prisons and mental institutions, and they are terrorists.
• 23:47
  Speaker 7: And we're going to be paying a price, and it'll
• 23:49
  Speaker 7: be the largest deportation in the history of our country.
• 23:52
  Speaker 8: And it's true.
• 23:53
  Speaker 7: In Beverly Hills, you pay a fortune in taxes. They
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: say you can only brush your teeth once a day.
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: Whatever happened to the cocaine they found in the White House?
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Where is it?
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: Hey, by the way, isn't this better than reading off
• 24:09
  Speaker 7: a frickin' teleprompter?
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: What? Told you we'd have more cooking content.
• 24:14
  Speaker 8: Cheery.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Just so optimistic, so grievance-free, so focused on policy. That
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: was just the tip of the iceberg. Lots of crazy
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: shit from Trump last weekend. I'm having a little 2016-2020
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: deja vu where it was hard to figure out which
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Trump comments voters would actually care about and which ones
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: they'd just laugh at. Because now we're getting... You know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Trump's been out of the spotlight a little bit, but
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: now we're getting this piece back in the speeches and
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the rallies and we're getting crazy comments.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: He's hugging the flag again.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: He's hugging the flag. He's doing all the hits. He's
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: he's saying things that everyone on Twitter is freaking out about.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: But like, what do you guys think in terms of
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: like what is most damaging to him in a general
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: election and what stuff that probably just doesn't matter as much,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: even though it's crazy?
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: I will say real quick, just on the on the.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: pivoting to substance stories. What's so funny about these stories,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: it's not just that there's so many recent examples of
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: them spinning this and him not doing it. It's the
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: suggestion that the grievances and the cruelty inherent in his
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: rhetoric isn't what the Trump base loves about him and
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: wants to hear. Like Trump believes that every election is
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: a base turnout contest. He might be right about that.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: And the base loves owning the libs and owning the rhinos.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: and maybe owning the lighting guy who didn't do a
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: good job at the event he's at and he fires
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: them on stage like that's his whole brand and they
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: love it and like we just why would we pretend otherwise.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah no grievance is their top policy issue at least
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the people that show up.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: At cp making people like us mad is their.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Deal grievance and revenge yeah now i don't think that's
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: true of the general election which is i think why
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the campaign wants him to just pivot away from that
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: grievance and focus on the policy.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I see.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I don't love to get into media criticism as much
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: these days because I think it's sort of a waste
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of energy. But the New York Times going with that
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: headline about the like just getting spun, completely spun by
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the Trump campaign, laying out an optimistic, hopeful vision. To
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: be fair, he did He did say the words that
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: they gave to the Times in a preview. They must
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: have previewed excerpts from the speech. But when you watch
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the whole speech, he rushed past them as fast as possible.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: It was an hour and 30 minutes.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: It was so long.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Long time. Yeah.
• 26:19
  Speaker 6: One thing that jumped out to me is at some
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: point in the speech, which is long, he says something like,
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: when I say revenge, I mean America's success will.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Be my revenge.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can tell they're trying.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: They're trying to finesse it.
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: So they are clearly worried that Trump's very correctly– That
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: that Trump saying I will be your retribution, I will
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: be your revenge, that this is a real problem for them.
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: I feel like there's like a lot about like how
• 26:42
  Speaker 6: kooky and crazy was up there. But to me, like
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: what I was going back to are the parts that
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: actually come come back to extremely unpopular and dangerous and
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: scary policies for most people. At one point in his
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: sort of long and rendering rant about the border, he says,
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: we have languages coming into our country. They have languages
• 26:58
  Speaker 6: that nobody in this country has.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Ever heard of. It's a horrible thing. It's wild.
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: And then at the part where, again, he wants to
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: deploy the U.S. military into America's cities, he goes on
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: this tangent, which is a lie, about how he deployed
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: the National Guard to Minneapolis in 2020. And I'm the
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: one that did that. If I hadn't done that, the
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: city would have burned to the ground. None of it's
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: true that National Guard, Tim Waltz, Tommy's friend, at the
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: request of other Democrats deployed National Guard. But He's out
• 27:32
  Speaker 6: there starting to tell this story about how I'm going
• 27:35
  Speaker 6: to deploy the military.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I've done it before. I'll do it again.
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: That to me is the sort of I would get
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: away from, oh, wow, he called himself a genius. And, oh,
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: the thing about the prompter and cognitive decline and get
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: back to he is promising. It's not an optimistic vision.
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: It is a dark and terrifying, chaotic, authoritarian vision for
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: using power to hurt the people he doesn't like.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would just focus on the substance. Like there
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: was a big political story about the second term agenda,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: which includes the 16 week abortion ban because Trump likes
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: round numbers, as we discussed in a previous show. It's even.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Nasty deportations of migrants by the U.S. military, weaponization of DOJ,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports. Like that would
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: probably not help the economy.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Just guessing.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: 60% on Chinese imports and 10% across the board for
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: all imports from all countries.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: So not an economist. But I imagine that might hurt inflation.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: You don't like high prices now?
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Banning fetal tissue research so you can't find cures for diseases.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Dictating local school curriculums from the federal government. Like you said,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: deploying troops against protesters, abandoning NATO. Calling the January 6th
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: folks who were locked up hostages. It's probably worth highlighting.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: But yeah, keeping on the substance of what he would
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: do in term two, I do think are the parts
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: of the speeches and the agenda that will really turn
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: off voters. There's a lot of, I watched that hour
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: and a half long thing. There's a lot of it
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: that is just entertaining. He tells stories about landing in
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Iraq and jokes and cracks, you know, makes fun of
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: people and the crowd loves it. And he's being sarcastic
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: half the time and having a good time. And we
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: can't fall into that trap.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I keep I've been thinking about this a lot
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: because there's this. The truth is the agenda he has
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: laid out is extremely scary and and very dangerous for
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the country. And I think he would have much more
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: ability to carry it out in a second term than
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: he did in the first because the guardrails are off.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: He just has the kookiest kooks around him. And he's
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: going to have even friendlier courts and he's going to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: ignore Congress. He's going to have a friendly Congress.
• 29:37
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: So I really worry about that. But you also want,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I think what drives a lot of voters, a lot
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of swing voters, voters who don't pay close attention to politics,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: what drives them nuts about Trump is that he just
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: sounds like a crazy man, like he sounds like an idiot.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: But I've been thinking about, they need to like make
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: an argument that he's like a useful idiot for a
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: lot of these Like there were Nazis at CPAC, okay?
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And there've always been, since the Trump era began, there've
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: always been Nazis at CPAC. And in past years, they've
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: been kicked out. And this time around, they met no resistance.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: They were there.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: They were self-identifying as Nazis. It wasn't like a big thing.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: And- You mean like their pronouns? Their pronouns, yeah, yeah.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Their pronouns were- One was wearing a black leather jacket.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: My pronouns are air, air.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: One was wearing a black leather jacket and looked like
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: he was about to get beaten up in an Indiana
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Jones movie. They couldn't have been more Nazi looking.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: And it made me think, too, like we have completely
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: memory hold already his fucking dinner with Nick Fuentes.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Another self-described Nazi. And where Trump had dinner with him
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: in Kanye West. And then Trump said he liked him.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: And then he said, oh, yeah, he gets me. And
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I think Trump is going to surround himself and has
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: surrounded himself now with like the bottom of the MAGA barrel. Nazis,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: right wing Christian nationalists, racists, all kinds of kooks. And
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: he's kind of an idiot. And if you flatter Trump,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: he'll do whatever you want. And if you say nice
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: things about him, he'll do whatever you want. And so
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: when Trump goes off and releases this agenda and talks
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: about this agenda and then says crazy shit, it's all
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: of a piece where you put him in the White
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: House and he is such a moron that all of
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the scary, dangerous things that he's saying, whether he really
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: cares about them or not, whether he's too lazy or not,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: he's going to have people around him who are going
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to do this. They're going to enact this agenda.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: I think the other piece of that idea, there's sort
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: of the Nazi MAGA part, and then there's also just
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: the really creepy religious conservatives. And I really want someone
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: to start a PAC, we could call it BRO PAC,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: that targets, that highlights some of these policies for the
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: young men who think Trump is this cool, like kind
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: of counterculture guy that is, I don't know, it's like,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: it's fun to be for him. They need to know
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: about national abortion bans, banning contraception, banning porn There was
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the guy a couple of days ago who was talking
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: about getting recreational sex being a problem and dealing with
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: recreational sex. I suspect that a lot of- Chris Ruffo.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Christopher Ruffo, the guy who started the whole critical race
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: theory panic and then all the school stuff. Now he's
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: into no recreational sex.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Yes. So I imagine a lot of the kind of
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Joe Rogan fan, Barstool sports fan, Trump fans are probably
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: don't know about any of this stuff. And they might
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: not believe that Donald Trump himself believed any of this
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: or would enact these policies if he were on his own.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: But they need to know that if Trump is elected,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: the people who come along with him are the Chris Ruffos,
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: the Mike Pence's, the Speaker Johnson's. That's who will be
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: empowered in enacting these policies.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: And guess what? In 2020 or in the first term,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: all those people got what they wanted. Or the hardcore
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: right-wing Christian nationalists, they got their They got their Supreme
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Court justices. They got their other judges.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: They got their abortion.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: They're all talking about IVF now. Trump, you know, nominated
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: and got confirmed a judge to a lifetime appointment on
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the federal bench who was, you know, anti IVF and
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: had her on a shortlist for the Supreme Court. Like
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: this is this is what he does. He just whatever
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: they want. He's there to if they flatter him, he's
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: going to do whatever they want.
• 33:08
  Speaker 6: I talked about this a little bit with Melissa later,
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: but there is a story that basically these Christian conservatives,
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: they don't want Trump to talk too much about the
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: authority they believe he has if he's president, because he
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: can use something called the Comstock Act to, he doesn't
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: need a law. He can basically, with a stroke of
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: a pen, do an executive order that bans the most
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: common ways in which people access abortion in this country,
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: that with the stroke of a pen, we could keep
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: the Senate, we could win the House, and Trump could
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: still have the ability to And if you think that
• 33:41
  Speaker 6: he won't, then you should look at what happened with Roe.
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: You should look at what happened when this administration and
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: when the courts are stocked with these Christian conservatives who
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: do not care about the political repercussions, do not care
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: what anybody thinks, do not care what people in California
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: and New York and other progressive places think.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: They will rule over us.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: And it's important to know that the Republicans are really
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: worried about the round of stories about attempts to ban IVF,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: and they're all scrambling and trying to back away from it.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: But many of them, 125 Republicans in the House, sponsor
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: a bill that would ban IVF. It's called the Life
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: at Conception Act. Mike Johnson is a co-sponsor. So it's
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: important to tie them to these things.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's in the House. In the Senate, Tammy
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Duckworth introduced a bill that would protect IVF access. And
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Senate Republicans blocked the bill from consideration. They also they
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: all voted down the bill that would have protected contraception,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the right to contraception after Dobbs 2. So it's complete
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: bullshit what they're doing now. I do think there is
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: one reason to amplify just sort of the craziest, funny
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Trump comments that maybe won't affect people as much. And
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: I remember, I think you and Mehdi talked about this
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: last week, that there's a Biden strategy now of like
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: significantly ramping up the efforts to highlight the crazy shit
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that Trump says.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: Apparently dictated by Joe Biden himself to his staff.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and partly that's to like, scare people like this
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: is what's coming but also to get under trump's skin
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: yeah and to like it because if he consumes all
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: this stuff and you could tell in the cpac speech
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: he's starting to do the like oh and then and
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: then i mix up a name and they say that
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: i'm They say that I'm cognitively, you know, I'm in
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: decline and I'm not in decline, you know.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: He's like, they say that I think Obama is president.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: What I'm actually saying is that Obama is behind the
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: scenes actually pulling the strings because we know Joe isn't
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: in charge. Like, what are you talking about?
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: So I do think it's worth like continuing to needle
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Trump and mock him. There needs to be more mockery
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: of Trump from like the campaigns and elected Democrats themselves.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Because if you just do the scary Trump, and he
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: is scary, like you're sort of feeding into the strongman thing.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: So I do think there needs to be a little
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: bit more mockery.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree with that.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to figure out the tension between these things.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a tension.
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: I think crazy is this too kind of broad a
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: category of what we're talking about. And I think that
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: when he is silly and zany, that isn't as bad
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: as when... I think when he is legitimately confusing things,
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: I think that we should be highlighting that all the time.
• 36:09
  Speaker 6: When he thinks Nancy Pelosi is Nikki Haley, when he
• 36:11
  Speaker 6: thinks Obama is Biden, when he thinks World War II
• 36:13
  Speaker 6: is World War III, whatever... I think we should be
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: getting that out there. I think when he's just sort
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: of being kind of bombastic and almost fun in a
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: way that like.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like the Beverly Hills shower thing. Oh, the Beverly Hills...
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Was it the... Yeah, you can only shower once.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: You can't brush your teeth once.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, you brush your teeth.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Sorry. I think that stuff... Hey, by the.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Way, people already brush their teeth all the time.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: It's not a... Fluoride stuff.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: It's Beverly Hills.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of MAGA people in Beverly Hills.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where he has... There's one little red circle. Yeah, it's... Anyway.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: But anyway, I just.
• 36:45
  Speaker 6: I think that there's a certain kind of like covfefe
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: drum world where I don't care about that stuff.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: I just, I don't care about that stuff.
• 36:53
  Speaker 8: I don't.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: The two speeches that are good examples of like the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: different Trumps, the Trump that the advisors want is the
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Trump after Iowa. And he's like, you know, he's seeming
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: gracious and he's not saying anything nasty about his opponents.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: And he's like, and he said, remember, he was like,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: wouldn't it be nice if we could all come together,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: not just Republicans as a party, but Democrats and liberals?
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's all bullshit, but that's what his advisors want.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: What they don't want is angry Trump like he was
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: after New Hampshire. And I think if you can get
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: under his skin and make him like sort of lash out,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: that's not, that's damaging.
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: I think that's the distinction. And the point, by the way,
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: when you say like, have there been examples where Trump
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: has shown the discipline they want?
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: It's that speech.
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: And the good news is his, like all of us,
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: he only has a certain amount of discipline in his
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: little discipline meter every day.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And his goes down fast.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: But I never had much to begin with. I actually honestly, I.
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: Think it's a mirror of what we're talking about with Biden,
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: where when Trump is angrily defending himself, when he sees
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: that to me is actually where you have the sweet
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: spot of both, where he's the angry. Yes, it captures
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: some of the danger, but it's also makes him seem
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: kind of kooky and not up to the job like
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: that to me.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Like angry, angry, crazy is good.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Kooky old narcissist is a is a is very damaging
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: to Trump. I think it's from a character perspective. I
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: think the policy, there's a lot of policies that are
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: damaging that we should amplify. But when he there's a
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: reason why they changed the speech so that it's not
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: like I'm out for, I'm proudly out for revenge and blah, blah, blah, retribution.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Now they're, it's almost like they're, they know that it's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: like Stephen Miller has been writing these speeches with Donald Trump.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: And you can imagine that some other advisors are like, okay,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: easy on the, easy on the, uh, yeah.
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: There's a, there was a line in the speech at
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: CPAC where he says like, I believe in America, that'll
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: be richer, stronger, safer, more prosperous. And it honestly could
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: be fucking lifted out of a Hillary Clinton speech from
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: like 2009. And like that, the part where I think
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: that's what they want him to be kind of living in.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: The South Carolina, do you guys watch South Carolina speech?
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: It was like 22 minutes. It was, it started super dark.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: Like migrants are coming from mental institutions and they're terrorists
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: and the border is the worst. And then he just
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: did 15 minutes of acknowledgements.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: He's really, the acknowledgements so far this campaign have been really,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: at CPAC it was like a full 10 minutes at
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: the beginning.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Including calling Lindsey Graham a lefty. And then Graham got booed.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: It was very awkward.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: At the beginning of the feedback, he's calling out, like, oh,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Seb Gorka, I almost forgot you. I almost forgot you
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: at the end. Good thing you're tall. I said, why
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: are you calling out Seb Gorka?
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: He was calling out these right-wing leaders like Javier Mille
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: and the president of the Vox Party in Spain and Bolsonaro.
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: Seb Gorka from the very beginning of the administration when
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: it turned out he had been a member of a
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: Hungarian right-wing.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That was the days of oopsie-doopsie, I joined a
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Nazi group. Oh, I forgot about that. One of my favorites. Oopsie-doopsie.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: All right, so there's always a straw poll at CPAC where,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump beat Haley by Saddam Hussein margins, 94
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: to 5. So all the excitement was over the VP
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: straw poll. They did a VP straw poll for Trump,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: even though, you know, he hasn't actually locked up the nomination.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: And the two top finishers were South Dakota Governor Kristi
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Noem and Vivek Ramaswamy. They both got 15%. Pretty good.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Straw polls are generally meaningless, though Trump was apparently paying
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: close attention to this one. He likes to know what
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the CPAC folks are thinking.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: We love the CPAC data.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: You guys have any initial thoughts on the Trump veepstakes?
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: We've been real responsible. We've stayed away from it so far.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: But now I think we can dip our toes in
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the water a little bit.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Look at us.
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: I feel like the idea that Trump wants to spend
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: more than the... absolute fucking bare minimum amount of time
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: he has to spend with Vivek Ramaswamy makes it hard
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: to imagine Vivek getting the nod.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: It's just like, okay.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I think he likes having him up there, but I
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: don't think he wants to spend every Saturday with him.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: I do think this is where Trump gets the media
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: game and how to play it better than anyone. Normal
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: campaigns take the VP process so seriously. There's all this
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: vetting and clandestine meetings and you keep it secret. Trump's
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: going to float shit from now until the day he
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: chooses and he's going to use it He might.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Turn it into a game show. He might do like
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: an apprentice.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: He'll get a game show out of it. He'll get
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: these candidates to dance for him. He'll elevate their profiles.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: He's doing that.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: It's begun. It's good for everyone, right? Like if you
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: are sending Vivek Ramaswamy to campaign for you in Michigan,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: it's better that he is potential vice presidential candidate Vivek
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Ramaswamy than failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, right? So like
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: it's this symbiotic thing and I don't know. It's just.
• 41:07
  Speaker 6: I stupid my my like who fucking knows at this point.
• 41:10
  Speaker 6: But I have this belief that Donald Trump simply cannot
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: get past the fact that Tim Scott is single and
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: that his engagement seems weird to him. And that's my hope,
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: because Tim Scott is pushing himself so hard out there.
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: He's saying the Bible tells me why I'd be a
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: better VP than than a president is basically what he
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: said last week.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: So it's so embarrassing.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: It's so embarrassing and sad. If I'm a strategist on
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Trump's campaign, I am I would wager that they are
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: pushing Scott hard. And Kellyanne Conway wrote a long New
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: York Times piece about this and she floated Scott or
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: she said like Scott or Marco Rubio, she thinks it
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: should be a black or Latino candidate that he picks.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: And I could see them pushing Tim Scott hard because
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: you get, he sends a signal to the weirdo evangelical freaks,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: but he also, they would hope that selecting Scott would
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: chip away at Biden's lead with black men, which Trump
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: was able to do in 2020 a little bit. So
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I could see Scott. Now, if it's Trump, what does
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Trump feel most comfortable with? I could see a Kristi.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Noem more there.
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: Look, for the same reason that makes me nervous about
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: Tim Scott, that's why I'm sort of hanging my hat
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: on this idea that like, There's just something that makes
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: Trump uncomfortable. He gets engaged right before going to the endorsement.
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: It's all very dark.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: But also, like, don't you think back in 2016 that
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Trump also thought Mike Pence was a fucking square?
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: He got talked into it and then he tried to
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: fucking kill him.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: To fool me once.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Well, that's the only thing that he... But that's the
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: only thing he didn't deliver on.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: Pence helped him.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Like, Pence was great up until then when he stopped
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: having the courage.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: The funny thing about Trump is, like, he can't... What he...
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: He says what he thinks, right? And he keeps being like,
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know, Tim Scott, this guy absolutely sucked at
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: selling himself and talking about himself. He's so terrible on TV.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Now he's great when he's talking about me.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: He's great.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: It's like, you wonder if there's a little bit in
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: there that's like, I don't know, that he would be
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: great for selling a ticket he was a part of.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: I don't, I'm overthinking it, but it's very funny the
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: way he just humiliates Tim Scott every time he calls
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: him up on stage.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: That moment where Tim Scott- Sort of needs to do
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: that with whoever's going to be the.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Well, they have to be broken. They have to be trained.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: But like that moment where Tim Scott walks up to
• 43:23
  Speaker 6: the podium after Trump says, I bet this guy fucking
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: hates Nikki Haley. And Tim Scott walks up next to
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: him and Trump goes, uh-oh.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: He's like, oh no, I love you.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I love you.
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: And then there's that clip where he's like, on this
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: Valentine's Day, let's show our love. And he always puts
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: the fucking J in, the Donald J Trump. I just,
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump's fucking... weirdo Christian meters going off. He's from
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: New York City.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Can't take it out of him. But look, he went
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: with Mike Pence.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Above all, he wants to win.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 43:57
  Speaker 8: All right.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Enough of this. Before we go to break, as you
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: probably know by now, the three of us wrote a
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: book called Democracy or Else, How to Save America in
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: 10 Easy Steps. We're only four months away from you
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: all having a copy of the book in your hand.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: But maybe the lure of a reasonable page count loaded
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: with illustrations isn't your thing. Well, we've got you covered.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: We're about to hunker down for, let's be honest, it's
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: going to be a tedious eight hours that we'll never
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: get back to bring you Democracy or Else as an audiobook.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: We're going to record the audiobook. It's perfect for the
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: avid listener who loves this pod but wishes it could
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: just be four hours longer. Head to crooked.com slash books
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and pre-order now. You can get hard copy now. You
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: can get your audio book.
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: How are we each reading for eight hours, and the
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: book is only four hours longer than this pod?
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe we can cut it down. Okay. Anyway, that seems
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: like an off-mic thing that we can figure out. When
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: we come back, Lovett talks to Melissa Murray and Andrew
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Weissman about their new book, The Trump Indictments.
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: I don't know the difference between off-mic and on-mic anymore.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: Me neither.
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: Lots of legal shenanigans to cover, so let's dive in.
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: Joining us now, NYU law professor and co-host of Strict Scrutiny,
• 45:21
  Speaker 6: it's Melissa Murray, and former federal prosecutor and host of
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: the podcast Prosecuting Donald Trump, Andrew Weissman. Welcome both of
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: you to the pod.
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having us.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Nice to be here.
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: We have a lot of news to cover, but everything
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: unfolding right now begins in the court with these charging documents.
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: You have a new book, The Trump Indictments, The Historic
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: Charging Documents with Commentary. Melissa, I'll start with you. What
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: stood out to you as you sank deeper into these
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: rich texts?
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: That's a great question, John.
• 45:53
  Speaker 9: What stood out as we just got deeper and deeper
• 45:56
  Speaker 9: into all of this alleged criming? One thing that stood
• 46:00
  Speaker 9: out was that this is a really vast tableau that,
• 46:06
  Speaker 9: taken together— shows Donald Trump allegedly committing crimes before, during,
• 46:13
  Speaker 9: and after his presidency. And I don't think the enormity
• 46:18
  Speaker 9: of the scale of the alleged criminality had really hit
• 46:23
  Speaker 9: us in that way.
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: We were sort of like, wow.
• 46:25
  Speaker 9: Before he was president, during his presidency, and then retaining
• 46:30
  Speaker 9: the documents unlawfully, allegedly.
• 46:32
  Speaker 7: Andrew?
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Andrew?
• 46:34
  Speaker 6: One thing that struck me, reading them as Melissa knows,
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: a layperson with a great LSAT score, is that what
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: always jumped out to me was the indignation of anyone
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: who has spent time deep in the facts around Donald Trump.
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: That prosecutors who might normally be quite reserved, you feel
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: in especially the documents case and in the insurrection case,
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: a sense of moral indignation. from these people who made
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: the law their life, that the chief executive meant to
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: enforce the law was so brazenly uninterested in following the law.
• 47:15
  Speaker 8: So let's just take the Florida case, that case which
• 47:19
  Speaker 8: has to do with retaining highly classified documents. And I
• 47:23
  Speaker 8: note that Melissa correctly says alleged, but this is one where,
• 47:29
  Speaker 8: you know, let's get real. They were found there. So
• 47:32
  Speaker 8: this is not a complicated case. But in terms of
• 47:37
  Speaker 8: that sense of outrage or indignation for anyone who has
• 47:42
  Speaker 8: seen highly classified documents, the idea that somebody would put
• 47:49
  Speaker 8: those in a location intentionally that is not secure, given
• 47:55
  Speaker 8: a how important they are to all of our national
• 47:59
  Speaker 8: security is the kind of thing that is really hard
• 48:01
  Speaker 8: to fathom. It's the kind of thing that when you
• 48:04
  Speaker 8: see those documents, you wish when I have, I wish
• 48:09
  Speaker 8: I hadn't seen them. I was so concerned about whether
• 48:12
  Speaker 8: I would inadvertently reveal any information in there. I think
• 48:16
  Speaker 8: with the January 6th indictment, it's easier for, I think,
• 48:19
  Speaker 8: the public to understand just how significant that is because
• 48:23
  Speaker 8: it so much goes to something that Until Donald Trump
• 48:28
  Speaker 8: was a commonplace, which was, of course, there's a peaceful
• 48:30
  Speaker 8: transfer of power. That is what separates us from an autocracy.
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: So in New York, a date has been set for
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: Trump's trial over his efforts to falsify business records and
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: hide payments to Stormy Daniels. Now, the Jack Smith delay
• 48:45
  Speaker 6: is now kind of an Alvin Bragg's gain. It's slated
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: to begin on March 25th. You pointed to the insurrection
• 48:53
  Speaker 6: case as one that really strikes at the core of democracy.
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: A lot of people have said that this case in
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: New York is the weakest or the least perilous for Trump.
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: But at the same time, Michael Cohen was already found
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: guilty at the federal level for being part of this scheme. Andrew,
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: what's the realistic range of outcomes?
• 49:11
  Speaker 8: So if he is convicted, there certainly is the potential
• 49:15
  Speaker 8: for him to go to jail. It is also worth
• 49:18
  Speaker 8: remembering that he can be federally pardoned for this. It
• 49:23
  Speaker 8: is a state crime. The judge will consider a whole
• 49:26
  Speaker 8: variety of factors, including what other people have been sentenced to.
• 49:29
  Speaker 8: It is worth pointing out that the judge here has
• 49:33
  Speaker 8: already said with respect to those kinds of attacks that
• 49:36
  Speaker 8: this is not an important case, that it's not serious charges.
• 49:39
  Speaker 8: He has issued a decision on the pretrial motion saying
• 49:42
  Speaker 8: that he thinks these crimes are very serious, that they
• 49:46
  Speaker 8: are a form of election interference, that it was repeated
• 49:50
  Speaker 8: alleged felonies, and it was with the complicity of a major,
• 49:54
  Speaker 8: I won't say news institution, but certainly a press institution,
• 49:59
  Speaker 8: the National Enquirer, that was complicit with not not giving
• 50:04
  Speaker 8: information to the public, but actually keeping information from the public.
• 50:08
  Speaker 8: So in many ways, this is the sort of precursor
• 50:12
  Speaker 8: to other crimes that we saw charged in the federal
• 50:16
  Speaker 8: case and the Georgia case. So I do think it's important,
• 50:20
  Speaker 8: and I think it's one where he could very well
• 50:23
  Speaker 8: be sentenced to jail.
• 50:25
  Speaker 9: We often talk about this case as sort of the
• 50:28
  Speaker 9: amuse-bouche of election interference, right? So- It escalates, certainly on
• 50:34
  Speaker 9: January 6th, but the roots of it, I think, can
• 50:37
  Speaker 9: be seen even earlier in that Manhattan case.
• 50:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, like in a video game, there's the first part
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: of the game where you learn the different commands.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: You know, you learn how to jump and hit. This
• 50:47
  Speaker 6: feels like that's where Trump was sort of getting his
• 50:50
  Speaker 6: routine down. Also in New York, Trump has appealed the
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: ruling of Judge Arthur Engeron that found that he owes
• 50:57
  Speaker 6: roughly $ 450 million as punishment for his fraudulent business dealings Andrew,
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: as you said on your podcast this week, if you
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: add that to the nearly $ 90 million he owes Eugene Carroll,
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: that's real money. What are the odds Trump will have
• 51:09
  Speaker 6: to produce this money, or will he be able to
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: wriggle out of it?
• 51:13
  Speaker 8: It's extremely good that he's going to have to produce
• 51:15
  Speaker 8: the money. He can take an appeal, but just to
• 51:18
  Speaker 8: be clear, within 30 days, if he has not posted
• 51:22
  Speaker 8: a bond or put up the full amount of money,
• 51:25
  Speaker 8: both parties, both the state in the N'Goran case or
• 51:30
  Speaker 8: Eugene Carroll in the federal case, get to start enforcing
• 51:34
  Speaker 8: the judgment. And both judges have said no to Donald
• 51:39
  Speaker 8: Trump seeking a stay.
• 51:41
  Speaker 9: We had Robbie Kaplan on our podcast, Strict Scrutiny, and
• 51:44
  Speaker 9: she was very emphatic. She is getting her money. Like
• 51:47
  Speaker 9: he has to put up a bond and she is
• 51:49
  Speaker 9: going like, well, E. Jean Carroll is getting her money.
• 51:53
  Speaker 9: And we've already heard Letitia James say the same thing. Like,
• 51:56
  Speaker 9: you know, if there isn't enough liquidity to actually provide
• 52:00
  Speaker 9: for the full judgment, there are a whole bunch of
• 52:03
  Speaker 9: buildings that could easily satisfy that judgment. And, you know,
• 52:06
  Speaker 9: James Tower has as good a ring as anything else.
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: Well, I was about to say, what would you like
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: to see in James Tower if we managed to take it?
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: So I've seen, I've heard pitches for a public library,
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: perhaps Planned Parenthood could get some office space. I mean,
• 52:22
  Speaker 6: there's a lot of great options for what we can
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: do with this new public facility on Fifth Avenue.
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: I think the National Archives would like a word too.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, that's great. That's great. That's great.
• 52:32
  Speaker 8: Deny it to Ukraine. Sure.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: Sort of technically complicated.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: Let's talk about the, back to the federal indictments. Trump
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: appealed the DC court's ruling that said he's not a
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: God King immune from prosecution now and forever. Jack Smith
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: quickly replies to the Supreme Court well before his deadline
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: saying that the court should deny this appeal.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: We're still waiting.
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney, she speculated that the delay
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: suggests there is a mouthy dissent in the works. That
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: was that was her speculation, because if the court were
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: planning to hear the case, nobody that would want to
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: dissent would want to delay it. I thought that was
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: a lovely bit of speculation. There's also been a debate
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: of whether or not there will be some sort of
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: grand bargain where the court rules in favor of Trump
• 53:23
  Speaker 6: on that 14th Amendment case that's seeking to bar him
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: from the ballot, but against him on immunity. Melissa, would
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: you like to do any informed or reckless speculating?
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: All of the above.
• 53:34
  Speaker 9: So I think it's almost a foregone conclusion based on
• 53:38
  Speaker 9: oral arguments and our own predictions in advance of oral
• 53:41
  Speaker 9: argument that the 14th Amendment disqualification case is going to
• 53:45
  Speaker 9: be a loser for Colorado. So I think Donald Trump
• 53:47
  Speaker 9: is going to win there. Just as a practical matter,
• 53:51
  Speaker 9: I don't think this court has any appetite on either
• 53:54
  Speaker 9: the liberal or conservative wings to have a patchwork.
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: Of ballots across the country.
• 53:58
  Speaker 9: So we said that before oral argument. It was borne
• 54:01
  Speaker 9: out by oral argument where, you know, everyone just sort
• 54:04
  Speaker 9: of coalesced around this idea that states do not have
• 54:09
  Speaker 9: the authority, although they have the authority to decide their
• 54:11
  Speaker 9: own election laws for themselves, they don't have the authority
• 54:14
  Speaker 9: to sort of make a cascading decision that then has
• 54:17
  Speaker 9: repercussions for other states and for the country as a whole.
• 54:19
  Speaker 9: So I think that's where that's going. And I think
• 54:22
  Speaker 9: given that, there is a great deal of pressure on
• 54:25
  Speaker 9: the court to find a loss for Donald Trump. So
• 54:28
  Speaker 9: it sort of looks like it's evened out.
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: But I want to.
• 54:32
  Speaker 9: Just emphasize that Joyce is likely right. Maybe there is
• 54:36
  Speaker 9: a very mouthy dissent in the works.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry to introduce that term, by the way. Or not.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Picturing Alita, for the record.
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: That's who I was picturing, too.
• 54:48
  Speaker 9: When that mouthy dissent comes out, I hope you'll come
• 54:50
  Speaker 9: back to Strict Scrutiny and read it aloud in a
• 54:52
  Speaker 9: dramatic reading like you did before for Dobbs. But I
• 54:56
  Speaker 9: do think that if there is a dissent in the works,
• 54:59
  Speaker 9: that will surely take a lot of time. But irrespective
• 55:02
  Speaker 9: of why the delay is happening, the very fact of
• 55:05
  Speaker 9: the delay matters. is just posting another de facto victory
• 55:09
  Speaker 9: for Donald Trump, right? And I think that cannot go unstated.
• 55:13
  Speaker 9: Like this court is going to present itself as a
• 55:15
  Speaker 9: hero when it sort of splits this baby, one judgment against,
• 55:19
  Speaker 9: one judgment for, but the fact of the matter is
• 55:22
  Speaker 9: the longer you take with this, the more he is won.
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: Andrew, Trump's goal here more broadly, as Melissa's pointing out,
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: is delay, delay, delay. That's what the Supreme Court is
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: seemingly helping him do. There's a story in CNN this
• 55:35
  Speaker 6: morning that basically said Trump's strategy is going to be
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: to use the Florida documents trial as a plow to
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: kind of push the DC insurrection trial past the election.
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: The scheme is Judge Eileen Cannon, who is, to put
• 55:48
  Speaker 6: it mildly, a sympathetic ear to Trump, would schedule the
• 55:51
  Speaker 6: case for summer as opposed to May. That would force
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: the DC trial later. Then Eileen Cannon discovers how complicated
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: all this is, has to delay the trial even further.
• 56:03
  Speaker 6: And there's a cascaded delays that pushes the insurrection trial
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: past the election.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: Now, it seems like.
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: There's a better way to pursue this strategy than telling
• 56:11
  Speaker 6: the press about it, especially when judges have access to
• 56:14
  Speaker 6: the Internet and Jack Smith is the lawyer on both
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: of the cases. But what was your reaction to this?
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: And what are the tools in Jack Smith's toolbox to
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: prevent this strategy from potentially working?
• 56:29
  Speaker 8: So assuming that the judge, Judge Shutkin, gets the green light,
• 56:33
  Speaker 8: from the Supreme Court, so she can go forward. I
• 56:36
  Speaker 8: think that she is not going to give, to put
• 56:39
  Speaker 8: it bluntly, a rat's ass about a Florida date. No
• 56:43
  Speaker 8: one is taking that date seriously. I think that the
• 56:46
  Speaker 8: judge has kept the May date as a blocker, but nobody,
• 56:50
  Speaker 8: in fact, is treating it that way. I think she
• 56:52
  Speaker 8: was doing it precisely to sort of screw up everyone's schedules.
• 56:56
  Speaker 8: I have a very cynical view of her take, given
• 56:58
  Speaker 8: her conduct. But I don't think if she tried that,
• 57:03
  Speaker 8: that it would work. And one of the things that
• 57:05
  Speaker 8: Judge Chuck can do is just schedule her trial without
• 57:09
  Speaker 8: looking at what that date is. It is also important
• 57:12
  Speaker 8: to know that the same kind of immunity motion that
• 57:15
  Speaker 8: the Supreme Court is hearing, a sort of separate one,
• 57:18
  Speaker 8: is now winning its way because Donald Trump had the
• 57:21
  Speaker 8: temerity to argue that even after he was president, he
• 57:26
  Speaker 8: still is immune. So he has made that motion. and
• 57:30
  Speaker 8: a whole series of motions before Judge Cannon in Florida.
• 57:33
  Speaker 8: So there's a lot of reasons for Judge Cannon to
• 57:36
  Speaker 8: just sit on this and delay the case. I don't
• 57:39
  Speaker 8: think that she's going to, even if she tries to
• 57:42
  Speaker 8: use her new date as a blocker, that it's going
• 57:44
  Speaker 8: to work with Judge Chutkan. And also remember, Judge Chutkan
• 57:48
  Speaker 8: has the argument that she had set her date. So
• 57:51
  Speaker 8: she had sort of the first claim to it. So
• 57:54
  Speaker 8: I think that will, assuming the Supreme Court does what
• 57:57
  Speaker 8: we think it's going to do, I think that there
• 58:00
  Speaker 8: is going to be that federal D.C. trial right after
• 58:03
  Speaker 8: the Manhattan trial.
• 58:04
  Speaker 9: All of it has this sort of odd Shakespearean quality, like,
• 58:07
  Speaker 9: you know, two houses both alike in dignity, but not
• 58:10
  Speaker 9: really quite because one is orange and, you know, wears
• 58:13
  Speaker 9: a tie down to his navel. It's just all weird
• 58:17
  Speaker 9: and bad. And honestly, just. unprecedented in every way. It's
• 58:23
  Speaker 9: one of the reasons why we decided to write this book.
• 58:25
  Speaker 9: This is an unprecedented situation where you have four criminal
• 58:29
  Speaker 9: trials proceeding in tandem against the same person, and that
• 58:34
  Speaker 9: person used to be the leader of the free world.
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: So the one we haven't mentioned yet is in Fulton County, Georgia,
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: where Trump and 18 of his closest goons are facing
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: trial for trying to overturn the presidential election. Trump's lawyers
• 58:48
  Speaker 6: have accused the district attorney, Fannie Willis, of having a
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: conflict of interest because of her relationship with another attorney
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: on the on the prosecuting team. I feel a bit
• 58:57
  Speaker 6: baffled by this because I don't understand the conflict. Like
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: and I'll just just not to put too fine a
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: point on it. If she were sleeping with a juror
• 59:07
  Speaker 6: or the judge or someone on the defense team. that
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: would be a conflict of interest to me. It may
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: not be optically awesome, or there may be ethical problems
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: with a prosecutor sleeping with another prosecutor while pursuing a case,
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: but it's not.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: A conflict of interest.
• 59:22
  Speaker 6: Even if they went on fun vacations to even if
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: they did have a nice time in Belize.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: What is this?
• 59:30
  Speaker 9: I mean, most of the time when you're concerned about
• 59:33
  Speaker 9: prosecutors' ethics with regard to undue interference or influence with
• 59:38
  Speaker 9: another party, it's genuinely on the other side, like a defendant,
• 59:42
  Speaker 9: a judge, a juror, a defense lawyer, not someone on
• 59:47
  Speaker 9: their own team. And again, you're right, the optics of
• 59:51
  Speaker 9: this look poor and The press coverage of it has
• 59:54
  Speaker 9: been poor for Fannie Willis, certainly, but I'm not certain
• 59:58
  Speaker 9: that this is the conflict they're looking for. You know,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 9: the idea behind the conflict as it's been ginned up
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 9: is that he is. a public servant appointed by her
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 9: and paid by the prosecutor's office out of public monies.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 9: And he is using those public funds that he is
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 9: receiving to do a job that apparently he is ill-qualified for,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 9: according to his detractors, and using that money then to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 9: take her on vacation. So she's benefiting and being enriched
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 9: by this appointment that she made to her paramour.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: But so here's what, okay, let's say I say that's
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: all true. So just so I understand, her plan was
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: first become district attorney of Georgia. Step two, build an indictment,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: a multifaceted, vast indictment using the RICO statute to go
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 6: after Trump and his associates so that she could hire
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 6: her her love interest so that she could pay him
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 6: from the coffers of Georgia so that she could go
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 6: to Belize.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: That's yeah, that's what's bothering you with that. But like,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, I don't.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: But even like I didn't seem taking that.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 6: I'm just like I was like I watched the whole
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: thing because it was fucking awesome. And like she was
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 6: awesome on the stand. But then I was like, well,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: did you pay cash or did you not pay cash?
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: Even if he paid for the trip, I don't understand.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: Don't you have to prove that she's pursuing the case
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: because she wanted the trip?
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: Am I missing? Andrew, am I missing something?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 8: So can you just also put this in the context
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 8: of what has been reported with respect to the Supreme
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 8: Court and Justice Thomas and Justice Alito.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: And the amount.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: Of money you're talking about here are.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 9: What's worse, a love interest or a Winnebago that you love?
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 8: I mean, and those are people who are paying vast
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 8: amounts of money and have cases and causes in front
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 8: of the court. And so the idea that this, which
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 8: is just the most paltry amount of money, and also
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 8: there's money's fungible. So the idea that This is not
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 8: a guy who is destitute, who desperately needed this. And
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 8: his only source of money was this, you know, a contract,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 8: which is in our terms, and of course, you know,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 8: because you took the LSATs, is low bono. This is
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 8: as close to pro bono work as you can get.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 8: So it is a preposterous legal and factual argument.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: And Andrew, I don't want to blow your mind, but
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: wait till you found out who Clarence Thomas was sleeping with.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: Because.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: that person's also affected by some of these cases that
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 6: Thomas is hearing.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know that.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I heard that too.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 9: Honestly, the prospect of if you knew who Clarence Thomas
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 9: is sleeping with just so boggled my mind.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: And the picture, it just really.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: It really sucked the intelligence right out of your face.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 6: Your brain just... I feel like your LSAT score went down.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: That was a wild trial. But again, I think everyone
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: in that.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 9: 19 defendant indictment is thinking about the art of delay.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: Like, forget the art of the deal. It's really the
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: art of delay.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 9: And Michael Roman, who is the person who raised these
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 9: allegations against Fannie Willis, he's one of these defendants. There
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 9: has already been a very extended effort to try and
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 9: use standard administrative processes to get Fannie Willis disqualified or
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 9: to otherwise limit her authority as prosecutor in That didn't work.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 9: And so now they sort of switched to this ethical quandary.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 9: Michael Roman, who is the ops guy for Trump long ago,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 9: is the one who's raised it. And the whole point
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 9: of this is to inject some chum in the water
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 9: so that perhaps this is a situation where a judge
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 9: will rule that she is disqualified. If that is the case,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 9: then it has to go to the special body to
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 9: identify a new prosecutor. There's probably not a prosecutor in
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 9: the state of Georgia with the kind of experience doing
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 9: RICO trials that Fannie Willis has that will make it
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 9: harder for this prosecution to continue in the direction that
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 9: it's been going. And if that doesn't happen and all
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 9: that happens is that Fannie Willis gets bruised and hobbled
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 9: a bit, it's going to make it harder, I think,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 9: or at least damage her a little bit in her
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 9: credibility with a jury in the event this does go
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 9: to trial. So it's kind of a win-win from all
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 9: sides for the Trump team.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 6: Andrew, have you ever had a weekend trip so good
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 6: you got a tattoo?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 6: I just thought that was a cool part of the,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's neither here nor there, but I mean,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 6: I hope she's happy.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: That's also part of it. Before, I'm just, I'm just
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: rooting for her.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 8: You know, it's just unbelievable that this is the, with
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 8: no offense, but this is like the level of discussion.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 8: We have the former leader of the free world and
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 8: that and this is also an example of the judge
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 8: who appears to be quite serious, but is really a
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 8: neophyte on the bench, should have shut this down. This
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 8: is one where maybe there's an ethics issue. He could
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 8: be like, this is for a different forum. This is
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 8: not for this case. And so you're seeing both in
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 8: Florida and in Georgia, leaving aside any partisanship, you're just
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 8: seeing real inexperience on the bench. And you can compare
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 8: that to, let's say, Judge Kaplan, who oversaw.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: The Judge, the E.G.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 8: Carroll case, was just a master in the way that
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 8: he handled Trump, he handled the jury. That is what
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 8: you really see as sort of showing the rule of
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 8: law in its absolute best light.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 9: So this is not to exonerate either Scott McAfee or
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 9: Eileen Cannon. I will say, though, the fact that Eileen
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 9: Cannon is in the position that she's in and is
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 9: doing this incredibly complicated criminal trial with very little criminal
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 9: experience is a result of politics. I mean, like Florida
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 9: has the Southern District of Florida, where she sits, has
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 9: three open district court seats, and the Biden administration has
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 9: been unable to fill them because of the blue slip
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 9: requirement in the Senate. And the fact that Florida has
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 9: two Republican senators. So when this case went in the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 9: wheel to be divvied up among the judges in the
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 9: Southern District of Florida, it was basically a one in
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 9: three chance they would get Eileen Cannon because there are
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 9: three vacancies that cannot be filled because of Marco Rubio
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 9: and Rick Scott.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: Before we let you go, there was two sort of
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: non-indictment related legal stories I just wanted to touch on.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: One is the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: over whether states can bar platforms like Facebook and Twitter
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: from performing content moderation. It seems like most of the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 6: judges were skeptical that this isn't a violation of the
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 6: First Amendment. But Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas were open to
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 6: the idea that this was censorship and that posters must
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 6: be free to post. Melissa, any reaction to the oral argument?
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 9: So I will just, full disclosure, I haven't listened to
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 9: it yet because I've been in class all day and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 9: in office hours, but that is my evening tonight. I'm
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 9: going to sit back with some vino and listen to
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 9: the dulcet sounds of Justice Alito harping on these lawyers.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 9: But the description that you gave is the one that
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 9: I've read in write-ups of the oral argument. And yeah,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 9: I'm not surprised by that. And if you've listened to
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 9: their responses in other cases, not just cases involving the
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 9: internet and content moderation, but just sort of like cases
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 9: involving religious freedom. Like this is a wing of the court, Gorsuch, Alito,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 9: and Thomas, that literally seems like it's getting an intravenous
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 9: diet of Fox News constantly. And so this idea of
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 9: cancel culture, a war on conservatives, a war on conservative thoughts,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 9: the censorship of conservatism as a disfavored ideology is one
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 9: that they are always talking about across a wide variety
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 9: of doctrines and disciplines. So I'm not surprised that that
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 9: came up today. And I'm actually just eager to hear
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 9: how vociferous and vehement they were about it.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 8: You know, this is, it's coming up again in a
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 8: couple of weeks in a case involving the Biden administration
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 8: and sort of what their role can be in terms
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 8: of the art of persuasion of social media. And there's
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 8: a real issue there in terms of how far can
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: you go? There, they obviously were doing things like they
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 8: were trying to prevent the spread of COVID. I mean,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 8: these are good things. These are science-based. And this bubbled
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 8: up through the Fifth Circuit that asked a lot of
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 8: questions about, well, you say that's science-based. So, you know,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 8: a very anti-fact, anti-science.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 9: Andrew, you have to explain what the complaint was. So
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 9: the idea here is that the Biden administration went on
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 9: social media and said, do not take ivermectin to prevent COVID.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 9: Like that's not going to work.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 8: And they wanted to have the sites not promulgate things
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 8: that were going to actually kill American citizens. And so
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 8: that was one of the many things that they were
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 8: doing that's really outrageous. And so this, again, is a
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 8: sort of far right hack. It was interesting today, just
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 8: one quick note, is there was a split that appeared
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 8: between Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Alito, where Justice Alito was
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 8: talking about how this is so Orwellian, talking about sort
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 8: of trying to paint President Biden.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: Wait, how did you listen to it? You had class
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: the same time I did.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 8: Some of us multitask. You know, it's like class.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 5: You were listening to the oral argument in class?
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 8: So, you know, some of us, you know, really can
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 8: do so many different things.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: But anyway, so.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 8: So let me just, just, uh, Kavanaugh responded to that
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 8: saying it's not Orwellian. This is a private actor. This
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 8: is not the state doing it. And so it is
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 8: completely different and it's not Orwellian. So it'll be interesting
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 8: to see, you know, how that sort of, the sort
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 8: of right part of the, you know, the right conservative
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 8: meaning part of the court, you know, where they sort
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 8: of split off.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 6: And then one last question for you, Melissa, um, Hey,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 6: is that a child in your freezer or are you
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: just happy to create a Christian theocracy?
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: So the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling, says embryos
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: are kids, just too small for big wheels.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: That's the only issue.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: Basically shuts down IVF in Alabama. I want to just
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 6: get your reaction to the ruling, but one thing I
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: wanted to step back and ask you about, basically there's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 6: been this cycle and the cycle is Legal scholars like
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 6: you say they're going to overturn Roe. Conservatives try to
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 6: say they won't. Others say it's hysterical. They overturn Roe. Say, oh,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 6: this is going to lead to IVF rulings. This is
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 6: going to lead to women being in parking lots, unable
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 6: to get health care, even if they don't want an abortion.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: They say that's hysterical. Then it happens.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 6: I'm curious where you see this going next. And if
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 6: you can talk about the next step that people are
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 6: going to say isn't going to happen, whether it's a
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 6: federal ban, at the executive level or what have you?
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 9: So thank you for acknowledging the fact that I have
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 9: said all of this and I've been right, even though
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 9: all of these men have said that we were hyperbolic,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 9: that this was hysterical. I was right about all of
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 9: these things. I called them all a long time ago.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 9: And this is not like a fight with my husband.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 9: I take no pleasure from being right here, but I was.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 9: And as far as you can keep that in, as
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 9: far as I can tell, The only place this can
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 9: logically go is some recognition, whether constitutionally or statutorily, of
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 9: the fetus as a person. And I said that after Dobbs. Like,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 9: this idea that Dobbs simply returned this to the states
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 9: for deliberation by the people, that didn't make any sense.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 9: If you believe abortion is murder, you can't be okay
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 9: with California allowing it. Like, so there was never going
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 9: to be a tenable settlement between by leaving this at
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 9: the state. So the end game, and they've been very
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 9: upfront about it, is fetal personhood. They've been very fetal
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 9: personhood forward. The Dobbs opinion has all kinds of fetal
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 9: personhood Easter eggs. And so I think we are going
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 9: to be moving to a moment where the question is
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 9: going to be called, is the fetus a person for
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 9: purposes of constitutional law or for purposes of statutory law
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 9: and both? And This is going to play out, I think,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 9: in the next election cycle. There was reporting in The
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 9: New York Times last week where Jonathan Mitchell, who was
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 9: the architect of Texas SB8 and also the person who
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 9: argued on behalf of Donald Trump in the disqualification oral
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 9: argument before the Supreme Court, he essentially said that, He
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 9: really hopes Donald Trump does not know about the Comstock Act.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 9: The Comstock Act is an 1873 law that prohibited the
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 9: transmission in interstate commerce of any, quote unquote, articles that
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 9: could be used for immoral purposes, including information or materials
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 9: that could be used to advise individuals about how to
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 9: have an abortion or actual aborto-facients. And the law has
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 9: basically been in destitute for, oh, like, since the 1950s.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 9: No one's really been prosecuting anyone under the Comstock Act,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 9: but it's still on the books. And so Jonathan Mitchell's
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 9: point was, everyone's talking about this national ban. Are we
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 9: going to have a national ban? And Donald Trump is like,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 9: I would never support a national ban. He doesn't have
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 9: to because Comstock is waiting in the wings. And even
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 9: if they don't actually get to the point where they're
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 9: going to enact a national ban on abortion, they can
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 9: still resurrect this zombie law, the Comstock Act, and use
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 9: it as a cudgel that limits the ability across the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 9: country of sending the materials for medication abortion, of going
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 9: back and forth in interstate commerce for abortion services. They
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 9: can do everything that they could do with the national
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 9: ban with the Comstock Act and They're probably going to.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 9: So I say this over and over again. This next election,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 9: the Supreme Court is on the ballot once again. Thomas
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 9: and Alito are septuagenarians. They are in their 70s. If
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 9: there is a Republican president, they will step down and
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 9: go off to their Walmart parking lots to sit in
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 9: their Winnebago's and salmon fish for hours and hours. And
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 9: when they do, that Republican president will replace them with
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 9: literal teenagers, like younger than Eileen Cannon. And this conservative
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 9: supermajority will literally last for another generation and a half.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 5: Those are the stakes.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: Those are the stakes.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 6: But until then, if you have some time, you should
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: pick up this book. The book is The Trump Indictments,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: the Historic Charging Documents with Commentary by Melissa Murray and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 6: Andrew Weissman, two friends of the pod.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: That's right. You heard me, Melissa. You're both friends of
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: the pod now. How do you feel about that?
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: I mean, I've known you longer. That's all I'm going
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: to say.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 6: I mean, I'm not saying we're not closer. I'm not
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 6: saying you're sitting, you're sitting to my, you're sitting closer.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: To my table at the wedding.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 5: I did take you to Belize, okay?
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: Next year in Belize. Thank you both so much. That
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: was great. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having us.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Melissa and Andrew for joining us today. We'll
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: have a new pod for you on Wednesday. I will
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: be hosting with Mehdi Hassan will be back on the pod. Bye, everyone.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: slash friends. And if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: Wakeem is our senior producer. Reed Cherlin is our executive producer.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, Kirill Pelleviv, and Molly Lobel. What if millions
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: of Black Americans had been repaid for slavery? Join MSNBC's
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: Trimane Lee as he explores the untold story of one
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: of the only Black Americans who ever was. He talks
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: to his descendants and discusses how reparations forever changed their
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: family's trajectory and imagine a reality where reparations are granted
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: to many others. Into America presents Uncounted Millions, The Power
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: of Reparations, a Black History Month series. New episodes drop Thursdays.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: Search for Into America to follow and listen to the series.