Latest / Pod Save America / “Kevin at the Gaetz of Hell.”

Transcript

“Kevin at the Gaetz of Hell.” · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's show, Kevin McCarthy is still trying to make
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: fetch happen. Donald Trump belatedly tries to help his fellow loser.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden basks in the glow of bipartisan achievement. Then,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Elijah and Dan take on the undefeated champion of two
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: takes and a fake in a special Fox News edition.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: But first, the Crooked Store is having a post-holiday sale.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Shop bestsellers and more and get up to 75% off.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Just go to crooked.com slash store to shop.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Can I read you a text I got yesterday while
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: I was preparing the outline for this podcast?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Sure. Yes, please.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: It's from the Crooked store. And here's what it says.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: We won't be restocking these. Yes, we Dan t-shirts are
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: leaving the store for good. I just have to say.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: That is tough. It's a weird way to find out.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: That's a tough. I was just using my Yes We
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Dan mug just the other day. And I was about
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: to say that, look, we can't always get what we
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: want from the cricket store, even if you started the company.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: This Fueled by Negative Energy phone case I just got
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: last week. I've been trying to get it for months.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It's about offline.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Look, the supply chain remains an issue.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: But it's great. Everyone should get one of these. Okay.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Let's get to the news. Kevin McCarthy's co-workers have now
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: declined to give him the promotion he's been looking for
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: seven different times over the last three days. But Kevin
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: McCarthy is still in the race, maybe because he's got
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: almost nothing left to lose and thinks this job is
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: the only thing that will give his life meaning. McCarthy
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: has 201 Republican votes. He needs 17 more to win
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: a majority, but 21 Republicans have declined to vote for
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: him multiple times now. He needs just about all of
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: those no votes to flip to yes. McCarthy's team has
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: now made just about every concession possible. Last night, McCarthy's
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: favorite super PAC agreed to stop spending money in open
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: seat primaries and safe Republican districts, so long as the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Freedom Caucus-aligned Club for Growth super PAC would support McCarthy
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: for speaker. Kevin then gave in to the holdouts completely
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: on the motion to vacate, which he reportedly said he's
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: okay with just one person trying to fire him, on
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: committee seats, on just about everything. It has thus far
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: earned him zero votes. There was a lot of talk
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: last night that all these reported concessions might flip a
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: few votes today. That did not happen, at least on
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the seventh ballot. I think as we're recording, they're moving
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: on to the eighth ballot. So Kevin's not speaker yet,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: but I will admit, his team's message is compelling.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: McCarthy has now lost six times in a row.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: What's next?
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Well, you can look at it that way, or you
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: can look at it from the perspective that Kevin McCarthy
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: won the vote among Republicans over 200 members to 26 times.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a mathematician
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: to figure out that's a landslide victory within the Republican conference.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: That was not a rocket scientist, nor was it a mathematician.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: What's going on, Dan? How much of this is about
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: my Kevin, whose nickname you've changed to no one's Kevin,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: which I had a good laugh about when you sent
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: the outline. And how much of it is about the
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: larger divisions within the Republican Party?
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: What is happening now is certainly partially about Kevin and
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: his personal deficiencies, because this is not just he's struggling
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: to get 2018. it is that he is engaging himself
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: in a historic embarrassment for Kevin McCarthy, for the country,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: for the House, the Republican Party. It's an absolute clusterfuck.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: And that is because of him for a couple reasons. One,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: as you guys talked about on Tuesday, these members don't
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: trust him. And they don't trust him not because they
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: think he lies. Republicans don't care about lying. Those people
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: love Donald Trump. That's not the issue. They don't trust
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: him because he stands for nothing. Kevin McCarthy has no
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: ideological principles, or policy preferences. John Boehner climbed the ladder
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: to be Speaker because he really wanted to help corporations.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Paul Ryan climbed the ladder to be Speaker because he
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: wanted to take money and healthcare away from poor people.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy climbs the ladder because the ladder's there. He
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: just wants to be Speaker. He has no idea what
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: he wants to do with it. He doesn't care how
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: much power he has. All he wants to do is
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: update his LinkedIn page to say Speaker. And so why
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: would you trust that person? He is He was for
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Trump when it helped him. He was briefly against Trump
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: after January 16th. Then he was for Trump again for
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: immigration reform, then against immigration reform. These members know that
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: he cannot be trusted to abide by any deal he does.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: So that's problem one. Problem two is, and there's no
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: nice way to say this, he's stupid. And getting... I mean,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: he's a famously stupid. Everyone in Washington knows it. They
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: talk about it all the time. It is well known.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: No one goes to Kevin McCarthy and asks him about
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: policy or anything else. He's not a smart person. And
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: he's sort of well known in Washington as an affable doofus.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: And he has lived on his affability in a party
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: that sort of reveres doofusery. And so he.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: And becoming speaker in this party with this narrow or majority...
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: really does require figuring out how to thread the needle.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: And figuring things out is not his forte. So someone
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: else might have done a better job or avoided this
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: in some way. So Kevin McCarthy did not. There is
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: a problem that is bigger than Kevin McCarthy that probably
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: would have bedeviled any person trying to move from minority
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: leader to speaker. And that is, and it's sort of,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: it is a microcosm of the problem with the party,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: which is you've got a bunch of D.C. establishment Republicans
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: who want to pal around with lobbyists and raise money
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: from corporations and pretend it's the Reagan years or the
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Bush years or whatever else. But they represent a party
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: that is fueled by nationalism or populism that is really
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: not about any sort of ideology or anything else. It's
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: about anger and grievance. And that anger and grievance turns
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: on the establishment. It's how Donald Trump won and it's
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: why Kevin McCarthy is in trouble. And he's trying to–
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: every Republican who has tried to have one foot in
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: the establishment– And one fort in MAGA world has been
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: ripped in half. And that is what's happening to Kevin
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: McCarthy on television on a daily basis now.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's not just that he's establishment, it's that
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: he's been in leadership for a long time. And a
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: lot of these people like your Lauren Boebert's and your
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Matt Gates's and all them, like they just need a
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: villain all the time. And it's easiest for them to
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: have the villain be the Republican leadership in the house
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: that has, you know, screwed them over or, you know,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: they're just going to blame them for all the party's problems.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: And so he just happens to be there, the affable doofus. Yeah,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the affable thing is interesting because people in Washington say
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: that he's, like, broadly well-liked within the party. But, like,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: he's liked. No one really is afraid of him. No
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: one really loves him. So it's like when you don't have, like,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: a base of people who really, really like you, like,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: would go to war for you, or who really hate you.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: That's not the way to get ahead in this Republican Party.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we all know people like this, right?
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: They're fun to hang out with. You'd have a beer
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: with them. You wouldn't call them when you're in trouble.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: You wouldn't start a business with them. You wouldn't ask
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: them to be a godparent to your child. That's sort
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: of Kevin McCarthy. You don't want him to do anything.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: You just want him to kind of hang around every
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: once in a while and crack a joke.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: What's your take on all these concessions? Like, how much
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: do they matter? They haven't moved the needle yet. Although,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: if you believe McCarthy and his allies, which why would you,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: they're saying like, oh, the votes today are obviously going
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: to be the same as the votes the last couple
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: of days. But we're still negotiating. We're hoping we're making progress.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: We're going to get something done over the weekend.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: I think it is very possible that a deal like
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: the one that you mentioned that's been outlined in all
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: of the various tip sheets and news coverage this morning
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: could move some of those 20 votes forward. to McCarthy.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: But you have to understand that the opposition is not monolith.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: You have a couple of people who just have a
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: personal vendetta against Kevin McCarthy. Bob Good from Virginia is
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: one of them. McCarthy opposed him in the primary, was
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: apparently a huge dick to him when he won the
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: primary and then came to Congress. Bob Good is not voting.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: He has said this a thousand times.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: He's not voting for Kevin McCarthy. In fact, this morning,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Bob Good said, don't ask me again. If I'm voting
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: for Kevin McCarthy, because I will never vote for Kevin McCarthy.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: So he, I think he's, this guy, this guy's not
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: on the fence. Yes.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Then there is Chip Roy, who is apparently a real
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: person and not someone invented by.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Who's Ted Cruz's chief of staff.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, which is obviously qualification enough. Who represents the
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: freedom caucus and his issues and the, and the group
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: he's issuing is they want to, more power, influence, and
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: leverage of McCarthy, the ones pushing for the motion to vacate.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Some of these concessions could bring some of those people over.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: And then you have, and this is McCarthy's huge problem,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: is you have a group of people who are the
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: MAGA media Republicans. Gates, Boebert, Gosar, these people are in
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: it for the lulz. They don't care about anything else, right?
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: They just, they want to get attention. This is good
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: for attention. And if he can't get the MAGA media Republicans,
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: he needs every single other person to get there. And
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: the math gets very, very hard. Now, dynamics could change
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: if you get down to the point where there are
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: only four or only five people left and there were
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: one vote away. There's a lot you can do that's
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: pretty sketchy with committee seats and super PAC funding, those
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: other things to get that one vote. But the math
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: looks very hard, even if he were to peel off
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: the Chip Roy, Chip Roy, Roy Chip, whatever his name is,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Chip Roy faction.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So if you're taking this from Kevin McCarthy's point
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: of view, it seems like the play here is give
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: away the store to Chip Roy and and his gang
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: of holdouts. So you make every concession possible that they want.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Chip Roy brings about 10 people along with him. This
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: is all the optimistic scenario. So now you get the
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: first shift in the next ballot, or maybe this is 9th, 10th,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: 11th ballot, whatever it may be. And now there's all
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: these stories about momentum on McCarthy's side because he just
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: brought over 10 holdouts. And now you put even more
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: pressure on the Never Kevins and you say, okay, all
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: these other people decided to compromise and they got everything
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: they want. And Kevin gave everything away. Like, why are
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: you six, five or six still holdouts right now? But again,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: like maybe you pick off one or two of those holdouts.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: I guess that's all you would need at that point
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: with some kind of great job. And like, you just
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: assume that those people don't have principles anyway. So like, and, and,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: and aren't able to be shamed.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Anyway so like what do they care if they drop
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: their opposition that late after they've said they'll never vote
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: for kevin i i think that's probably his best that's
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: what he's hoping right now.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: He also need even if the getting this deal with
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: the once again the chip roy faction which is a
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: statement we're actually saying out loud in america with the
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: chip faction uh doesn't get him to the speakership, it
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: gets him momentum. Because if he gives everything away and
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: makes no ground, we're not that far from the people
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: who support him saying, we're stuck. Let's go try someone else.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Steve Scalise, Elise Stefanik, or someone else who can get
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: over the hump. This is basically what happened to McCarthy
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: the last time he tried to be speaker, is he
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: couldn't get there. And then they went to Paul Ryan
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: and got Paul Ryan to agree because they thought he
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: could get the votes. And- So he's just trying to
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: hold on through the weekend right now.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: What does the House look like with these rules and
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: concessions in place, whether it's Kevin McCarthy, a speaker who's
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: just given everything away and somehow got there, or you
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: would assume that if they find an alternative speaker, that
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: person will still abide by all these concessions and rule
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: changes that the holdouts asked for?
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I think it looks a little bit like a scene
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: from Mad Max Fury Road. No one's in charge. Kevin
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: McCarthy is always one single vote away from losing his job.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Anger.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Think of it this way. Matt Gaetz. Anger Matt Gaetz.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Matt Gaetz makes a motion in Kevin McCarthy. We have
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: to do this whole shit show all over again. And
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: so this is whatever... The speaker has got– every subsequent
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Republican speaker has gotten weaker than the previous one. And
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Kevin McCarthy will be the weakest speaker in American history
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: and will have no capacity to serve as a bulwark
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: against the most dangerous impulses of the most dangerous faction
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: in American politics. And essentially just he's like a revolving door.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: He's just not really stopping anything. It's just going around
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: and around. And so on things like the debt, this
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: is really only going to matter on two major issues substantively,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the debt ceiling and government funding. And everything else is
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: a bunch of annoying marginalia around, are we investigating Hunter Biden,
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: his laptop, the Biden pets, whatever. Like that's all just,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: that's just all for show. They can't pass a law.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: They can't remove Joe Biden or a cabinet secretary from office.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: All they can do is make noise. And they're going
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: to make similar amounts of noise, whether Kevin McCarthy is
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: the speaker, whether there's five votes on the motion to
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: vacate or six votes. But on the stuff that really matters,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: the stuff that could deeply damage the economy, that could
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: hurt people, that's where it gets very scary very quickly.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: And what people should know is you need a majority
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: in the House to obviously pass the government funding bill,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: to keep the government funded and prevent it from being
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: shut down, to lift the debt ceiling. Because if you don't,
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: the whole entire economy will crash. So you need a
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: majority to do both of those things. I'm sure some
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: people are wondering like, well, what if all the Democrats
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: and a couple of Republicans got together and said a
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: couple of the more normal establishment institutional Republicans joined Democrats
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: and pass a government funded bill? That could happen for sure.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: But Kevin McCarthy or wherever the speaker is would still
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: need to bring that bill to the floor. And if
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: they did that with most of the yahoos in the
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Republican caucus against it, They would not have that job
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: for long is sort of the idea here. Right.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: And it would have to go through the House Rules Committee,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: which McCarthy is just now promising to stock with Freedom Caucus, insurrectionists,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: legislative arsonists. So that creates some real problems.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: That brings us to something people have been talking about
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: over the last couple of days. You hear it on cable.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: I've heard it on Twitter a couple of times. Should
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: we entertain the Aaron Sorkin ending where Republicans cut some
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: kind of a deal with Democrats? I mean, we're laughing,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: but we should. I have received this question a lot
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: on Twitter. We should sort of tell people why it
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: seems unlikely that this will be the end result.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Because the Republicans who would possibly agree to that deal
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: are currently have just left Congress 24 hours ago and
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: are currently negotiating their CNN and MSNBC speaking deals. I mean,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: there's just other if to negotiate that deal. So you
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: would need six or whatever it is for Republicans to
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: vote with the Democrats. Those people would be ending their
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: careers on the first day.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: They would be they would be primaried instantly. And that
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: would be that. Yeah.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Kicked out of the caucus. Done.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: And so now maybe you have maybe you have six
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: people who are willing to take on a primary and they.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe they're looking at the last election and they're seeing
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: all the election deniers who went down. And I don't know.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Those election deniers didn't go down in the primary. They
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: went down in general. That's right.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: That's the problem. That's the problem. So I do think
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: you'd have to have a wish never to be in
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Congress after 2024.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: And that's a pretty bold thing to come to on
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: day two of the Congress.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Right. And I hear a lot of people being like, well,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: why don't Democrats for the good of the country go
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: to the Republicans? It's not Democrats. You can't find... find
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: us six Republicans who would do it.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the same thing.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, like one of the Republicans who's probably seen
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: as the most moderate, who's in a district that Biden
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: won by the most, Brian Fitzpatrick out of Pennsylvania, is
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: like in all these negotiations with, the holdouts on behalf
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: of Kevin McCarthy trying to get a deal done. He's
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: not thinking about joining with the Democrats to do something here. Yeah.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Even if you're in a district that Biden won in
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: the general, you're in a district that Donald Trump won
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: in the primary.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Right. So that's the problem with that. All right.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: So McCarthy has also begged the leaders of the Republican
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Party for help. Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: After staying uncharacteristically silent about the chaos in the House,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump truthed up a lukewarm endorsement of Kevin McCarthy
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: that has yet to move a single vote. And the
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: pro-McCarthy congressman, Guy Reston Thaler, who might not be real,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: said to a reporter, quote, We'll see what happens when
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Tucker and Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro start beating up
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: on these guys. Maybe that'll move it. Well, yes and no.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Here's how it's playing out on Fox. A clip from
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Hannity's interview with Lauren Boebert. And and Tucker Carlson.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Is your final choice for speaker.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: And if you can't get more than, let's say, 30 votes,
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: will you follow your own advice that you are asking
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump and withdraw?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: There are certainly names that are being floated around. And, hey,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: maybe I should nominate President Donald J.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Trump tomorrow.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: But, Sean, I did watch your show last night. Is
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: this a game show? Like we're going to trade on
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: this motion.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: We're going to pick Jim Jordan one day, Donald the
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: other day, Trump the next day. Or you've got reservations
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: about Kevin McCarthy? You don't want to be ruled by
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: a man who wears a Ukrainian flag lapel pin and
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: lives with Frank Luntz?
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: No problem.
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: We get it.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: If you prefer democracy to oligarchy, if you prefer real
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: debates about issues that actually matter, it's pretty refreshing to
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: see it. Yes, it's a little chaotic, but this is
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: what it's supposed to be.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: So good. We had so many more clips that we
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: could have chosen from there, too. Let's start with Trump.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: So he originally seemed like he was backing away from McCarthy.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: He was he was quiet on Truth Social. He gave
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: an interview where he said, well, let's see what happens.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Why do you think he then decided to double down
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: on his endorsement belatedly?
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Look, everyone's got their thing. And backing losers is Trump's thing.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: I honestly have no idea. I spent a lot of
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: time this morning. You sent this question. I was thinking
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: about it. Like, what would the strategy be? I was like,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: what am I doing? It's like whatever. There's no whoever
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: the last person whisper in Trump's ear is probably some
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: advisor of his who also gets paid by the McCarthy
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: super PAC who's getting him to do it or something
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: getting paid there's no logic in Trump why does Trump
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: care he backs McCarthy today McCarthy loses he backs the
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: next guy that guy loses backs the next one they
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: claims victory like it doesn't really for Trump it doesn't
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: really matter he's gonna back the winner in the end
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: no matter what.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I think he also it's a reflection like a reflection
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: that deep down somewhere in that empty brain, um, he
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: knows that he needs people right now that he's like,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: there's only five, uh, or six never Kevins for sure.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: In the whole Republican conference, like Marjorie Taylor green is
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: with Kevin McCarthy. So I think that, and Trump does
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: not exactly have a, uh, a whole bunch of endorsements
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: from Republicans since he has announced his third run for presidency, uh,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: So I do think it's a reflection that he thinks,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: I probably need some of these people.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: The rest of that party is just okay, right? A
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: few never Kevins and a lot of okays.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. So why do you think not one of
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: the 20 holdouts seem to care that Trump weighed in
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: for his Kevin?
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: I think we are learning over the course of this
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: past election and everything about Trump post-presidency is that he
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: has a lot less influence than we think. He can
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: break a tie among two MAGA candidates with his base
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: by giving that person attention. And if you're sort of like, well,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I like the MAGA-sounding hedge fund guy from Connecticut, and
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: I like the celebrity TV doctor from New Jersey, which
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: one's Trump for? He's a tiebreaker. But in this situation,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: he's not– the movement has moved on from him in
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of ways. And you see that here, where
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: it's– The incentives that have a lot of these people
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: opposing McCarthy have very little to do with Trump. They
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: are consistent with all of Trump's strategies and messaging and
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: general way of operating, but they don't require Trump. And
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: that's really probably Trump. The scariest thing is that he
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: may now be ancillary to the MAGA movement. And if
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: that's the case, that's going to pose real, real challenges
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: for him in a primary against some other candidates who
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: can claim a MAGA-esque label.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say, you know, Lauren Boebert was asked
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: by Hannity later in that interview about the Trump thing.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: And she said, you're not going to you're not going
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: to split me from my favorite president. Like, we just
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: have a difference of opinion here. And then Matt Gaetz
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: on the seventh ballot happened just before we started. did
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: vote for Donald Trump for speaker.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: Steve Bannon today called for people to make Trump the
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: speaker on his podcast, which I did not listen to.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: I just saw the clips via Media Matters or someone.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Because you figured Tommy would give us the.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait till Tuesday to get an update
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: on what Bannon's been saying, so I had to dig in.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Gates did tell reporters just now that this all ends
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: either with McCarthy deciding to, quote, withdraw from the race
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: or or agrees to a, quote, straight jacket agreement that
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: fully constrains him as Speaker.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: That's actually probably the most positive piece of news McCarthy's
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: received all day.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I'll take the straight jacket. As long as I get
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: the bust that it says that I was Speaker and
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: I get the office, I'll do it in a straight jacket.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I could see it.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: At Georgetown University, my alma mater, in the old basketball gym,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: they put up a jersey for everyone who makes the NBA.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: even if you only make it for like one year.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: And I think McCarthy knows he's going to get a portrait.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: If he's just speaker for like six minutes, he gets
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: his portrait up in the hallway. And then, you know,
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: who's going to remember in 10, 15, 20 years that
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: he was speaker for six minutes, right? He'll still be
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: up there.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: We can barely remember what happened in the second ballot.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: What do you make of the MAGA media split? Like,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: it seems like most of them are on McCarthy's side, Hannity, Ingram,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Ben Shapiro, a lot of the Fox people, except for Tucker.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: But they don't seem to be moving the needle with
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: the holdouts.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: This isn't really about people. It's not about voters. It's
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: not about the Fox News audience. They're not going to
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: pick up the phones and start dialing in on behalf
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: of Kevin McCarthy. This is a real small– like this
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: is sometimes where congressional politics separates from larger politics because
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: it's about this unique group of people. And I use
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: unique in the most generous sense of that word. uh,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: who have, who decide who the leader is or who
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: decide what gets voted out of committee or whatever it is.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: And it's not about actual voters. And sometimes when we're
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: like mystified, we were mystified by things that Nancy Pelosi
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: would do that maybe didn't make sense. It's because it
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: was part of our process to bring her members along.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: And so that doesn't have, they can't, they're not going
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: to be some sort of rallying cry. No one's going
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: to march on the mall and it's you know for
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: kevin mccarthy the interesting thing about that clip we played
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: with hannity and tucker is two things one i had
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: no idea that kevin mccarthy lived with frank luntz you
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: learned something new every day he.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Did you didn't know you didn't know that.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: No i did i missed that piece of information are
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: you watching.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Tucker every night no that's been reported like so many
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: times over the last couple years because they're like pals
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: and that's why like kevin mccarth frank luntz is always
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: saying nice things about kevin mccarthy it's a whole thing.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Can I, uh, reveal a secret here?
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: In 2008, Frank Luntz, uh, reached out to me and
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: asked for tickets to the Obama convention speech.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And I gave him, I gave him to him.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: So, so basically, so basically Kevin McCarthy has been renting
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: a room from a democratic delegate.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: All right. Speaking of Democrats, um, So whether or not
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: McCarthy pulls this out, I think it's safe to say
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: that Republicans have not handled themselves in a way that
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: inspires much confidence. Joe Biden had something to say about
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: this on his way to Kentucky this week.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: To have a Congress that can't function is just embarrassing.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: We're the greatest nation in the world.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: How can that be?
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Now, Biden's message has been echoed by the incoming Democratic
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, a lot of
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: other Democrats in Congress. What do you think about this message? Uh, and, and,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: and what do you think are sort of the political
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: implications of what happened this week? Do you think, uh,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: there are going to be consequences for the Republican party
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: beyond this, or are we all just going to forget
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: about this?
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: And, uh, in a couple of weeks, I write this
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: question every few months and I know the answer. I
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: don't know why I keep doing it. Of course, we're
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: going to forget about it. Like, obviously, I mean, I
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: apparently forgot that McCarthy lived with Kevin, kept Frank Luntz.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: So it's all, this is a good message and a
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: good strategy because what, we know from the 2022 midterms
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: is that voters who are dissatisfied with the way things
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: are going, perhaps unhappy about the economy, concerned about inflation,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: maybe not super enthusiastic about President Biden or the Democrats
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: in Congress, will still choose a Democrat if the choice
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: is between a Democrat and a MAGA Republican. And so
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: it is very much in the Democrats' interest up until
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: the moment we have a full-throated Republican presidential primary to
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: make congressional Republicans a body that is filled with the
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: exact sort of people who lost their elections in 2022,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: the face of the Republican Party. And so whether it's this,
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: whatever insane things they do in terms of investigations and subpoenas,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: bills they pass to try to repeal things, shutdowns, all
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: of that, is that you want House Republicans to be
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: your foil. And so this is a good way of
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: doing it. This in and.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Of itself- It's a fantastic opportunity to broaden the message
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: about Republicans beyond Donald Trump. We have not been as
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: good at doing that over the last couple of elections.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: By necessity, at least in 2020, we wanted to prove
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: that Donald Trump was a different kind of Republican. And
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I think one of the consequences of that though has
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: been that People see Trump as uniquely bad and then
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: the rest of the Republicans are just typical Republicans who
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: are they're not favorable towards, but they don't think are
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: as bad as Donald Trump. Now that Trump is sort of,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: you know, backstage, we can make the case that the
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Republican Party is still wholly owned by the MAGA wing
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: and they are extreme and they cannot govern. And, you know,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: we talked a lot in the last election about like, oh, well,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: voters care about arguments over democracy, stuff like that. The
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: easiest argument to make to voters who even don't pay
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: much attention to politics is that nothing is getting done
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: in Washington because there's too much chaos and dysfunction. And
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: now House Republicans are the face of that dysfunction.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Some will say, well, Democrats control the Senate. And so
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: isn't an argument against a dysfunctional Congress going to blow
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: back on us? And we dealt with this exact same
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: dynamic from 2011 to 2015 when we were President Obama.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: And all of our polling showed that even though Democrats
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: controlled the Senate, Voters overwhelmingly thought Republicans controlled the Congress,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: defined broadly. And so you definitely have to use the
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: word Republican here. It's used the words MAGA Republican in particular.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: But dysfunctional Congress, if Democrats do their job, and they
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: seem very intent on doing their job right now, will
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: be bad for Republicans.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Voters gave Republicans a chance to run the House and...
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: The second they got there, they broke it. The House
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: doesn't even exist right now. It's a cat in a
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: box right now. There was a Washington Post headline, does
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: the House even exist? Because look, when there's no speaker,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: we said this last pod, nothing else can get done.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: If there was an emergency, if this was an election,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: if we had just had an election, we were counting
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: presidential votes and we're in the situation we were at
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: the end of 2020, the beginning of 2021, what would
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: have happened? if there's some sort of national emergency. There's
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: no house right now. There's no house. That's how bad
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: they are at running it. They couldn't even get a
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: day in, one day of governing. It's wild. So I
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: mentioned that Biden was on his way to Kentucky. He
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: was going there to celebrate the bipartisan infrastructure law with
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: his good friend, Mitch McConnell. in front of a bridge
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: that's finally set to be mended.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Is there a metaphor anywhere?
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: It's very subtle. I don't know if anyone.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Do you think the White House planned that contrast, knowing
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: that the vote for Speaker would be a shit show?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I'm sure no one imagined that it would be this
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: much of a shit show, or very few people imagined that.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: But do you think they knew that it would probably
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: be some form of chaos in the House, and that's
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: why they did this?
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I think they knew that at bare minimum, it
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: would be a messy process for Kevin McCarthy to take
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: over and that there would be a ton of attention
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: on the incoming Republican Congress in this first week, as
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: there always is when a new Congress starts. And so
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: that is a perfect contrast between a president who gets
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: things done, who delivers for people, who's willing to work
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: with anyone if it helps create jobs and improve the economy,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: and this group of insurrectionist extremist yahoos.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: It's great it's a it's a really smart move it's
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: a great message like i actually didn't see as much
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: grumbling about you know biden appearing with mitch mcconnell as
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: i expected to but like yeah of course you're gonna
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: do that if you can right i'm here with the
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: the people know that they don't get along people know
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: they're on different sides of things but like yeah they
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: got to come together to do this infrastructure law now
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: they're building a bridge while these other fucking yahoos in
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: the house are can't even agree on a speaker of
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: their own party. They don't even need Democrats. I'm sure
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: it is the message that the White House probably wants
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: to use through, if Biden does run for re-election, as
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: is widely expected, they're going to have that message right
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: through 2024, whether it's Donald Trump or whoever the Republican
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: nominee is, and use Congress as a foil in the meantime,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: I think. All right, we're back. Before we go, Chief
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Take Officer Elijah Cohn is here once again, two times
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: in one week, because today we're going to play not
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: just Take Appreciator, but Two Takes and a Fake. And
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: I believe we have a special Fox News edition for this. Elijah,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: take it away.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: Yes. John, Dan, welcome back to Two Takes and a Fake.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: It's our take on the classic game, Two Truths and
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: a Lie. Recently, conservative media have been trying to cover
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: anything but the chaos surrounding the House speaker vote. In
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: today's game, I will read you two real stories they
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: covered instead of the vote and one fake one. John
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: is our current champion of two takes and a fake. John,
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: do you have any words before we get started?
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: No, I'm just happy to be here and play the game.
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: On this competitor, Dan, anything before we jump in?
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Look, I'm just honored to share a stage with this undefeated,
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: cannot possibly lose champion.
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll see about that. I called on the power
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: of our audience today.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Dan is the Kevin McCarthy of two takes and a
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: fake so far.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, so that makes you Matt Gaetz? Really thought that
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: one through.
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: All right, let's play. Number one. I know we said
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: Fox News. We had to go a little bit further
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: in conservative media here. So we'll start with Charlie Kirk.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: He focused on trans people this week, saying, quote, The
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: same people that wanted to bomb Baghdad now want to
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: blitzkrieg the female's body to change their nature from female
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: to male. It's the same thing. Greg Gutfeld ran a
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: segment about how the left-wing media hates America where he
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: asked the question, Emily in Paris, why not Emily in Pittsburgh?
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, number three here, Michael Knowles
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: talked about George Santos saying, maybe he's got some Jewish
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: blood back in his family line. Maybe, I don't know,
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: maybe there was a Jewish milkman somewhere in Latin America
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: or wherever. It's just a reminder that George Santos lied
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: about being Jewish.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go with number two.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: Dan?
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: So number one was Blitzkrieg. Number two is Emily in Pittsburgh.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: And number three was milkman in Latin America.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: Yes, Jewish milk band in Latin America.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: And Dan, I think you should be able to pick
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: the same one as John.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Oh, I know. I know, but that's... Yeah, no,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: that's for sure. For sure.
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: You shouldn't let him hector you out of a table.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: We're not playing for a tie here.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: That's how we play for a tie. I'm going to
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: go with number one.
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: John is correct. Two is fake. Shout out to Pod
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: Save America listener Nick Jones for that one.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: That is good stuff. That is good stuff. I thought
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: that was very funny and very real-seeming, by the way.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: And Greg Outfeld is a very famously funny person, so
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: that's why it had to be real.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: He's where I go to for all my comedy.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: America's number one late-night host.
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: He's not really.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Someone always has to point it out.
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: Round two. Some Republicans did acknowledge the mess in the House.
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: Which one of these acknowledgments is fake? Sean Hannity said,
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: If Republicans don't get their act together, we're going to
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: be screwed because of their incompetence. Ben Shapiro said, People
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: don't like Democrats, but there's a generalized feeling that Republicans
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: are not capable of making their own breakfast. People say,
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: I don't like those other guys, but at least they're
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: capable of making their own breakfast. Hugh Hewitt said, Republicans
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: look foolish at the moment. but they have a willingness
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: to engage in debate and democracy versus an increasingly authoritarian
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: Democratic Party. Which is the fake?
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Uh, Dan, you want to go first?
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: No, I want you to go first.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, you want me to go first? Okay. Yeah. Uh,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: who was the first one?
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: The first one was Sean Hannity. We're screwed because of
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: their incompetence.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go with Hannity.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: I'm going to go with Hannity as well.
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: Wow, you both missed. Hannity is real.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: So we're left with Ben Shapiro making their own breakfast
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: and Hugh Hewitt Republicans will engage in debate in democracy.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: I think it's Shapiro.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: That's fake or real?
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: That's fake.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: John? Yeah.
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: You guys are wrong on both. Hugh Hewitt.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: It's Hugh. That's a real good Hugh fake.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's basically it. Are you sure he hasn't said that?
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Did you just take that from somewhere else and just
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: put it on this?
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: It is from listener Ian. Thank you, Ian, for that one.
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: Did you fact check this one?
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Did you make sure he didn't say that? Did Ian
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: misunderstand the assignment?
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: I think the best... I laughed out loud when I
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: read it the first time. I think the best possible
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: outcome would be that Hugh Hewitt actually did say that.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: I think there's a real chance that happened.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: It sounds so much like Hugh Hewitt. Excellent job. Excellent job.
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: All right. So John is up one to zero on
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: Dan right now. We're going to go to the final round.
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: These were segments on Fox News during the height of
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: the speaker votes, which continues as we record this. Which
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: is the fake? Deep breaths. Fox News' The Five ran
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: a segment about how wokeness is causing a mass migration
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: to Florida. Laura Ingram ran a segment about a high
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: school in La Jolla, California that declared itself 100% sustainable
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: and asked the students to throw away anything that cannot
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: be recycled or composted at home. Jesse Waters ran a
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: segment about how we were raised on the lie because
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: of the food pyramid and we can't trust big food.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Man, that is.
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: These are all segments I ran early in those shows, too,
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: which is awesome.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Well, one of them didn't.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: One of them didn't, I hope.
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: Wait, wait.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: What was the Laura Ingraham one?
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: A high school in La Jolla that declared itself 100% sustainable.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: And number one was Wokeness in Florida. Right.
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: Wokeness is causing mass migration to Florida. It's not income
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: tax or weather.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Uh... I'm going to go with one.
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: Interesting. Strong choice.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: Dan's thinking. So Wokeness High School Food Pyramid. I'm going
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: to go Food Pyramid.
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: You guys are both wrong too. La Jolla, California is fake.
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: Excuse me, it's fake.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Fuck. Wow.
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: Thank you, listener at GP2K.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: For that one.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: So I lost. John came in second and Elijah won.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: Oh, I get it.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: We're playing against the house now.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: That's not really how it works, but Elijah, I mean, it's.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: One to zero. I mean, this is Elijah's best showing.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I did beat Dan, but that's, again, that's like Kevin
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: McCarthy losing the ninth ballot, you know?
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, congratulations on all the time you spent online.
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: Thank you to the listeners who submitted such great fake takes.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Wow, you know what? It's enjoyable. I enjoyed this game
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: Kudos to all of you.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Even though I didn't do as well as I did
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: in the past.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Except Ian's on probation. until we determine whether Hugh Hewitt
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: really did not say that.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: That's true. I'm going to be searching for that statement. Elijah,
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: thank you so much. Everyone else, have a great weekend,
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: and we will talk to you next week.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: Bye, everyone.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: Our producers are Hayley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: slash podsaveamerica.