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Hamas Makes War, Republicans Play Politics · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Jim Jordan gets Donald Trump's endorsement as
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: he faces off against Steve Scalise in this week's vote
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: for Speaker. RFK Jr. announces he's dropping out of the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Democratic primary and launching a third-party bid for president. And
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger stops by to talk about
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the mess his old colleagues in the House have made.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: But first, Israel is engaged in a full-scale siege of
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip after Hamas launched a surprise attack on
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Saturday that led to what one Israeli military leader called, quote,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the worst day in Israeli history, a 9-11 and a
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor wrapped into one. Hamas killed, kidnapped, tortured, and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: terrorized thousands of civilians. More than 700 people in Israel
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: have died, including at least 11 American citizens. More than
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: 100 hostages are being held in Gaza, including elderly Israelis, women, children,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: and babies. At least 400 Palestinians have also been killed,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and thousands more have been injured so far. In a
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: retaliatory strike, the Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu is calling the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: beginning of a long and difficult war. President Biden offered
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: full support to Israel during remarks at the White House
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: over the weekend.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: You know, when I spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning,
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: I told him the United States stands with the people
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: There's never justification for terrorist attacks. And my administration's support
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: for Israel's security is rock solid and unwavering.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Let's start there. Tommy, I know you and Ben covered
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: some of this in the special episode of Pod Save
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the World you recorded over the weekend. Everyone should take
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a listen. But what's your take on the Biden administration's
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: response so far? And what are some of the risks
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: you think they're worried about right now?
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think still there's another statement out today,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: a written statement is pretty much exactly what I would
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: have expected. When we heard Biden speak there, the terrorist
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: attack was ongoing. So I think like expressing solidarity, pledging
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: support makes a lot of sense. Biden had just talked
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: to Netanyahu. People up and down the food chain and
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the national security team are connected. So that's what I
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: would expect. But to your point, John, I mean, now
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: this gets a lot more complicated now because we now
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: know that 11 Americans were killed in this attack. I've
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: seen reports that say Hamas is holding up to 150
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: hostages and the Israeli government is going to be under
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: tremendous pressure to get them back, to get them back
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: quickly and to do it by using any means necessary. So,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: you know, we all lived through the 9-11 attacks here
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: in the U.S. and the U.S. response. We know that
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: short-term political incentives often are more about feelings of revenge
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: than fixing the underlying problems. And I think that feeling
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: is understandable, but I worry it's going to lead to
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: these hostages dying. I think it's going to lead to
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: a humanitarian catastrophe. We know the IDF has launched hundreds
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: of airstrikes into Gaza. There's reports already that hundreds of
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Gazans have been killed. Thousands have been injured. This is, again,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: just the beginning because Netanyahu, according to Axios, said he's
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: going to move ground forces into the Gaza Strip. The
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Israeli defense minister today ordered the complete siege of Gaza.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: He said that, quote, no electricity, food, water or fuel
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: would be allowed in. And just so everyone knows, the
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Gaza Strip is home to two million people. It's one
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: of the most densely packed places in the world. Half
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the population is kids. There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: to hide. It's been called the world's largest open air prison.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: And life is hell for the people who live there already.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: The Bush administration in 2006 and their infinite wisdom under
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: their democracy agenda push the Palestinian Authority to hold elections.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Hamas won those elections. And Gaza has been blockaded by
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Israel ever since. So there's not enough electricity on a
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: given day. The water is undrinkable. Unemployment is at like 50%.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: So there's no way for Israel to conduct a military
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: campaign in Gaza that is targeted at just Hamas. Hamas
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: lives in and among the people by design. This will
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: be urban combat. And now Hamas is saying they're going
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: to execute one person for every airstrike that hits Gaza.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: So this is very, very scary. I'm also very concerned
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: about Hezbollah getting involved, launching maybe a second attack from
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the north. There's a lot of discussion about Iran's role
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: here and the question of how Israel may or may
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: not respond to Iran directly. So, you know, the Biden team,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think they're right to support Israel in
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: this horrific moment for the country. But I also hope
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: that behind the scenes, Biden is pushing Netanyahu to urge
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: some restraint to try to limit civilian casualties and then
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: long term, We have to get back to a process
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: to fix the underlying political problems that lead, you know,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the average Palestinian person to think there's some hope of
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: living in a Palestinian state someday.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It also seemed, I saw that administration officials were saying
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: that Iran sort of wants to draw us into a
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: larger conflict in the Middle East as part of this too.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Would not surprise me. Although there's been some reports about
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Iranian involvement, how much or how little they may have
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: been involved in this. And we just don't know yet.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: And this also sort of risks the normalization of relations
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: between Israel and Saudi Arabia that the Biden administration was
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: trying to broker.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they've been pushing very hard to try to create
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: normalization between the Saudi government and the Israeli government. It
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: would involve giving a lot of incentives to the Saudis,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: but it would also, according to Mohammed bin Salman, the
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and according to Tony Blinken,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: who actually talked to me and Ben about this on
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Pod Save the World, there would have to be some
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: sort of significant steps taken towards a Palestinian state. And
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I think the politics around that get a lot harder
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: in the wake of this terrorist attack. Yeah. Love it.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Obviously, there's a broader context to this war that's not
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: always easy to find if you're just wading through some
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: of the shittier takes and debates on Twitter. What are
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on the politics shaping the Israeli and U.S.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: response right now?
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, one of the things just was striking in
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: how quickly people jumped into to their instinctive and natural
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: previously held political stances while watching something unfold that isn't,
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: this isn't like a news event that is, you know,
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: at the speed of a 24-hour news cycle. It is
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: something more in the context of like 50 years of
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: history and within hours, if not thousands, and within hours
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: you see people, within minutes you see people jumping to.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Confident takes.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: Confident... takes. And it was, there is a, I think,
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: I think part of it is, you know, you and
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: Ben talked about this, the intractability and the way in
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: which the evil and darkness of what's unfolding puts even
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: further away any possibility of a positive political solution. I
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: think that that leads people to not say what a
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: solution might be or not be even willing to talk
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: about what people believe or know but can't say in
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: a moment like this, which is, I think, something, again,
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: you and Ben talk about a lot, and you talk
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: about even when the world isn't focused on this, which
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: is there can be no end as long as there
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: is no hope for people who live in Palestine.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And the.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: Thing I found really sort of depraved in watching it
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: unfold is in the absence of any space for any
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: kind of positive dialogue or any way to talk about
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: what a solution might be, You see right-wingers going right
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: to attacking the Biden administration and misinformation and propaganda. You
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: see a ton of just virulent anti-Semitism. And then at
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: the same time, I think in some corners of the left,
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: you see a more subtle version of anti-Semitism in which
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: there is a leap made from legitimate, fair, deserved criticism
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: of Israel's abuses and cruelty in Gaza to the belief
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: that in order to demonstrate your understanding of that, it
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: is somehow wrong to acknowledge or even look at the
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: horrors and evil that Hamas is inflicting. And there is
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: an instinct that I think is really toxic, which is
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: to believe you can provide context to the murder of
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: children and elderly people and innocent civilians and look at,
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: you know, that rave where, what, at least 250 people
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: have been killed. The biggest mass shooting in US history
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: was 60 people in Las Vegas. And if your instinct
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: is to see a moment like that and believe that
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: your politics dictates, putting that in a larger context as
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: if compassion towards those people is some kind of a
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: limited resource, I think is morally wrong. And my reaction
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: to seeing this all unfold was, this is a moral abomination.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: And it's not just because it is evil.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: It is terrorism.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: It is monstrous on its own face, especially when you
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: consider that a lot of the people killed probably would
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: feel quite at home at a U.S. college campus protesting
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: the Netanyahu government and have been protesting the Netanyahu government
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: for their abuses, but also because it is in that
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: it will not redound to the benefit of a single
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: Palestinian kid. This will lead to more horrible abuses and
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: more cruelty and more violence in Gaza. And so just
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: like being willing to step back and just say, this
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: is like a moral abomination, full stop. It just should
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: have been the first instinct. And you saw from both
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: the right and on some parts of the left, a
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: refusal to just start at that place and look for
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: the kind of, to go back to their circumstances of
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: political priors.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, a guy I interviewed on Patsy of the World,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: who I consider a friend now, because we just, you know,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: we talk on DM, right? Like so many friends do
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: these days. He is a reporter for Haaretz. He moved
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: from Tel Aviv to one of these communities on the
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: border of Gaza because he covered that community in one
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: of the prior Gaza conflicts. And he was so inspired
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: by the community's commitment to peace in the wake of like,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: you know, you're in the line of fire, literally from
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: these rockets. And this guy, Amir and his wife and
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: his one-year-old and his three-year-old ended up sitting in the
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: safe room in their home, which safe room doesn't mean
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: room full of guns and supplies. It means your kid's room,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: because that's the most fortified in case it gets hit
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: by a rocket for eight hours. And they were saved
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: by Amir's dad. who rescued them. It's like unbelievable. So like,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: love it. I think what you said was really well
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: said because Hamas is responsible for what happened Saturday. Like
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: it was a terrorist attack. There's no defense for massacring
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: a fucking music festival or kidnapping kids and babies. And
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: I don't care who does it. There's no defending it.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: And like the inability for people on Twitter to say
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: that just like made my head explode. But to your
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: broader point, like you can't view this in isolation because
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: there are these broader security and political context in Israel
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: and the West bank and Gaza. And it starts with
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: the fact that there's no hope for a lot of
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Palestinian people The talks have been dead for a long time.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: The Trump administration pivoted to the Abraham Accords, which is
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: just a bunch of efforts to incentivize countries in the
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: region to cut deals with Israel, usually giant arms sales.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: But the Palestinians were an afterthought in those talks and
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: they were an afterthought in the Biden administration, less so
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: for the Biden administration. But, you know, listen, they were
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: not the focus has not been on a Middle East
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: peace agreement or two state solution for a very long time.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: And meanwhile, life for Palestinians is beginning worse and worse.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: We talked about Gaza. But Palestinians in the West Bank
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: and Israel have limited rights compared to their Jewish counterparts.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: In 2021, one of the most influential Israeli human rights
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: groups called it apartheid. Palestinians in the West Bank are
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: getting pushed out of their homes by settlers. There's been
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: settler violence. That settler violence is often protected by the
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Israeli military. And so, you know, then there's Netanyahu coming
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: back into power with the most right wing government in history,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: these ultra orthodox, ultra nationalist ministers. that he made common
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: cause with to get power to prevent himself from getting prosecuted, basically.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: But that has led to this context where people feel
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: like they've just foreclosed any future for them. And so, again,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: there's no justification for what Hamas did. But we have
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: to try to understand how the average Palestinian feels, how
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: little hope they have, and how that context under occupation
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: can fuel an armed resistance, it can fuel terrorist groups
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: like Hamas, and that we need some sort of political
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: track for a two-state solution to solve the underlying problems.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: There's no military response that's going to fix this.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think Bibi's promise, right, has been that,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: you know, his right-wing government can keep Israelis safe through,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: you know, force and through the repression of Palestinians. And
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: it couldn't, right? Like, it's not bringing lasting security to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Israelis or Palestinians, right? And, like, I just think, too,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: about the inability of people to just condemn violence, right? Like,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: if you're going to condemn violence against civilians... You have
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: to condemn violence against civilians wherever it happens, wherever you.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Like you can't just pick and choose. It seems very
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: easy to me.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I just like, like Bibi is a terrible right-wing leader
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: of a right-wing government. Bibi did not force Hamas to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: target kids for murder and torture and take them as hostages.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: No one forced Hamas to do that. Hamas chose to
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: do that. And by doing so, they put Palestinian lives
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: in danger as well. And so it was not only barbaric,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: it was self-defeating. And now it's up to the Israeli
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: government to respond in a way that is just and
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: proportionate lawful that doesn't put more Israeli lives in danger
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: as well as killing Palestinian civilians, right? So like, I
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: don't know. It's just, you know, Matt Dust was, who's
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: a Bernie Sanders advisor. I know you guys have talked
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to him a lot on Pod Save the World. He
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: did a great interview about sort of how the left
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: sees this.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: One of the smartest voices in foreign policy on the left.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Really great. And he did this great interview with Alex
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Burns at Politico. And he said, you know, true anti-imperialism
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: supports a world of rules and not might makes right.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And one of those rules are the protection of civilians.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: It's like, yes, that's just basic.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: Right before we were recording this, or a couple hours before,
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: Netanyahu spoke. And he, in that speech, talks about how
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: important it is for Israel to be united, how important
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: it is for Israel to come together. And obviously true,
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: there is strength that comes from being united. It was
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: also true when he was making common cause with some
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: of the most right-wing and despicable figures in Israel. It
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: was also true when he was trying to pretend as
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: if he could govern without consideration for the lives of Palestinians.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: In one of his depositions or interviews for one of
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: his corruption charges, he said, it's impossible to reach an
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: agreement with them. Everyone knows this, but we control the
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: height of the flames. And no, you don't.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: You don't.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: And we'll talk more about I think the way Republicans
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: are trying to turn this around on Biden. But I
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: think it goes to, I think, the fundamental way in
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: which right wing governments weaken countries.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: So as you pointed out, Republicans have wasted no time
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: blaming Biden for the attack, especially the party's presidential candidates.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Here's Donald Trump in New Hampshire on Monday.
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: They gave him six billion dollars in ransom money. Joe
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: Biden betrayed Israel. You know, when I see Bibi Netanyahu
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: come and he tries to talk them into doing something,
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: they never do it. I can't imagine how anybody who's
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: Jewish or anybody who loves Israel, and frankly, the evangelicals love,
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: just love Israel. I can't imagine anybody voting Democrat.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: The other candidates piled on as well. Tim Scott, nice guy,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Tim Scott, was calling Biden complicit in the attacks. And
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: this is all because... in their minds, the administration agreed
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: in August to make $ 6 billion in Iranian oil revenue
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: available to Iran for only humanitarian purposes in exchange for
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the release of five American hostages. Tommy, why are Republicans
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: saying that that makes Biden complicit in this attack? What's
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the truth about this, the criticism?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just a quick point, which is that
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: the Obama-Biden administration cut a 10-year MOU with Israel that
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: provided Israel with like $ 3 to $ 4 billion of military
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: assistance per year. So a lot of the reasons people
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: are being saved from these rockets attacks from Gaza are
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: because of things that Joe Biden was a part of
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: in the previous administration. In this case, what they're talking
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: about is Iranian influence. So historically speaking, Iran provides financial support, training,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: and weapons to Hamas. That is absolutely true. I think
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: the State Department estimated it at about $ 100 million per year.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: This attack from J.D. Vance and Tim Scott and all
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: these guys, this is a lie because what they're referencing
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: is a hostage swap that the U.S. made with Iran
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: earlier this year. We got back five Americans who were
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: in prison in Iran. The U.S. let some Iranians out
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: of prison. I think a lot of them decided to
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: stay in the U.S., by the way. They didn't want
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: to go home. But as part of that, the U.S.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: agreed to allow $ 6 billion in Iranian funds that had
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: been frozen in South Korea due to U.S. sanctions to
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: be transferred to a bank in Qatar. Again, this was
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: not taxpayer dollars. This is not our money. Iranian revenue
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: from oil sales that at the time were illegal, but
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: then later were sanctioned. So the money is being held
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: in a bank in Qatar. It can only be spent
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: on humanitarian supplies like food and medicine. Those things are
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: all approved by Washington. Qatar directly pays these suppliers. Iran
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: doesn't touch this money. But most importantly, this money hasn't
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: been spent yet. So even if you want to argue
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: that money is fungible, it couldn't have funded this terrorist attack.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Money is fungible.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: That's like so crazy. And clearly like Hamas has been
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: planning this for a long time. They weren't waiting for
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: like the big hostage check to clear. So, you know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: I also saw one journalist in Israel tweet that no
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: one in Israel is talking about this. No one thinks
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: this happened because it was Joe Biden. You know why?
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: They know that bad guys don't release hostages because you
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: ask them nicely. In 2011, Israel did a prisoner swap
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: with Hamas. They sent over 1,000 prisoners to Hamas in
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: exchange for a captured Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit. He
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: was taken in a similar cross-border attack in 2006 and
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: held for a very long time. So You know, they
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: get it. It's just, you know, our politics are so
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: fucking stupid. And by the way, just one last quick thing.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Remember in early 2020, pre-pandemic, when the Trump administration assassinated
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: the head of the IRGC, this guy named Qasem Soleimani,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: they all, Mike Pompeo's of the world, they all told
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: us that this was the deterrent we need, that now
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Iran would stop its malign activities, its support for terrorism.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. The exact opposite has happened. You can't kill
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: your way out of these problems.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Also, the whole fucking money is fungible argument. it's not
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: as if like the Iranian government was spending all this
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: money for humanitarian purposes. And now that they know the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: $ 6 billion there, they're finally free to redirect those funds
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to Hamas.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Finally, we can stop helping our people.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Like that just wasn't happening, you know? I mean, but
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the Republican argument here is they want you to believe
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: that any attempt to use diplomacy instead of force is
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: weakness that invites more violence. And no matter how many
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: times they have been proven wrong about this, they will
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: continue to make that argument because it's the only argument
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: they have. So they'll, so any, any, anything that was
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a negotiation, any kind of diplomacy, anything else is weakness
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and responsible for any bad things that happen.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Well, right.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: Well, if there's a, and if there's a terrible intelligence
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: failure and risk and a response that exposes a weakness
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: under a right-wing government that nobody could have imagined a
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: few days ago, it must be some Democrat or some
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: progressive or some liberals fault somewhere. There must be some
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: way in which we can protect our, our, our, our
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: understanding of the world, which says that like, a kind
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: of performance of bravado and bellicosity and a refusal to
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: recognize the value of diplomacy or even empathy. Like we
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: have to be able to protect that feeling. So it
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: must be because of Joe Biden somewhere taking a nap
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: caused all of this.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Also, the North Koreans are giving Russia like tons and
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: tons and tons of artillery shells. Are people now attacking
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump for having talks with the North Koreans during
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: his administration? No, they just they're following whatever the cult
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: leader says.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: It's also it is obviously a purely political attack to
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: gain some kind of political advantage from an international crisis.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And RNC chair Rana Romney McDaniel said the quiet part
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: out loud on Fox News over the weekend. Let's listen.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: I think this is a great opportunity for our candidates
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: to contrast where Republicans have stood with Israel time and
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: time again.
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: And Joe Biden has been weak.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: It's a great opportunity. Well, what an opportunity this is.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: She's truly like she's disgusting and she has been disgusting
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: every single day that she has been in that role.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: She is disgusting. And like that, it is like we're
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: so like a nerd to it at this point. But
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: the fact that like all of these people, these one
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: percent polling people are looking at the news, Tim Scott,
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: Ron DeSantis, all of them, they look at the news
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: over the weekend. They're like, I know what I'll do.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: There's got to be some way I can use this
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: to get in the news cycle and attack Joe Biden.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: It's fucking disgusting.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: It really was.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Republicans are clearly trying to make a broader argument that
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: somehow Biden is a weak leader and the world was
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: less chaotic under Trump. How much do you guys worry
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: about that argument?
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: I worry, I worry about it, especially like the way
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: they're doing it. Like I've seen a bunch, I've joked
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: about it, but like, you know, Joe Biden clearly fully
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: engaged on this over the last, whatever, 72 hours. Today,
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: no public statements, but working round the clock, the White
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: House working round the clock on this issue. And then
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: you see Republicans trying to make hay, like, oh, he's
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: not going to the microphone. He's not speaking. They put
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: a lid on. A lid is just that he's not
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: speaking publicly. But of course, he's working the phones. And
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: the idea, too, like all these people know what kind
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: of person Joe Biden is, who views himself as like
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: a foreign policy expert. And someone's cared about these issues
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: for a very long time. Is there any doubt that
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden as a person and a president isn't like
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: deeply concerned and involved and understanding of the importance of U.S.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: involvement in this issue and in rescuing any Americans or
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: coming to understand how many Americans were killed? Does anyone
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: actually believe that Joe Biden isn't fully engaged on this?
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Ridiculous.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I think when, yeah, it worries me because I think
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: when people see images of chaos, wars, conflict, economic instability, migration,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: they want order and they're more susceptible to the appeal
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of a strong man. And I think, With Biden, they
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: are remembering the crisis in Afghanistan and leaving Afghanistan and
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: how it seemed like the images out of Afghanistan made
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: him seem overwhelmed by the situation. And you can see
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: now how they're looking at whether it's Russia-Ukraine, whether it's
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the Middle East, whether it's the southern border, and they
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: just want people to see images of chaos everywhere. on
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: their screens all the time and say, hey, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: this guy's the president. Doesn't he seem a little old
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: and feeble and like he can't, you know, he can't
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: fix this? And so, look, what do you do about that?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Because you can't necessarily control events around the world. But
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: you can go out, you can project strength, project confidence.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: You can, I mean, it's what Biden is doing right now.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: But I think he needs to show that he is
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: acting to shape world events and not letting world events
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: sort of overwhelm him. And that requires going out to
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the microphone and talking a lot. That requires all the
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: things you'd want to do as a president and probably
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: requires over-communication in a moment like this. But it does
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: worry me a little bit.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it worries me too. I mean, I remember during
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: the Arab Spring, you turn on the TV every night
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: and there'd be like chyrons, like days of rage. I
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: think our numbers would tick down because people just saw
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: very scary images on their screens. And look, I agree
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: with you that being a part of the conversation is important.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Like talking about, you know, principles, what we stand for,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: what we believe is important. I don't think you want
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: to get caught up sort of narrating the day's events
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: for people. I think the reality is these events are
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: entirely out of his control. I hope behind the scenes,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: he's pushing BB really hard not to do something scary
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: and stupid in Gaza, but I don't know that he
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: has a ton of control. Like short term, the politics
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: of being tough and killing people. And that's really easy,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: but like ending conflicts requires diplomacy and talking to enemies,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: making concessions, and our politics just provides no space for that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: I do think the other half of this, and we'll
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: talk about it, but I do think we need to
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: be making this argument. What connects these stories is the
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: way that right-wing politics, the way it divides people, sows chaos,
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: and just the way it focuses the attention to things
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: that don't matter is so fucking dangerous and leaves no
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: space for anything other than peace through war. There's no
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: space for nuance or empathy or diplomacy that any effort
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: to compromise or think long-term or think strategically is viewed
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: as some kind of weakness.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: And all the promises of right-wing politics are empty, right?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: All the promises of peace and security and safety, it's
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: all bullshit.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Trump's messages wouldn't happen if I was president.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: That's right. And I do think part of the argument
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Democrats need to make is that a second Trump term
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: would be even more chaotic than the first. So part
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of it is reminding people of what the Trump years
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: were like. We remember very well, but maybe not everyone
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: in the country. And then part of it is pushing
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: it forward to say this is a choice between two
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: visions and this is what a world under Donald Trump
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: would look like for the next four years.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: And I do think there's also room for pointing out
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: that America right now is weaker for Republican chaos. America
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: is weaker because of Republican scapegoating of abortion, meaning that
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: there are positions in the military open, or the Republican
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: infighting over the border, or refusal to fund Ukraine is
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: the reason there's no speaker, which is part of the
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: reason there isn't a resolution right now showing support for Israel.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: That Republican infighting, chaos, right-wing nonsense, scapegoating, it is all
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: connected to our inability to solve big problems, to be
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: a force for good. I would like to see I
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: like when Joe Biden goes to the microphones and scolds
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: these fucking Republicans for not being adults. And he's the
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: adult in the room. I want that now, too.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And that's sort of you're totally right on me. Like,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't want him narrating events because then you get
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: tied to the events. But like that kind of and look,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: this is hard, right? Because it's he's not going to
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: do that all the time in the White House, right?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: This is going to be more of a campaign thing
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: as the campaign gets going. Showing that kind of fight,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I think, is going to be important. Democrats are already
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: trying to turn this argument around on Republicans by pointing
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: out that Our response to this crisis is currently being
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: hampered by the fact that we don't have a speaker
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: of the House. And Tommy Tuberville, the Republican senator you mentioned,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: is holding up all kinds of military nominations. Tommy, is
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: that fair? Do you think that can stick?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, good question. Look, we don't have a U.S.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: ambassador to Israel, Oman, Kuwait, Egypt. The State Department counterterrorism
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: coordinator spot is open. The USAID administrator for the Middle
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: East spot is open. Some of those have been open
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: for years. You mentioned this moron Tommy Tuberville blocking all
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: military promotion. So, look, it's a big world out there. Like,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden needs his team in place to manage it all.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Will it create political pressure? I don't know. Like, Tommy
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Tuberville already said he doesn't care. He's going to keep
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: his hold going. Fucking Ted Cruz is holding up some
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: of these other guys. So, it's like the worst people
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: in politics who are causing some of these things. But
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: I think it's worth messaging it and trying. Yeah.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think what's believable and also true is
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: that Republicans are– focused on their own petty grievances and
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: culture war bullshit instead of the shit that most people
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: care about and are worried about, right? It is hard though.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I love it when you talked about the fact that
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: there's no speaker and how that's holding up the resolution.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I sort of laughed when I saw that too, because
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: it's like, they're like, there is a bipartisan resolution condemning
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Hamas and showing support for Israel and it's all ready
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: to go, but there's no house speaker. And it's like,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: we're one resolution away from solving this.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: To be clear, I understand the limits of a House resolution.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: But I do think it's like if these Republicans are
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: going to spend all day pretending that Joe Biden isn't
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: doing his job while they're literally not doing their jobs,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: then we should be hammering on them. We should make
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: this the issue. The issue should be what they're going
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: to say that, you know, Democrats are weak and feckless.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Like we need to make this a debate about Republican
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: chaos and the failures of right wing politics and right
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: wing politicians to deliver on any of the promises that
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: they make.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the race for speaker because we got
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: some more news there. It seems like Donald Trump's dream
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: of holding the gavel won't come to pass after he
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: endorsed Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan in his race against House
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Majority Leader Steve Scalise. There will be a no longer
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: televised candidate forum between the two on Tuesday. It was
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: going to be a, Brett Baer was going to host
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: something on Fox for like an hour and then it
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: got canceled because everyone realized that was insane. And I believe.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: They were going to, I think the way they did it,
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: they were both going to be nude. Am I confusing
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: my shows?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Sounds right.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: So, yeah. So nude or not, they're going to do
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: a candidate forum on Tuesday. And then the, there's an
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: internal Republican election currently scheduled for Wednesday. So basically just
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: all the house Republicans get together and, internally behind closed doors.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: And I think they're going to try to have a vote.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: And it's unclear yet whether it will be, OK, a
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: majority wins or it's unanimous, because if it's a majority
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and then they go to the floor for the final
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: vote with the majority, then it helps, I think, Scalise,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: because Scalise thinks he can get just a majority of Republicans.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: But Jordan's people are trying to get it unanimous behind
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: closed doors before they bring it to the floor, which
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: then brings up the same challenges as trying to get,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: as McCarthy had, which is trying to get to 18.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's no, you know, it's the same exact problem.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: So Elise has the same voting block that, that, uh, uh,
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: that McCarthy had. So they're trying to kind of say like, look,
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: if we all come to, we don't want to do
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: the same 17 thing. We don't do the multi-ballot thing.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: So they're trying to avoid it. But, but, you know,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: but one possible twist now, Oh, for some reason, Kevin
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: McCarthy backbencher from Bakersfield, uh, held a press conference on Monday.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: And when asked if he's reconsidering his decision not to
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: run for Speaker, he said he'll let his fellow Republicans
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: decide who unites them.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: I like it. He's like, someone thinks Kevin should run.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Should Kevin run?
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: What if Kevin came back?
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: What do you guys think?
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: You guys ready for Kevin's comeback? Comeback Kevin?
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Thirstiest man in the world pretending he needs to be
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: drafted to the job. Okay, buddy.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: I want him back.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: He also like pointedly declined to endorse Scalise or Jordan. Jordan,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: not as much of a surprise that they somehow grew
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: close during Kevin's brief tenure. But Scalise is his number two.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: And usually the speaker would endorse the number two in this,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: but there's no love.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: Between those two.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: They don't like each other. They've not liked each other
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: for a while.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, Scalise has just been waiting there for this
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: moment the whole time. They both knew it. And there's
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: a lot of reports about McCarthy pushing Scalise aside. Whenever
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Scalise was given many opportunities to say kind and supportive
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: words about Kevin McCarthy, and he always found the least
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: number possible.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I get what Kevin's trying to do here.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: He's thinking like, The first two candidates are always– that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: never works when it's this close. And so he's thinking
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of like he'll just be there waiting in the wings
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: when neither Scalise or Jordan can get the requisite number
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of votes. But I think what McCarthy's forgetting is the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: eight holdouts that voted against him that cost him his job,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: they're still there.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: That Gates guy?
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: They haven't changed their mind.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: I like the narrative that there's a foreign policy crisis
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: and we need Kevin in place now.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: It's just like we need a bipartisan resolution and we
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: need Kevin.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I literally read that somewhere. It's amazing.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: BB's on the phone with Biden being like, I need Kevin.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: I can't figure this thing out without Kevin McCarthy.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Send him to the West Bank.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Who do you guys think has an edge in this race?
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And do you want to talk about how a Jordan
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: or Scalise-run house would differ from life under Kevin? I
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: I don't know. It's really unclear right now, but the
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: thing that worries me is less about the distinction between
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: the two of them and more that the lesson of
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: the last, I can't believe it's been 81 days, but
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: what worries me about it is that the lesson they
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: learned is the reason Kevin McCarthy is not speaker right
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: now is because he didn't allow the country to default
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: and he did bring a clean CR to the floor,
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: continue resolution to keep funding the government, though now in hindsight,
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: it looks a little bit like he was just kind
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: of fucked that up and thought he was going to
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: pull one over the Democrats, but didn't. But regardless, like,
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: that's what worries me. It's less about how different they
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: are as individuals between each other or from Kevin McCarthy
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: and more about what they've learned about the dynamics of
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: the House Republican caucus.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: You know what they say about speakers. The days are long,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: but the years are short.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: Oh, God, damn it.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: I'm going to ask Kinzinger. What do you think? Like, Scalise,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: to me, seems like kind of your typical, like, Look,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: it's real bad that he once called himself David Duke
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: without the baggage. We should never forget that. And there's
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: more reporting in 2014, I think, from Bob Casa about
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: how close Scalise's campaign manager was with Duke's people because
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Steve Scalise attended this forum with David Duke. I mean,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: that is really troubling. But he seems like kind of
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: a traditional politician that cuts deals. Jim Jordan is a
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: weird kind of crazy zealot. That makes me a little
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: more nervous when it comes to like defaulting on our debt.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: But I don't know.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that. Just to talk about sort
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: of like who's got the edge here, I've been surprised
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: by how many endorsements Jordan has, and along with Trump's,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: which is a big deal too. The list of Jordan
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: endorsements is longer than the list of Scalise endorsements. I
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: think Jordan has, he's going to have all the crazies,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the craziest, but then, you know, he has made a
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: lot of allies in leadership over the last, during Kevin's tenure.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing, you just look at the two
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: pitches from both of them. Steve Scalise's pitch to everyone
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: is like, Kevin McCarthy was a great fundraiser. And I
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: can also be I'm like the next best fundraiser. And
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Jim Jordan's pitch is like, you've seen me on TV
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: a bunch. I annoy liberals. And like that has always
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: worked better for this Republican Party. Well, then the other
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: than the fundraising.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: But that would be good. I don't know.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: It's hard to tell the difference between who's louder and
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: who has the numbers. You know what I mean? Yeah,
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: that's true. Yes, I think Scalia is like, I'll be
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: Kevin McCarthy, but maybe a little bit smarter. And Jim
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: Jordan's like, I am your retribution. But I don't know
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: what happens when they're behind closed doors. Because it would
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: make sense to me that a lot of people might
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: find it useful to their politics to endorse Jim Jordan,
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: but not endorse Scalia.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Jim Jordan reportedly has a history of covering up crimes.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: That could be useful. Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: That's a big part of this caucus now.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: That might be a selling point.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: And trying to overturn elections. He was, of all the
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Republican members of Congress, he was probably one of the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: people who worked most closely with Trump and his goons
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: on trying to overturn the election. So that's where we're headed.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: But yeah, to your point, Levitt, Jordan also supported, I saw,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: primary opponents for 12 sitting members of Congress right now.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: So there are people who... are in their seat, Republicans
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: in their seat, and they're like, Jim Jordan tried to
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: support a primary against me. So I don't, it's hard
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: to envision, again, a unanimous Republican caucus saying like, yeah,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: we're all in behind Jordan. Yeah, and I just- There's
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: no way he can get like the Mike Lawlers of
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the world and like Don Bacon and those people.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: Like the eight votes of the dumbest fucks on that
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: caucus are worth the same amount as the eight quietest,
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: most moderate. They just are. And like, there just isn't,
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: their majority is so slim- that there just isn't a
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: majority of the House for either one of these guys.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: So that's that's why I don't understand how it shakes
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: out and why it actually does like open the door
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: for something like for McCarthy to like throw his hat
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: in and try to fix it, even though I don't
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: understand how you get a yes to McCarthy, but not
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: Scalise anyway.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I do think that the entire Republican caucus looks a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: lot more like Jim Jordan than it does like anyone
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: else these days. And so like if Jim Jordan was
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: was running five years ago, six years ago, I'd be like,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: no way. But I don't I they're they're Pretty right wing.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: I also just, I also don't understand, like, what are
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: the people that don't want Jim Jordan want less? A
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: Jim Jordan speakership or, like, a chaotic, unending fight over
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: the speakership? Like, who gives, who blinks?
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it depends on how, like, how hard people go
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: to the mat for Jordan, who are supporting him.
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: Oh, God.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: He's a razor rat.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Was not even trying. Was not even trying.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Like that. All right.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Finally, RFK Jr. Oh, man, what a... Real cast of
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: characters today.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: This is why we can't have any fucking trains.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. announced on Monday that he's dropping out of
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the Democratic primary so that he can run as an
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: independent or third party candidate for president. There's been a
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: debate as to whether RFK Jr. 's bid would take
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: more votes from Biden or Trump. And there's been reporting
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: in Semaphore that Trump's team is actually worried about this
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: and will soon begin dropping, quote, napalm after napalm on
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: his head. That was a Trump advisor to semaphore about
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. Meanwhile, there was also a big piece in
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: the New York Times over the weekend about how outside
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Democratic groups are doing everything they can to keep third-party
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: spoilers like Kennedy, Cornel West, and whoever no-labels nominates off
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the ballot. In his announcement today, Kennedy claimed his candidacy
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: will hurt both Trump and Biden.
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: The Democrats are frightened that I'm going to spoil the
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: election for President Biden.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: They....
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: And the Republicans are frightened that I'm going to spoil
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: it for President Trump.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: The truth is, they're both right. I will say, just
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: because you all deserve some fun here, that is not
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: how the speech started.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: The speech started with a few hiccups. Let's listen to
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: this clip. I need my speech.
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: There you go.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: I can't read anything. What?
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: It's upside down.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: It's upside down, Jim.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: It's upside down.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: It's upside down.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Well-oiled machine. What do you guys think about Kennedy's move here?
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Reminds me of my favorite political moment when Judge Jeanine
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Pirro was running against Hillary Clinton and she couldn't find
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: page 10 in her speech. Has anyone seen page 10?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: That's such a good moment.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: I believe it was the day that Obama was announcing
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: that Hillary was going to be Secretary of State. Like
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: it happened quickly. And so I had to, and we're
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: still operating on facts at that time. And so I
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: was at, I was at a hotel and I finished
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: the speech. I printed the speech. I grabbed it off
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: the printer. I ran to a fax machine. I faxed
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: it to where her plane was landing. And then I
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: was done. I walked back to the room and then
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: I found on the ground page six. Yeah. I don't
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: know that we, we got her page six, but I just,
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: whenever I hear about a missing page in a speech,
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: I just go back to that moment.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Five mid-level bureaucrats were left out of the announcement.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: Hey, how dare you? There was some soaring pros on
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: that page.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: She was going through the second page of acknowledgements.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: Hey, there was, there was a lot of important words
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: about smart power on that page.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I'd like to thank my counterpart at Echo.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Was a couple of Madeline Albright quotes left on the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: cutting room floor.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: America is an indispensable nation. What if people didn't know?
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Anyway, RFK.
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Why did he do this?
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, remember when I freaked out and made us
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: talk about this idiot the first time? This was my
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: fear at the time. It was baseless. And then I
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: talked myself out of this being a possibility. But like
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: he was never actually trying to run for the Democratic primary.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: He knew that. We knew that. He just knew this
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: was the hack. You pretend you're running for president to
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: get press and then you share your anti-vaccine views. But
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: this is nerve. This makes me scary.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but this is what and I remember you saying this.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And it's what I thought then what I think now
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: is like it's if he was saying I'm running on
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: the Libertarian Party's ticket, I'd be like, oh, fuck. But
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: like as an independent candidate with no party. it's really
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: hard to get on the ballot in 50 states. That's
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: the hurdle, for sure. And it's also, we should say
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: that Cornel West, who was running for the Green Party nomination,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: which made me pretty nervous because the Green Party's on
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the ballot in many states, including a lot of swing states,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: announced last week that he's also running as an independent candidate,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: not running for the Green Party nomination. So it's like,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know how Cornel West or RFK Jr. is
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: going to, at this stage, get ballot access for, even
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: if it's not all 50 states, at least a lot
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: of them.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: Can you write him in, though?
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: You can write him in.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: A write-in campaign is hard, but it's a little easier
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: when your name is Kennedy.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I think he's going to... The thing that worries me
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: the most is that he has a super PAC supporting
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: him and so that they will spend a lot of
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: money to get him on the ballot.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: And get him on the ballot in a few swing states.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: But look, no labels has been trying to get on
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the ballot for... And they've been spending a ton of
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: money and they've been at this for a year plus
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: and they're still not on the ballot everywhere.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: They're in 11 states, though. They're enough to be a spoiler.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the issue.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: You don't have to be on 50 states. You have
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: to be in the right states enough to be a spoiler.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: You can destroy this country in four states if you want. Right.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: But I'm saying like... I'm very worried about no labels,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: but I'm saying they've been at it for a while.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: And now RFK Junior is just going to start now.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, I, yes, I find it all to
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: be just sort of like a despicable, narcissistic kind of
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: pointless exercise. Everyone involved in it should be completely ashamed.
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: But the, the, the, the thing that worries me most
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: is like that we have a politics that makes space
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: for all of this noise that like, his name ID
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: and the fact that there are all these sort of
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: avenues for someone with these anti-vax, like conspiracy theory views,
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: like that there are all these sort of like organs that, that,
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: that exists to kind of get that in front of
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: a lot of people's eyeballs. It just like, we don't
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: have a good way to like keep like to tamp
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: down this kind of noise. And in a world where
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: we're going to be in an election with a, that
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: could be decided by 30,000, 40,000 votes. I worry about
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: all of them. I worry about no labels, but also
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: about Cornell West. I will, You know, I worry about
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: RFK Jr. I worry about these guys being able to
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: get in front of enough people with their message. And
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: because everything is so fractured and reaching people so hard,
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: what they're not going to hear is how a vote
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: for them is pointless and might ultimately redound to Trump
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: being president. And that to me is what worries me.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Anything that fractures the anti-Trump coalition is a threat to
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden. What do you make of the Trump people
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: saying that they're worried about him? I mean, it makes
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: sense just intuitively. The MAGA base is anti-vaccine. They are
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: anti-Deep State. They are hyper-paranoid. RFK Jr. is strumming all
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: those strings. You know, I mean, like, he's your guy.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: If you think that, like, the Deep State killed Kennedy,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: he'll confirm that for you. So, yeah, I worry about it. Also,
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: but it depends on how Kennedy runs. Kennedy could run
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: attacking Joe Biden as he has been, or he could
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: run attacking Trump for his policies. And I think he
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: has a lot of agency here, which is scary, too.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I think he'll probably do both.
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I worry about it because I worry about the
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: like different levels of enthusiasm for the kind of people
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: that might be susceptible to the message because the kind
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: of like, like Trump has done, I think a very
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: good job catering to the kind of kookiest corners of
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: the right. He's flirted with QAnon. He's obviously embraced a
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: form of like kind of anti-vax vaccination skepticism. And like,
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: so he kind of, he knows how to excite those people.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: And then the kind of people that might, might find
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: a third party candidate appealing on our side, the people
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: that might be susceptible are, They're less engaged, less reachable,
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: less open to Joe Biden. So that that asymmetry is
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: the thing that worries me most.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the best you can say about all
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: the polling on this is that it's mixed. I know
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Dan wrote a piece about this and used sort of
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: the echelon insights polling, which shows that like it's one
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: of the few polls that's tested a three way race
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: between Trump, Biden and RFK Jr. And it has Trump
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: leading by three in a two way. And then Trump's
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: lead going to four when you throw RFK Jr.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: In.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: That's one poll. But then Nate Silver wrote a whole
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: piece about this and picked apart the New York Times
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Sienna poll about RFK support. He did point out that
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: like RFK Jr. is relatively popular with people who didn't
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: vote in 2020 at all for either candidate, which sort
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: of makes sense. He also does worse among Biden voters
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: than among Democrats. So that made Nate conclude that some
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: of RFK Jr. supporters are anti-Biden Democrats who were not
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: going to vote for Biden anyway. And I do, you
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: could see I don't think that he's going to necessarily
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: help Biden, but I don't know how much he's going
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: to hurt Biden because it is hard to see someone
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: with those views, a voter with all of the views
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: that RFK Jr. has now and that they, that are
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: known about RFK Jr. who wasn't already going to, I
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: feel like either that voter was going to vote for
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump or stay home.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: Well, that's like sort of like the strange thing about
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: that quote. First of all, it's grammatically confusing napalm after napalm.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: Napalm is not a countable set. but, uh, But I
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: also it's like it's a strange posture to take, like
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: even an interview like that. Wouldn't you want to be
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: signaling like, oh, they're not two Democrats in the race
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: and we're going to destroy both of them? You know,
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: I don't I find it like I find it strange.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I have a little anxiety over what happens if Democrats
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: are attacking RFK Jr. 's MAGA and then Trump people
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: attack him as a radical leftist. And then he can
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: then people see, oh, well, both sides are attacking him.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: So he must be, you know, he must be somewhere
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: in the middle. So that that that dynamic worries me.
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: And plus, he's such an inspirational figure.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: It just makes the whole thing so chaotic and so
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: much harder to predict. And we love in this country
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: to repeat our mistakes. I know 2016, vote for Jill Stein.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: What's the problem? What's the worst that can happen? 2020,
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: vote for Nader in Florida. What's the worst that can happen?
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Gore and Bush, they're all the same.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: And by the way, to that point also, there is
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: a certain kind of brand of political pundit that just
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: loves the polling that shows that Americans are open to
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: a third party candidate. And the questions are always written
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: in the, to be the most like, given the failures
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: of politics. Yeah. Do you find the failures of Democrats
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: and Republicans so egregious that it leaves the door open
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: to you supporting a third party candidate? Everyone's like, yes,
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: of course it does. It's like, how many people are like, no,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: I am a partisan hack.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: I'm blindly partisan.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: So the times piece makes it seem like Democrats and
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Biden allies and democratic officials are still most worried about
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: a no labels bid more than anything else. Do you
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: guys agree? I certainly do. Of course.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: They're on the ballot in Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: That's scary stuff.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: It's the ballot access they have is the first thing
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: that worries me. And the second thing that worries me
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: is centrists, independents, moderate Republicans are not going to vote
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: for Trump. They probably voted, a lot of them probably
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: voted for Joe Biden in 2020. And if they don't
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: like either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, no labels will
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: give them a home if they don't realize that that
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: home is going to spoil the election in favor of Trump.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: When Biden was asked about this in that John Harwood interview,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: his response was sort of interesting because he mentioned that
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: Joe Lieberman is obviously his friend, but said that, look,
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: I told him, he said, oh, you know, I've talked
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: to my friend Joe about this. He has every right
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: to run, but I told him I think he's going
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: to help Trump. He's kind of like trying to take
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: the temperature down on the whole thing. When Nancy Jacobson
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: did that donor call and the donors are all like, hey,
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: what are we doing? We think this might help Trump.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: What she said on that call was, if we're getting
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: closer and it looks like we have no chance of
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: actually doing meaningfully well, but might act as a spoiler,
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: we won't put a candidate forward. And I do think
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: that like, look, this is all so foolish and dangerous
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: and stupid and selfish and counterproductive. But I think like,
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: if you look at the way Biden's talking about this,
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: like maybe there's some hope that as we get closer,
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: there's a way to like kind of walk this back?
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Boy, that'd be nice.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, look, you know, worse and
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: better things have happened.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: $ 60 million. Who gave $ 60 million to no labels? Probably
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Republican billionaires.
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: Republican billionaires who don't like Trump.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. I do think that's our guess, our opinion.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: The challenge is you want to tell people that these
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: are poor choices of candidates just based on the merits
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: and what they believe and what they stand for. But
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: you also want to communicate that these people are not
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: going to win And that by voting for them, you
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: can vote for Trump without being too heavy handed and
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: telling people like, do not vote. You cannot vote for
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: this person.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: That's why that's like the Biden. Biden gets this. And
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: that's why his tone was so like everybody is America.
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: Everybody's got a right to run. I'm just I'm just
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: worried for the country.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: So it's a it's a tough balance. This is a
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: good lesson, though, for everyone on social media. You probably
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: can't scold anyone out of their votes, whether it's Republican,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Democrat or third party. You should try to convince them. Yes,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: that's right.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Two quick housekeeping items before we head to break. We
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: just announced our guests for the October 19th live show
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: in D.C. We got Senator John Fetterman.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Hell yeah.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: He's going to join us. Jose Andres. State Senate candidate
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Jennifer Carol Foy. Good friend of the pod.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: And guest co-host Simone Sanders.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Also a good friend of the pod.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: All-star show. What a show.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: It's a great, great show. See where else we're heading
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and get your tickets at crooked.com slash events. Also, you
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: can enjoy new and old Pod Save America episodes completely ad-free.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: when you subscribe to Crooked's Friend of the Pod community.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: That's right, no distractions, no fast-forwarding, just sweet, sweet takes. Look,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: it's a great community. I know the Friend of the
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Pod community gave you and Ben a bunch of questions
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: on Discord that you answered during your special episode of
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Pod Save the World. There was a lively discussion about
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: my interview with Cassidy Hutchinson on the Discord over the
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: weekend that I had a lot of fun engaging in,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: a lot more fun than talking about it on Twitter.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: Why did you platform her, John?
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I platformed her. I platformed her.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: Platforming.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Anyway, cricket.com slash friends. We have great conversations in the Discord.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Ad-free pods of America. It's fantastic. Check it out. When
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: we come back, former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger talks to
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Tommy about his old colleagues and the party he now
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: calls a cult.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: I am thrilled to welcome to the show Congressman Adam Kinzinger.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: He is a former Republican congressman from Illinois, serving from
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: 2011 to 2023. He is someone who has stood up
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: to Trump since the very beginning. He refused to vote
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: for him in 2016. He voted to impeach after January 6th.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: He served on the January 6th Select Committee. Congressman, thank
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: you so much for joining.
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's great to be with you. I'm glad we
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: can make this work. Thanks for having me.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: It's great to talk to you again. I think we
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: talked once for Pod Save the World about foreign policy
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: nerdy stuff. But today, I want to talk to you
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: because you served in Congress. I did not. You caucused
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: with all the Republicans' leadership or who may soon be
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: in leadership. You get the systems and the individuals better
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: than I ever will. So I was hoping you could
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: just start with some basics. How much power does the
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Speaker of the House actually have? We know about the
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: line of succession, but you know, what about day-to-day operations
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: impact on numbers like you?
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: Well, look, I think it depends. So when the speaker's
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: being held hostage, it does reduce his or her power.
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: You know, when every time it's, I saw this under Boehner,
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: under Paul Ryan and under McCarthy, obviously, you know, he
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: might want to bring a bill forward that, you know,
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: is decent. And then all of a sudden he's being
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: held hostage by the far right. That's just, not going
• 50:58
  Speaker 6: to let him bring it. They're going to deny him
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: the votes. But in terms of actual power, it's quite
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: a bit because they can control, as we saw with
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: Patrick McHenry evicting Nancy Pelosi, you control all those kinds
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: of resources in the House. You get to determine what
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: comes to the floor and what doesn't. And it's good
• 51:18
  Speaker 6: and bad. You obviously need somebody with some power in
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: this position because you have 435 egos. At the same time,
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: I think we've kind of lost this reality that The
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: Speaker of the House really was intended to be just that,
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: the Speaker for the whole House, and it's really become
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: the leader of a certain political party. I never saw
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: Boehner or Paul Ryan really have the ability to do
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: what they wanted because they were always herding cats to
• 51:45
  Speaker 6: try to get anything done.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very true. I know that I sort of
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: assumed that Kevin McCarthy's tenure would be pretty brief. I
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: know that you made public statements at the time saying
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: the same because of the devil's bargain he made to
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: get the job in the first place, specifically allowing one
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: member to offer a motion to vacate. But what do
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: you make of his tenure? And what was your experience
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: dealing with Kevin McCarthy in the House?
• 52:08
  Speaker 6: So it's interesting. So the first, really before Trump came
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: onto the scene, but particularly the last couple of years
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: of Trump, I mean, Kevin and I were pretty close.
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: I would He's actually a very good politician. If he
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: came to my district once to raise money, for instance,
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: and he really can hold a crowd's attention. He's very
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: good at storytelling. You've seen his personality. He's kind of
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: an aw shucks. He would text my mom, which is odd,
• 52:34
  Speaker 6: but that works. He does that with everybody's mom. But
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: when I started, I always had thought that Kevin McCarthy
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: had a red line, that he had some kind of
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: a soul. You know, because like he would talk about, hey,
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: Republicans need to get on board on climate change. And,
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: you know, we've just got to figure out our way
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: to do it. And, you know, Republicans need to reach
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: out to Silicon Valley. But he threw that all in
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: the toilet. And I came to realize with Kevin McCarthy,
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: he is nothing but a political opportunist and will do
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: whatever he needs to win. And so what do I
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: make of his speakership? Look, the fact that he got
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: the debt limit done was actually a huge deal. I
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: thought for the first time we were probably going to
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: broach the debt limit. The fact that he kept the
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: government open, but, you know, for 45 days, so who
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: knows how that ends up going. I guess those can
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: be achievements, but I think he was a massively failed speaker.
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: I mean, the fact that he only lasted a few
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: months is, you know, obviously huge. The fact that he's
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: the first speaker to ever have his job taken away
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: from him is huge. And the fact that he's the
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: guy that, I mean, literally Kevin McCarthy, and I'm not
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: exaggerating in saying this, He's the one that brought Donald
• 53:43
  Speaker 6: Trump back to life politically. I mean, that like two
• 53:47
  Speaker 6: weeks after January 6th, if you were in a Republican
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: conference meeting, everybody had their heads down. It was really quiet.
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: Nobody knew where we were going with this. And the
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: second Kevin McCarthy showed up at Mar-a-Lago, he resurrected Donald Trump.
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: I think history is not going to be kind to him.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: I'm still reeling from the texting everybody's mom anecdote. I
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: can't get past that.
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: My mom liked him better than me. Not even more.
• 54:13
  Speaker 6: He became mean to me, but she liked him.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they turned. I imagine you don't think much of
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: the Bring Back Kevin movement that was being floated in
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: political playbook this morning?
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: No. I mean, look, I think. Given what's been going
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: on around the world, the timing couldn't, frankly, be worse.
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: But I also have no love lost for Kevin. I mean, Kevin,
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: like I said, he's the whole reason I think that
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump is back. So, no, I'm not super excited
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: about the Bring Back Kevin movement. But I do think, look,
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: we need a speaker that's kind of normal. And unfortunately,
• 54:46
  Speaker 6: I don't see too many names floated right now.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I want to get to that. So, you know,
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: this week Republicans are going to meet behind closed doors
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: and eventually choose a new speaker. We hope. Um, what
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: are those meetings like? Are the rooms literally filled with smoke?
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: Do you think people are deciding the day of, or
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: is the lobbying kind of happening in advance? Like how
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: does this work?
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 55:03
  Speaker 6: So it's like the rooms used to be filled with
• 55:05
  Speaker 6: smoke when Boehner was speaker. Cause he, he actually changed
• 55:08
  Speaker 6: the rules so he could just smoke wherever, like anywhere
• 55:11
  Speaker 6: but the house floor really. And, uh, Which I'll be honest,
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: now I can smell a cigarette and you're like, it
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: kind of takes me back a little bit to.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: The back of the day.
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: I know, me too.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: To my parents' station wagon or whatever.
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: Like baseball games, all the dads are smoking. But yeah,
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: I mean, so it will be a very intense meeting.
• 55:28
  Speaker 6: These will be intense meetings. I think for the most part,
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: people have, I guess, generally started to make up their mind.
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: You know, I've talked to a few members who, are
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: trying to figure this out, particularly when it comes to Ukraine.
• 55:42
  Speaker 6: And I've tried to make the point to them, like,
• 55:43
  Speaker 6: you guys cannot support anybody. You can't. You can't support
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: anybody that's not going to put Ukraine on the floor.
• 55:49
  Speaker 6: Whether they actually have the courage to do that or not,
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: I don't know. So I think you'll see, if you
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: were in these meetings, everybody kind of lollygag, slaps each
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: other on the back, and then you stand up at
• 55:58
  Speaker 6: these microphones. So if you imagine probably the candidates and
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: those that are actually in leadership right now sit at
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: the front of the room looking out towards the room, And,
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: you know, they each stand up and give their little
• 56:09
  Speaker 6: five-minute introduction or whatever. And we all need to unite
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: and brower rocks. And then usually have a couple of
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: lines and all the members stand up and get a
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: chance to say their piece. And a lot of the
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: times there's yelling. Sometimes there's people that think they're funny
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: that aren't. And I don't know if anybody ever gets
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: their mind changed in these meetings. But they're important to have,
• 56:27
  Speaker 6: I guess.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: I love the idea of like some– Back bench are
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: going up and doing like a tight five, you know,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: see if they can get her to get some laughs.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: So here's the really quick, funny story. So Bruce Poliquin,
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: I always had this, like, he was out of Maine
• 56:41
  Speaker 6: and always somebody would stand up. I think it was
• 56:44
  Speaker 6: always Steve Scalise and, you know, a couple of people
• 56:46
  Speaker 6: would clap and then he'd always, Steve Scalise would always
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: be like, thanks Bruce. And then Bruce would make some joke.
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: This was like every time. And then, you know, Scalise
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: would make some comment about go Louisiana. And then somebody
• 56:57
  Speaker 6: in the crowds were like, no, Michigan. Ha ha ha.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: Let's talk about America's business. That got kind of old
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: after 12 years.
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: Oh man.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: That brings me back to my, my time working in
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: the Senate and making like stupid mayor's bets when there
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: was some playoff game or something.
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: Oh yeah. I'm going to get ribs or we're going
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: to give you a case of beer. Cause we're cool
• 57:16
  Speaker 6: when we drink beer. It's like, yeah.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Some sort of local cheesecake. Oh God. Yeah. So anyway,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: you mentioned Steve Scalise. He's one of the leading candidates.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: Congressman Jim Jordan is the other. What do you think
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: people should know about the two of them? You just
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: said we need someone who can be normal. Does anyone
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: fit the bill there? And do you have a sense
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: of who the next speaker might be?
• 57:34
  Speaker 6: I would say the closest that fits the bill would
• 57:36
  Speaker 6: be Steve Scalise. He's got an interesting background, obviously. But generally,
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: in terms of how he is, I would call him
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: a fairly mainstream Republican who but he's not a very
• 57:48
  Speaker 6: strong leader. You know, he's a, he's a, I call
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: him a smiley wiggy. Like he'll smile at you, he'll
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: shake your hand, but he's not really good at, you know,
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: as a speaker, you have to have somebody that's going
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: to be able to sit you down in the chair
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: and call you out. And that takes confrontation skills, which
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: Steve Scalise doesn't have. I also don't know where he
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: stands on Ukraine. And again, I really think the Ukraine
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: issue right now is the defining issue of foreign policy
• 58:12
  Speaker 6: in our generation. Jim Jordan, Look, Jim Jordan is a
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: true believer. He is a true Christian nationalist. The reason
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: he operates as he does, outside of kind of extra-constitutional,
• 58:27
  Speaker 6: you know, why does he ignore subpoenas from the January
• 58:30
  Speaker 6: 6th committee? Yes, he's a politician at his heart, but
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: he's a true believer. And that's what's frightening. He is
• 58:36
  Speaker 6: somebody that really believes that you have to defeat the
• 58:39
  Speaker 6: left at any cost and through any route because the
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: left is doing the business of, frankly, the devils. And
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: so that Jim Jordan is very worrisome to me because
• 58:49
  Speaker 6: the fact that first off, the fact that the party
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: has actually come to a point where Jim Jordan is
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: considered a possibility to be speaker blows me away. But secondarily,
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: I think he has the best chance of becoming speaker
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: because as you know, these right-wing echo chambers are going
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: to start making these members of Congress go on record
• 59:08
  Speaker 6: with who they're supporting. They're not going to let you
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: have a secret ballot and be quiet. And if you
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: say Steve Scalise, and this is what's crazy, now you're
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: a rhino if you're with Steve Scalise. Jim Jordan is
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: a real concern to me for this country.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: Man, yeah, me too. I've never even met the devils.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: That's not fair. I do want to talk about Ukraine
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: in a second. But I mean, I guess I wonder
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: if the look, you got these crazy rules that Kevin
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: McCarthy put in place to get the job, including the
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: sort of one member being able to kick the speaker
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: out of the job by putting forward the motion to vacate.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: I worry that the House remains ungovernable unless you fix
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: those bills. Do you agree? And do you think there's
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: any talk of like fixing those kind of underlying problems?
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there is talk of it. I agree with you.
• 59:51
  Speaker 6: And I have mixed feelings at the moment because part
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: of me wants to be able to easily knock out
• 59:56
  Speaker 6: the next speaker in this case. Because if it's Jim Jordan,
• 59:59
  Speaker 6: for instance, and let's say he throws somebody under the
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: bus like Ukraine, I want some of my colleagues that
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: are pro-Ukraine to be able to have that ability. The
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 6: problem is they won't. They're not the kind of people
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: that would do that. I think that rule has to change.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: And in the past, I think a single person could
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 6: bring up a motion to vacate, but That was never
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: considered a realistic tactic. And as you know well in politics,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: once you violate some standard, once you violate some order,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: some kind of baseline thing, you never go back up
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: to accepting that as baseline again. So when somebody said,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: we're going to move to vacate the chair, and that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 6: actually happened, that is now in people's playbook for, in essence,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 6: every bill they disagree with going forward. So yes, for
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: the sake of the country, that needs to change. I
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 6: wouldn't mind if they waited a few months on it,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: but it does need to change.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I hear you. You'll see some talk of like
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: a unity government between Republicans and Democrats where, you know,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: some moderates come together, they cut a deal, they try
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: to govern in a way that's more bipartisan. That's treated
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: by a lot of people. I think myself included, it
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: maybe is kind of like West Wing fan fiction, but
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, it shouldn't have to be.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: Do you think there's any hope of that kind of approach?
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 6: Look, I actually am not as pessimistic about the possibility
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 6: of that as a lot of people, because look, has
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: it ever been done? As far as I know, no.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 6: Some state houses have, I think, you know, some of
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 6: those have had to pull it off. Yeah, Texas and others.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: And we're now in that territory of like things that
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: have never been done before anyway. Um, here's the way
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 6: that happens is if, you know, the Republicans can't settle
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 6: on a speaker. And again, if we can get five
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: to 10 brave Republicans, which I don't think exist anymore,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: I've learned that over the last couple of years, but
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: if they can hold out and say, we're not going
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: to vote for, again, somebody that's going to not put
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: Ukraine on the floor as an example, you will force that.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's a way to guarantee that you force that.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 6: The problem is, is those people that would have the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: tendency to do that are the moderates who just like
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: to get along anyway. So I don't think it's unreasonable.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: I think it's unreasonable to think it'll happen now or
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: within the next week. But if we get down the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: lane and the Republicans can't put forward a candidate, imagine
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: somebody like, I'll just throw a name out there, like
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: a Fred Upton, who Democrats respect. He's a moderate Republican.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: Republicans generally respect him. And you can find enough Republicans
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 6: to vote with the Democrats on this. that would actually
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 6: be game-changing for the country. Can you imagine how healing
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: that would be to actually have a speaker that creates
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 6: a power-sharing agreement that says, my job as speaker is
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: to actually just facilitate debate on the floor, facilitate votes?
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 6: I think that would be essential. So the way I
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: look at it is I wouldn't put my money on
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: it at this moment, but if the American people think
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: about it and want it, they can actually make something happen.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: And I also wouldn't bet everything against it happening either.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a little more hopeful than I mean, it
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: would be incredible. It would be, it would be an
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: important thing. So you mentioned a few times, both of
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: us are big believers in the US continuing to provide
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: support for Ukraine. I've been watching the polling on this
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: pretty closely for a while. I've noticed it kind of
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: ticking down further and further among Democrats, but mostly among Republicans.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering why you think that's happening in and how
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: hopeful you are that we can get another tranche of
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: money through Congress, because, you know, I suspect this is
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: kind of the last shot before the 2024 election.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I expect you're right. Look, I think so broadly speaking,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 6: I think the president needs to continue to make the
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 6: case for why Ukraine. I mean, the thing I learned
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 6: in my time in politics is for generally the American
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 6: people don't pay a lot of attention to foreign policy
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 6: and they need leadership. That's where, you know, Obviously, we
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: shouldn't have gone into Iraq, but you see George W.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: Bush making a case for Iraq prior to Iraq and
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 6: brought the people along. And that's where leadership comes in.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 6: And whether it's a member of Congress, somebody in the Senate,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: or the president making that case, that needs to happen more.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 6: But on the Republican side, I'm not sure Biden's going
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 6: to be able to sway the right on this issue.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 6: And that is because of a lack of leadership on
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 6: the GOP who are too effing scared to To just
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: tell the truth, like, look, Russia is our enemy. We're
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: getting a bargain. This is the most fiscally conservative thing
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 6: we can do is empower the Ukrainians to basically do
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 6: what we've spent trillions of dollars to be ready to
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: do if we had to against the Russians. It's not
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 6: a hard case to make. But when you're scared to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 6: death of what Fox News or Newsmax or whatever is
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 6: going to say about you, it's really easy to just
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 6: be quiet. And so there's been an absolute lack of
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 6: leadership on the right in terms of this. Voices like
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: Tucker Carlson, who was absolutely in bed with Vladimir Putin
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 6: and with those, you know, the guy out of Hungary.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: It's just Orban. It is amazing to me to watch
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 6: this complete, what used to be the party of Reagan
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 6: that would brag about being, you know, a strong national
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 6: defense has shit that down the toilet. And I think
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: that's the reason you're seeing this collapse on the right.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 6: And look, war is hard. War takes a long time.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 6: We are used to, as Americans, being able to go
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 6: in somewhere and knock out an army in three weeks
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 6: and then come home or enter a peacekeeping operation. That's
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 6: not what happens when you don't have air supremacy in Ukraine.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 6: But I'll tell you what the most inspiring thing to
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 6: me is, and frankly, something that has changed my opinion
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 6: a lot on the left. I never saw the left
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 6: in America as the enemy, right? Obviously, now they're my
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 6: allies because we believe in democracy. But watching the left generally...
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 6: stand up and stress the importance of defending democracy in
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 6: Ukraine has actually made me realize that foreign policy from,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 6: I'll say just left generally, actually believes in defending democracy.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 6: And my old party doesn't. I guess I'll say my
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 6: party still doesn't, but I don't really identify as a Republican.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 6: And it's amazing to me also to watch a welder
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 6: in Ukraine and an actor in Ukraine fighting together in
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: a foxhole to defeat tyranny. It should be an inspiration
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 6: to all of us.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I wonder how
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: much you think the opposition to Ukraine in the Republican
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: Party is, you know, earnestly held kind of isolationist views that,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: you know, we should be worried about things back home
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: and not wars abroad versus, I don't know, like maybe
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: reflexive opposition to something Biden does or like, hey, Trump
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: doesn't like Ukraine, so now I don't either. I mean,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: I don't want to like assume that people... don't, you know,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: aren't telling the truth about their motivations or intentions, but
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: I just can't suss it out.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: Well, so there's a few that, and they, they're the
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: guys that have been around forever. You know, the old
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: Ron Paul's, the old, uh, uh, uh, what's it? Rohrabacher,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: Dana Rohrabacher that were always kind of isolation list, but
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 6: they were always very small fraction of the part. I
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 6: think the rest of this is let's own the libs, right?
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 6: Let's everything that Biden does. We're against, um, somehow Vladimir
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 6: Putin through the internet, through, you know, social media has
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 6: convinced some on the right that he is this defender
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 6: of Christianity, which is just the most insane thing I've
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 6: ever heard. But some people believe that, that, you know,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 6: he's against whatever it is, gays or whatever they're angry
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 6: about at the moment. And so he's our guy. And
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: I think a lot of it is just this kind
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: of reflexive anti-Bidenism, this reflexive, you know, kind of Western
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: liberal ideology is anti-Christian, which isn't true. And I think
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: that's what a lot of it comes to. I don't
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 6: think many people, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, for that matter,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 6: or anybody have a well thought out position on it,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 6: except in Tucker's case, I can make some money. Maybe
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: it's a direct payment from Russia, which I actually would
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 6: not be surprised to find out, or it's just being
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 6: crazy and driving people to him. But there is no,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 6: I think the opposition to Ukraine, for instance, is not
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 6: really a serious thought out position because anytime you engage
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 6: them in the debate, they're unable to really argue or
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: articulate their position.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: Last thing, I know you have a book coming out.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: It's called Renegade, Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: It releases at the end of this month on October 31st.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: What did you write about and where can folks pick
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: this up?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so again, Renegade, you can pick it up anywhere
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 6: you get books. I just actually finished recording the audio book.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: So if you want to hear my wonderful voice, yeah.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: How was that?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: Oh, dude, you just go blind when you're reading.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: Obama hated that. It's hard.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 6: It's hard. But really, it's a humble and kind of
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 6: self-righteous facing, if that's the right word, kind of like
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 6: I admit my own faults and looking at what the
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 6: Republican Party has done since I was a kid. I
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 6: was actually at the Christian Coalition meeting in 92 where
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 6: George H.W. Bush came for the first time and addressed
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 6: the Christian Coalition. And you saw for the first time
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: the Republican Party and kind of Christian nationalism join up.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: And so I talk about that. I talk about what
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 6: we've seen in the party, obviously tell a few stories
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 6: about January 6th and some of the behind the scenes.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 6: But the big thing is just, I need a humble
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: look at where I've made mistakes, where the party has
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 6: gone and hopefully optimistically as Americans, like what we need
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 6: to do to pull ourselves out of this moment.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, uh, I think everybody should pick that up.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: I just want to thank you because I know that
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: there would have been a lot easier political path for
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: you or just saying, yeah, you know, shutting up about
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, maybe endorsing him, sitting in a safe seat,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: maybe riding that to, you know, going all in on
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: Trump to win a primary, to run for governor in Illinois, right?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of paths you could have taken that
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: didn't involve getting attacked by your own party, attacked by
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: the president of the United States. And you and I
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: don't agree on a lot of things politically, but I
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: really do admire the courage to say this in that moment.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: Thank you. And I want to say, I mean, you
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: and I have a decent relationship over time. We've always
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 6: respected each other. And I appreciate that. The thing that
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: I took away from all of this though, is, you know,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: like when I voted for the violence against women act,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 6: and I was one of just a handful of Republicans,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 6: or I voted for immigration reform or whatever, it's the
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 6: times you stand alone against your party that you're actually
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: the most proud of, because I think it proves to
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 6: yourself that you have what it takes. Yes, it was
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 6: a tough last couple of years, and I'm still coming
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 6: to grips with how much that impacted me. But I
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 6: know that my kid, who has the last name Kinzinger,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: which is not a common last name, will be proud
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 6: to read his last name in the history books. And
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 6: I'll say that to brag, and I don't say that
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 6: I wasn't courageous. I was just surrounded by cowards. And unfortunately,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: we need more people that aren't cowards, at least in
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: the Republican Party.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: Amen to that. Well, thank you for everything you did.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Congressman Kinzinger, thanks for joining the show. And again, Renegade,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country will be
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: out at the end of the month, so check it
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: out and pick one up.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 6: You bet. Take care.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: Thanks.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Adam Kinzinger for joining us. Everyone else, have
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: a great day, and we'll talk to you on Thursday.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: See you at the RFK fundraiser, people.
• 1:11:01
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• 1:11:04
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