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Republican Frontrunner Tim Scott? · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Tim Scott's advance man, Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Republicans reject a White House compromise that
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: would save us from default. Tim Scott is officially running
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and Chris Sununu are right
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: behind him. Joe Biden offers new support to Ukraine while
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Russia bans Trump's enemies and new focus groups give us
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a clue as to how swing voters would treat a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Biden-Trump rematch. Then Senator Brian Schatz talks to Lovett about
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the debt ceiling and we will cap things off with
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a look at Ron DeSantis' attempts to play a human
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: on the campaign trail. But first, if you are sick
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of scrolling Twitter, And you want a quick, smart, funny
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: recap of the day's news?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 1:02
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• 1:05
  Speaker 1: What A Day is excellent. What A Day newsletter.
• 1:07
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• 1:08
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• 1:11
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• 1:12
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• 1:12
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• 1:13
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• 1:22
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• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And happy 250th episode. To our friends at Hysteria, 250.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Man, that's 250. That's a lot of good content.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Erin and Alyssa are the best. They're brilliant, funny. They
• 1:37
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• 1:49
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• 1:52
  Speaker 1: every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: get to the news. President Biden came home early from
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: his foreign trip to meet with Speaker McCarthy about how
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to avoid a catastrophic default that could come as early
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: as next week.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Oof.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: That X date is June 1.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Snuck up fast, huh?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It sure did. Republicans rejected a White House compromise over
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the weekend that would have saved about $ 1 trillion by
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: freezing spending for two years. They want steeper cuts for
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: six years to everything that's not defense related. Plus, there's still...
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: gung-ho on pushing more working people into poverty through work requirements.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: They love doing that.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Not helping the situation is Donald Trump, who told Republicans
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: on Friday not to make a deal unless they get
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: everything they want, including, he says in quotes, the kitchen sink.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, some Democrats in Congress are warning Biden that they
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: may not support the deal he cuts with McCarthy. AOC
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: tweeted that the White House may lose 100 to 150
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: House Democrats if the cuts are steep enough. So, we're
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: recording this right after, uh, Biden and McCarthy were sitting
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: in the oval. They were about to have their meeting.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: They said they're optimistic that the meeting may lead to progress.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: So that's where we're at. Um, what do you think?
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Should Biden reject spending cuts deeper than he already offered?
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Or are we at the point where the risk of
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: default is so dangerous? We just gotta, just gotta get
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a deal.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: I think he will draw a line and has to because, um,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: The goalposts have been changing constantly. And if you don't
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: draw a line at some point, you're going to get another,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: you know, Hail Mary last minute change from the Republicans.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: So I do think he has to draw a line
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: because they're, you know, the latest over the weekend, they're
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: pushing for more draconian work requirements for people receiving food assistance.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: And they're trying to tell states they have less flexibility
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: in implementing those draconian work requirements.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: So we'll see.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, we also saw they're trying to, the Republicans
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: are trying to put immigration provisions into part of the bill.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: You have Trump saying, you know, who cares?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Let's default.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: He said that on CNN. Now he's saying, get the
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: kitchen sink. So I think you do have to draw
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: a line or else the line's going to keep moving.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: And McCarthy is all over the place. On the one hand,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: you have him saying that their ridiculous bill that they
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: passed through the House was the floor, not the ceiling
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: of what they could demand. Then right before he goes
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: over to meet with Biden, he says something like, we
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: need to have spending be less than it was last year,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: which leaves a lot of room to negotiate. So it's
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: like Biden has to draw some lines because... If you
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: have someone like McCarthy who is beholden to sort of
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: the right wing of the party and ultimately not in control,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: you have to have Biden drawing some kind of a
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: hard line.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you go by what McCarthy and McCarthy's top
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: deputies and Biden and the White House have been telling
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: reporters over the last couple of days, which, as you
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: guys pointed out, changes like every hour, it does seem
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: like McCarthy is.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Trying to, they're really focused now not on sort of
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the extra stuff like the work requirements, the permitting reform.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: McCarthy says he's keeping immigration reform out, but again, we'll
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: see what happens with the rest of his caucus. It
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: seems like they're focused on this top line number, right?
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: How much are they going to be spending? And the
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: White House wanted to free spending from where it is
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: this year for the next two years. Republicans say that's
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: not enough. And McCarthy basically said we have to spend
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: less next year than we did this year. So he
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: wants to go beneath what we're spent this year without
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: saying how much without saying how much so like you
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: know in a perfect world you could see a deal
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: where it's a little less than it's somewhere in between
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: those two things the white house offered a freeze they
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: have you know but um again this is all assuming
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: that mccarthy can find enough republican votes to pass it
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and the democrats can find enough democratic votes to pass
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: it and as the time ticks by basically they need
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a deal We're recording this Monday afternoon. You'll probably listen
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to this on Tuesday. But by like Wednesday, Thursday, they
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: don't have a deal. They're fucked.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: And he's an incredibly weak speaker. And we've known this
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: since it took him 15 votes to get the job.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: And it's also it must be very frustrating for the
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Biden team knowing that Speaker McCarthy will likely lose Republican votes.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: So he's going to need Democratic votes. But there is
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: no pressure on McCarthy. to engage with Democrats in the
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: House to try to bring them along and get those
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: votes to pass a deal. It's all on Joe Biden.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And McCarthy wanted it that way because they basically wanted,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: they thought that there was too many other, you know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Hill aides and Hill Democrats in the room. So they
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: just want McCarthy, Biden. And at that point, it's so
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: close to X date that basically then everyone else gets
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: jammed because if McCarthy and Biden agree on something, then
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: it's going to be really hard to to be uh
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: you know someone who's against the deal and takes the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: deal when we're about to hit default.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah so mccarthy and biden come up with the final
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: thing that it has to be other than say a
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: discharge position which seems far-fetched at this point um and
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: the point that shots makes makes when i talk to
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: him later is is you know we've gone from we
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: don't negotiate over the debt limit to uh We are negotiating,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: but we should make sure it is a deal we
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: would have ultimately had to get to with Republicans over
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: the budget because they have the House regardless of the
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: debt limit threat.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And that's I was thinking that today, like as soon
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: as the Republicans won the House, it was pretty obvious
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: that there were going to be some kind of spending cuts,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: because if there was no debt ceiling, there would have
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: been a negotiation over government funding that could have resulted
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: in a government shutdown if there was no agreement. And
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: while government shutdowns aren't as damaging as a debt ceiling,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: there's still not something that can go on forever. So
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: at some point when you have Republicans in control of
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the House and Democrats control the Senate, the presidency, like
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: there's going to be some kind of compromise around spending.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: And the other point that that shots will make is
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: about is around continuing resolutions, which is basically when Congress
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: can't come to an agreement on some of these harder
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: budget questions. They just passed what's called a continued resolution,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: which just said, do everything you did last year, but
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: at either a little bit more or a little bit
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: less than current spending. Based on past precedent, it would
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: probably be less because to get it through the House,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: you would need to get McCarthy to bring to the floor.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Ideally here, you know, I mean, Republicans were first like,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: we want spending caps for 10 years. Now they're saying
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: six years. I mean, if you're Biden in the White House,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: you're trying to limit the damage for the next two
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: years and then hope the Democrats win in 2024 and
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: reverse the damage.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, 10 years from now, it's AI's problem. Right.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: That's right. It's AI's problem. And AI will be having
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: those seats in Congress.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Better than some of the non-I we have now. You
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Biden said over the weekend he thinks he has the
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: authority to use the 14th Amendment to but that it
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: won't work in time. Ah, damn.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: God, right when we need it most. It's not ready.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: The 14th Amendment, not ready in time. You got to
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: put it in earlier.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: More Democrats are pushing him to do it anyway. Some
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: folks are starting to wonder aloud how the party let
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: itself get to this point. Was there a better path
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Biden could have taken here? And we've been unfortunately following
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: this closely.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: You know, we, again, we talked, we pushed shots on this.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: When we talked to him in December, there was a
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: lame duck. And there are a lot of people saying, hey,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: you realize in six months, Republicans are going to walk
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: into the Congress with a fucking vest of defaults strapped
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: to their chest. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: that's six months from now. We'll deal with it then.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: And it is a real shame that there wasn't a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: bigger fight when we had the chance to lift the
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: debt limit completely. It just seemed like everybody accepted the
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: votes weren't there. And then we just didn't have a big,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: hard debate about it or even any kind of creative
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: conversation about what could have potentially gotten the votes we
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: needed at the time.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think the votes weren't there. I mean,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema basically said it much. I
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: think you have a bunch of institutionalists that might have
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: made it hard. Maybe you could have negotiated something with them.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Right. But who knows?
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Joe Manchin is now saying he's going to run against
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden for president on a third party potentially. So,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: you know, not a great actor here. I mean, there
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: are also the other things I think progressives are frustrated
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: about is not talking earlier or more seriously about printing
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: the trillion dollar coin or the 14th Amendment and using
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: that as real leverage to see if you could get
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: the other side to, I don't know, have think that
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: he was actually going to do it. I think the
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: structural problem here is that Biden really cares about avoiding defaults.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: A bunch of Republicans do not care about avoiding defaults.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: And then the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: is like, eh, we're going to default now or later,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: so who really cares?
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Get everything you can. So, I mean, it's not like
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: a fair fight. Yeah.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: On the Manchin thing, I went back today to look
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: at his quotes from The Lame Duck, and he didn't
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: completely rule out lifting the debt ceiling in reconciliation in
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the fall. But he was pretty close. He was like,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: we should do this in a bipartisan way. It does
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: not belong in reconciliation, blah, blah, blah. And we know
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: how he is when he has a fucking... Of course.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Be in his bonnet.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: And it's very easy now to say, oh, we should
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: have done this then. And maybe a big kerfuffle would
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: have led to nothing.
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: But.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: And I don't lay it at the feet of even
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: the Biden administration or any specific Senate Democrats. It's just like,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: it speaks to something about the constitution of Democrats as
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: a group that are just like, There wasn't the fight
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: without the looming threat to have that feel real and
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: get it done at the time. It just didn't.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: It was like punishing your future self. It's like saying
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you'll go out to dinner two months from now.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And then when it comes, you're like, oh, it's.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Like you couldn't rustle up the rustle up the willpower.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: This is Keanu Reeves and Speed saying shoot the hostage,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: except they're aiming at the hostage's head and just gleefully shooting.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah. It's a great movie.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I will say one more thing on the 14th Amendment
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: because I've been talking about this in the last couple episodes.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand why the Biden administration didn't invoke it
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: earlier and then let the courts decide before the X date.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: The problem is we've been using the phrase, and so
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: has everyone else in the coverage, like invoking the 14th Amendment.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Like he just runs out of the 1600 pen and
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: turns out the White House. He goes, I invoke the
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: 14th Amendment. Right.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: So it turns out that's not really a thing. That
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: what would have to happen is you'd hit the X date.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And then the government would start issuing debt anyway. And
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: then the courts would decide whether that new debt issued
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: after the X date is constitutional or not. And then
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: you are, again, relying on John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Gorsuch as your swing votes. And if they decide that
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: it's not constitutional, then we're all fucked.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it's also then it's like, ooh, I have a
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: treasury certificate that's... A cool souvenir.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And that's why the markets go haywire, right? So it's tricky. Anyway,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll figure it out. Okay. Let's talk about
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the Republican primary.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSanctimonious.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Great. Haven't heard that in a while. Senator Tim Scott
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: is officially in the race. He announced Monday in his
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: home state of South Carolina that He picked up a
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: key endorsement from the number two Republican in the Senate,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: John Thune.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: He's going to ride John Thune's coattails. I haven't thought
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: about that guy in a while.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just popped up to give an endorsement that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I'm sure is just a groundswell of support that Tim
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Scott just picked up in South Dakota, I guess. His
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: team is making the case to reporters that Scott is
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the party's best messenger, the most consistent conservative in the race,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the most broadly appealing to the Republican electorate, and that
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: he has the resources and infrastructure to win. The guy
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: does have $ 22 million in his Senate account that he's
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: rolling over to the presidential. He certainly sounded exciting during
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: his announcement speech. Here's a clip. Hello, North Charleston! I'm
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: announcing today.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: That I'm running for president of the United States.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Of America!
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: We live in the.
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: Land where it is absolutely possible for a kid raised
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: in poverty in a single parent household in a small
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: apartment to one day serve in the people's house. The
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: fewest people in 30 years believe that their kids will
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: be better off than their parents. And the radical left
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: is pushing us into a culture of grievance instead of
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: a culture of greatness. We need a president that persuades
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: us We have to do that with common sense, conservative principles.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: But we have to have a compassion.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: We have to have a compassion for people who don't
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: agree with us. So have your takes on Tim Scott's
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: prospects changed at all since he launched his exploratory committee?
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: What do you make of his team's case to reporters?
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: The case? I mean, Best Messenger, that was sort of
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: like a Reagan remix. It's not bad, you know.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Dance to it, but it's not that great. Most consistently conservative.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: He's very conservative on policy. Extremely conservative. Has the resources
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: and infrastructure to win. $ 22 million is nothing compared to
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: what Trump's sitting on, DeSantis is sitting on money-wise and infrastructure-wise.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Then broadly appealing, eh, I think he's pulling a 2%.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: So I don't know about that. I mean, you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: maybe in the future he could be. I think Trump
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: versus Tim Scott I think could be an interesting race
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: if it was one-on-one. Sort of an optimistic guy, positive
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: vision for the country versus... I don't know, Trump. But
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Trump versus Scott and Haley and DeSantis and Christie and blah, blah, blah.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know that anything has changed.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I thought the speech was really good. I think that
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: people are pulling out the funny moments. He's kind of goofy.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: When they pull out, he shouted to the microphone the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: way he announced. He's a goofy guy. But it was
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: the most compelling and interesting speech a Republican other than
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Trump has given. And it's He goes on about victimhood
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: versus victory, grievance versus greatness, and sure, he's in this
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: speech directing it at Joe Biden and Democrats, but you
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: don't have to squint very hard to see that it
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: is addressing Trump and, I think to a lesser extent,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: DeSantis in a way that's pretty interesting. The other part
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: of it that I thought was interesting is he hits
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: all the erogenous zones. He hits the CRT, hits the wall,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: but he puts it in the context of a broader...
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: more positive values-based message that I just think is more
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: broadly appealing and gets you out of the kind of
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: negativity and crassness and coarseness of DeSantis and Trump. But
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: then at the end of the speech, you blink and
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: you miss it. He makes a vague reference to abortion
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: and protecting innocent life. And you sort of see, oh,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: so here's where his problems are, right? It's Trump and
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: DeSantis and whether or not this Republican Party has any
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: interest in hope and compassion whatsoever. And then the actual
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: reality of his policy positions and the fact that this
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: very kind of good-natured and positive and optimistic presentation belies,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: you know, a candidate who has extreme positions on abortion
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: and who had the most embarrassing statement of anyone trying
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: to kind of dissemble around what kind of national abortion
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: man he would support.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think... I think he gave the best speech
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: certainly at the Republican convention in 2020. I remember thinking
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: so at the time. Again, I think he could be
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: one of their party's best messengers in a general election.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: But we're running in a Republican primary here. And it's
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: like Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are just like running
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: at another time and another place and another universe where
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the Republican electorate is completely different than it is. And
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: it's all like pre-2016 notions of what the Republican electorate
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: is that just don't reflect the reality of what has
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: driven those voters, which is grievance, the very thing that
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: he's complaining about in his speech.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, it does seem like it's like, So first of all,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I think that I put him in a different category
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: than any of the rest because whatever.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I think he's more talented than Haley, than DeSantis for sure.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. I think he's making a cleaner, I think more
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: sophisticated and smarter argument that actually makes sense. There's a
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: coherence to what he's doing that makes him a legitimate
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: alternative in a way that no one else, not even DeSantis,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: can really offer. You watch it though. Yes, obviously... He's
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: trying to say, hey, we don't need to do grievance
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: politics to a group of people that have become enamored
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: of grievance politics. But it took someone like Trump to
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: drag them this far down, and whether or not it
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: works this time. This is very clearly to me the
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: best and only person I've seen make a case for
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: a way to kind of drag Republicans back over time.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: And if it doesn't work now, it might work in
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: the future. He did better than I expected. I really
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: was impressed by it. It's just one of those, again,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: It's too subtle. Like if you're going to, to your point,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: if you're going to drag the Republican voters out of it,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: you're going to be like, what the elephant in the
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: room here is that it's a party enthralled to like
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: the fucking cult of personality that is Donald Trump, you know?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: And he has said before, he's thankful for Trump's time
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: in office. If you really think that the party is
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: going in the wrong direction in the country because there's
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: too much grievance, stuff like that. then you've got to
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: identify the fucking problem, which is the guy that you're
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: running against.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: He seems like a nice guy. There's these stories about
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: his early Senate days. He would go down to goodwill,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: not tell anyone who it is, mop the floors, talk
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: to people, do these focus groups. Seems like a nice
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: human being. But he made the same exact deal with
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: the devil on Donald Trump's administration that they all did
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: after he and Haley endorsed Marco Rubio in South Carolina
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: in 2016, and Trump kicked Marco's ass by 10 points.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: So I think, frankly, like the fact that you like
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: the speech that we all think he's kind of like
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: an interesting, nice guy is probably why he will not
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: go anywhere. Whereas like Tucker Carlson is out polling him
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: in national polls of Republican voters because what they want
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: is that unadulterated like grievance on the other guy viciousness.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Like I just don't see an audience for this.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Well, and I would respect it if he took on Trumpism, right?
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: If he was doing this message, but taking on Trumpism
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and the fact that he's trying to have it both ways,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: which he has with Trump, which he sort of did
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: with the abortion question too, right? Like, you know, he,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: he's trying to do the message, but he's underneath it. He's,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that's the, that's the, right? Like
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: it's like, there's two versions of somebody with this kind of,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I think, optimistic, hopeful tone, like in a debate, right?
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: If this ultimately led to a bait, one is I
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: think the kind of Obama style of like kind of
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: being above it all in a way that makes someone
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: like Trump or DeSantis look very silly. And then you
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: have the kind of Jeb Bush style, which makes you
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: look kind of pummeled right now. There was something, there
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: was a very bad sign, I think for Tim Scott,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: that one of his aides told, I think maybe playbook, like,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: We think the contrast is so obvious, we're not even
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: gonna have to talk about Donald Trump. It's like, okay,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: so this is all doomed.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: You know, we'll see. Like, yes, I think the fact
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: that the speech, that I think it's a good speech
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: probably doesn't speak well for him, but I don't know.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: What do you think, a 57-year-old bachelor with no kids?
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, here's the thing.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Reportedly a virgin until he was 46, according to Ben
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Terrace of the Washington Post, who actually had to ask
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: him that question about his virginity.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I think that's cool.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: 40-something-year-old virgin. That's cool.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Look, we're never, we can't, this country can't have a
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: single president. Single people are freaks.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Here's just one last problem. You know, I'm sure you
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: point out that he's at 1-2% in the national polls.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: His team could say, national polls, they don't mean anything.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: This is all about the early states. Okay, let's try
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, where he's a senator, where he has won
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: two elections and everyone knows who he is. He's only
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: pulling 7%.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: And he's competing as Nikki Haley, another sort of home
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: state darling.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he just got in, but it's not a name
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: ID problem with him in South Carolina. Everyone knows who
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: he is. So I think it's going to be tough.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: So Ron DeSantis is set to launch his campaign Wednesday.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Reports are that Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Chris Sununu are
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: getting ready to announce in a matter of days, weeks,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: right behind him.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Not Sununu.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Sununu, here he comes. Rounding out a GOP field
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that also includes Trump, Scott, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I guess Larry Elder is in it, too.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: What? Really?
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I was reading it today, and I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: realized I needed to add him.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: All right, Larry.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: You guys think this is... Is it Trump's race to lose?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Is it Trump-DeSantis? Or do you see a path for
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: any of these other candidates?
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I would like to just share... First of all, the
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Sununu thing is... the dumbest one yet. But I like
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: that he's sort of like, does Sununu have a chance?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: And then mentions halfway through that he's pro-choice. No, he doesn't.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: No.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Well, he's another one who's an extremely popular governor in
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. And if you look at New Hampshire primary polls,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: not registering too high.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I would just like to read this. This is the
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: most Nepo baby paragraph I've ever read in history. As
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: an engineering student at MIT, Sununu dreamed of Hollywood. He
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: wrote a romantic comedy screenplay about a European man falling
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: in love in Boston. after briefs in at NYU's film school,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: where the chess hustlers of Washington Square Park sometimes separated
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: him from his money. Sununu said he experienced an epiphany
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: on a five-month Appalachian trail hike from Maine to Georgia. Wow.
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Interesting profile. That is Connor Roy shit.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Speaking of New England popular governors, I mean, remember Charlie Baker,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: governor of Massachusetts, was polling at 73% statewide in Massachusetts,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: but he couldn't win the Republican primary.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Like, that's the task that these guys have. You can
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: be the most... 73%? He was, like, wildly popular... governor
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: of the state. I don't know who knows what will happen.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: I would say this. My feeling on this is Hutchinson,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley, Sununu, Chris Christie. These people are jokes. But
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Tim Scott's not a joke.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just think that they are. All of these
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: candidates now have given Trump outside of DeSantis exactly what
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: he wanted. which was a big Republican primary field. And
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the reason you know it's what he wanted is because
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: he's telling us.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: He says it. He welcomed everybody into the field.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: He welcomed Tim Scott to the race, said he was a,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: he's certainly a step up from DeSanctimonious, who's completely unelectable.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: And then he said, the field's getting loaded up with
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: people fast. He's just one of those, he's just telling
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: you what he's thinking. And this is the problem is like, DeSantis, Scott, Haley, Pence,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: they're all going to be fighting over the traditional conservatives,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the evangelicals, Christie, Sununu, Hutchinson are going to be fighting
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: over the extremely small anti-Trump faction in the party. So
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: like you got all these people fighting over each other.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: They're trying to try to get each other's votes. 16 again.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: And then you've got and then DeSantis, who is struggling
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: anyway right now, needs every last one of those other votes.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: And if they start taking a little bit from DeSantis,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: then it's Trump's.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: But it's not 16 again in the sense that we
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: went through this. It was so inconceivable. People couldn't believe
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: that Trump was happening, that all these people stayed in
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: the field believing that they could potentially be the alternative.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know that you can do that this time,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: polling at 3% in November before the primaries begin. So
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: you could see it narrow. We'll see.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: People are so delusional.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: You think these people do the right thing? What are
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: we talking about here?
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: A lot of them, they don't have enough money to
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: do polling and research, right? And so- they're like listening
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: to their advisors, telling them like, you never know what
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: might happen. They're probably meeting people at meet and greets
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: who are like, I'm actually for you, you know? And
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: then they think that's great. Mike Pence, what is Mike
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Pence doing? Does Mike Pence not think that the Republican
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: electorate has rendered a judgment?
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: What if Mike Pence was hanged on January 6th and
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: we're all in a kind of simulation that's his kind
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: of purgatory to make up for his sins and he
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: keeps rerunning it until he learns to stop being a
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: fucking prick.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: It's a groundhog day interesting but for interesting six uh
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: he just keeps waking up yeah i think if these
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: people stick around until iowa it's like it's trump's nomination
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: i mean they gotta start they all gotta start dropping
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: out by then um so one issue likely to be
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: the subject of fierce debate in both the republican primary
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: and the general election is america's support for ukraine President
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Biden met with President Zelensky at the G7 in Japan,
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: where he also announced a joint international effort to train
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 fighter aircraft.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Russia claims to have captured the key city of
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and also released a list of
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: 500 Americans who were banned from entering Russia that includes
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama, Rachel Maddow, Brad Raffensperger, Tish James, Stephen Colbert,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Joe Scarborough, and the Capitol Police
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: officer who shot Ashley Babbitt.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: It's a good list. Seth Meyers looks up from the
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: pool at Sochi. He's like, huh, you know?
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Why is he in Sochi?
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: He's on vacation.
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: Oh.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: It's Russia.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, because it's, yeah.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Get out of here.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: All right, before we get to the list, Tommy, what
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: is the significance of Biden's announcement on the F-16 trainings?
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: I think the F-16 announcement is recognition that the White
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: House thinks this war is going to go on for
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: a very long time.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Because.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Over the long term, you're going to have a border
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: that you need to defend and you're going to need
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: a modern air force. The current fighting and even the
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: sort of long promised but seemingly not started yet spring
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: offensive is tanks in open fields in eastern Ukraine and
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: artillery and drones directing these artillery fire and efforts to
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: cut off supply lines. And so what this does is
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: sort of start the clock on training Ukrainian pilots. It
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: takes about four months to train you up on an F-16.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: You'll have to pull pilots who are currently flying missions
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: off those missions to do this. So there is a
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: bit of a cost to this. Then you have to
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: get the Dutch and the Poles to actually supply the planes.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: And over the long term, it's not just about supplying
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: an F-16. It's maintaining it. It's the missiles are really expensive.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: The fuel is really expensive. They estimate that one flying
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: hour requires 16 man hours of maintenance for an F-16.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: So it's just like a massive ongoing undertaking. And they're
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: all integrated into like radar systems and other air defense systems.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: So this to me is just signals that this is
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: not ending anytime soon in the eyes of the White
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: House decision makers.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Hadn't there been some concerns about like that this would
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: be taken as a sign of escalation? And then why
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: do you think they got over those concerns?
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: They seem to get over those concerns routinely. I think
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: there's a very good faith concern about escalation and provoking
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Putin and any response that might lead to something like
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: a nuclear response. But this happened with the long-range missiles.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: It's happened now with these F-16s. I think they think
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: it's manageable.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: What's with that sanctions list? It seems like quite a
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: cast of characters.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: It's a pretty good list.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, it was missing a few. There was
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: a lot of Trump enemies on that list. But you're
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: missing some key ones. Like, where's Deb Messing?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Where is Deb Messing?
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Where's Alyssa Milano?
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: And also, Joe Scarborough's on there. Where's Mika?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Where's Mark Ruffalo? No Krasensteins. No Krasensteins.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: No Krasensteins. Are they enemies?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Major Biden. Sanctioned a pet. Make some news.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Where's Luis Mench?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Yikes.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Is Putin basically doing that to just, like, troll.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: The Biden administration?
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It seems like.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: There's also a lot of national security nerds on there. So,
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's some sort of wonky people. There's a
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: lot of Biden administration officials, like the NSC staff, the
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: White House. Ben LeBolt, our friend, is on there.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: So, I don't know. Like, it's childish, petty nonsense.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Do you guys feel embarrassed that you and Ben Rhodes
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: didn't make this?
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, why aren't you on there? Well, I think Ben's
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: on it from the last time they sanctioned Obama.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, Ben and Dan are still on it?
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think they get taken off it.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Are you going to test that proposition? Are you going
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: to buy a ticket? It's, um, yeah, I imagine it's,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: it hasn't been like an exciting vacation destination. No.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Already.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: It'd be a.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: Lot more painful if you could have a list where you,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: those people then had to visit your country.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Yeah. Like a man a mandatory.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Mandatory visit list like 20 a year and you're like
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: all right come on over come to sochi you got
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: to be here.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: We have some uh some breaking news about the the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: white house meeting is over okay and speaker mccarthy i
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: think the tone tonight was better than any other time
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: we've had discussions theater criticism great we are we are
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: excited about the tone And then one of the lead negotiators,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Republican Representative Patrick McHenry said, we've had tough meetings. We've
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: had difficult meetings. This meeting was productive. No acrimony.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: That makes me nervous. That means like the Republicans feel
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: like they're getting something.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we're really, yeah, great. Every Democrat on the
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Hill read that thought out. Buy us dinner first. You
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying? All right.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Finally, we've been talking a lot about the Biden-Trump rematch
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that's currently our most likely future. So the Washington Post
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: just held a series of focus groups with the kinds
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: of voters who may decide the race. people who cast
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: their ballot for Donald Trump in 2016 and then voted
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: for Joe Biden in 2020. They got 15 Democrats, Independents,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and Republicans from swing states. Nine were white, four were black,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: two Asian Americans. None of them want either Biden or
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Trump to run again, like most Americans. Nearly all of
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: them are worried about Biden's age. But when asked specifically
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: about a Biden-Trump rematch, nine said they'd vote for Biden,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: three said they'd back Trump, And three said that they
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: would vote third party or not vote, uh, just to
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: focus groups. But the post noted that the findings are
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: in line with what democratic strategists have been finding in
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: polls and focus groups of their own. You guys have
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: any takeaway from these groups? And if you're the Biden campaign,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: what do you do with information like this?
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what my first thought was. It was
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: like nine to 15. Can we do it with nine
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: to 15? I was like, I was like, I don't
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: know that we can. I think we need a couple
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: more people. Uh, You know, I talked to shots about
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: this too. You know, it's very clear that that age
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: is a big liability. It is a bigger liability than
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: it was in 2020. I think it has been, I
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: think Republicans have done a very good job spreading it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: I think the reality of having a person this old
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: running is not possible to ignore. And we have to not,
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: we can't have an abstract conversation about whether or not
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Biden's told he just has to go out there and,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: and be among the people and sort of have moments
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: like he's had at the State of the Union and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: others that show that he's vigorous despite his age. I
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: don't know what else you're supposed to do with this.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like this is Biden's core pitch, right? Like,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: And when these people did, they were much more likely
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: to vote for Joe Biden. I also think, you know,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: when you combine this with the catalyst research you and
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: Dan talked about on Thursday, that showed in the key
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: swing states, issues like abortion access and the extremity of
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: GOP candidates are motivated people and they understood the stakes
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: beyond the individuals on the ballot. So that, that makes
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: me hopeful. But yeah, I mean, you know, this doesn't
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: signal like high, high, high turnout election.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Certainly not an election that people are going to be
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: excited about. It could be a very high turnout election,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: but it's not something, people aren't going to be like
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: running to the polls.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I guess you're right.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: To the point it's a high turnout election, it's because
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: you oppose the other guy.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Negative partisanship. And to that end, if I was the
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign, and I'm sure this is what they're thinking,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: but like, The best Biden moments over the last couple
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: of years, the speeches about democracy, January 6th, in the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: middle of the State of the Union when he started
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: ad-libbing and basically fighting with Republicans over Social Security and Medicare, right?
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: They are moments when Biden has both shown energy and
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: painted the contrast with Republicans. And I think you can
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: solve two birds with one stone there, right? People are
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: a little worried about his age. Whenever he's feisty and
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: shows some energy, that helps that. And when he is
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: keeping the focus on what a Donald Trump second term
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: would look like, like paint a picture. And as you said, Tommy,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: you can also remind people like, oh, in these red
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: states where Republicans have full control, this isn't the future.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: This is the present. This is what's happening right now.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: There are book bans. There are full abortion bans. There's
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the don't say gay law in Florida, right? So you
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: can start using these examples and just have Biden out
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: there with like a very fiery view. energetic stump speech
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: that's just kicking the shit out of Trump and Republicans
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and telling people exactly what would happen if he gets
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a second term. And if that's where he keeps the focus,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: then you're going to have people just like in this
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: group who are like, yeah, he's a little old or whatever,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: but we don't want that.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: We don't want that again.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: One more thing about those focus groups that I thought
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: was interesting. They tested DeSantis in addition to Trump. And most,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: the majority of participants also chose Biden over DeSantis because
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: they said he was too extreme.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good. That's great. Yeah, man. Never someone, you know,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: only Elon Musk could build a ship that would explode
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: so quickly on the launch pad there.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, DeSantis really has done it to himself for these voters. Yeah.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: And when they brought up their criticisms of Trump were,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: you know, not surprising, his character's social media use. And
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: they brought up the investigations a bunch, which is also interesting.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: So when we come back, Senator Brian Schatz talks with
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Lovett about debt ceiling strategy and lots more.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Joining us now, he's Hawaii Senator, friend of the pot,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: and the most popular senator in the country, according to
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: a recent poll. Senator Brian Schatz, glad to have you back.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: Nice to be back. Nice to see you, John.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: You walk around like, you know, like a big swinging
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: dick now?
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: How am I supposed to answer that question?
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: By the way, that reminds me, the one time I
• 35:11
  Speaker 6: went to your live show, it was, there were like
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: three female comedians and you, and it was just all
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: dick jokes and I didn't know.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: What to do. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that that happened.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, it wasn't all. Anyway, let's get back to work.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: So Speaker McCarthy spoke briefly before going into another meeting
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: with Biden. He didn't say much. We had hopeful signs
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: at the end of the week. Then a Trump truth
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: sent people into a tizzy. Now we're back at the table.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Janet Yellen is looking under couch cushions. She's going into
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: the bathroom. She's making sure she's alone. And then she's
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: screaming at the top of her lungs. We're recording this
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Monday evening. McCarthy predicts he'll keep his caucus together and
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: says the deal needs to have less spending than last year.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: What is the latest? What are you hearing?
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: Well, obviously, the president and the speaker are meeting in
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: the next couple of hours. You know, I'm not going
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: to take too much from the various public statements. I think,
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: you know, sometimes people make grouchy public statements specifically to
• 36:13
  Speaker 6: soften the ground for a compromise.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: So I'm hopeful that we will land this.
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: And if we land this in a place that unlocks
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: the appropriations process and avoids a government shutdown in the fall,
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: then that's actually all is well that ends well. It's
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: a stupid way to do business. I continue to think
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: that debt ceiling should be statutorily repealed.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: I have a bill to do that. So I don't
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: want to defend the process.
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: But if the result ends up being something that unlocks
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: the ability for us to do bipartisan appropriations bills, then
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: I'll be able to live with it.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: So it sounds like what you're saying there is that
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: if it does allow you to move into that appropriations process,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: are you saying the actual specific lines that are drawn
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: from in this specific deal that they're not as important,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: that they're not as significant? What are you saying there?
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: No, I think, look, I think the numbers matter very much.
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: They're called top lines and they're basically exactly how the
• 37:13
  Speaker 6: Appropriations Committee determines how much money it has to spend.
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: So Once those top line agreements are arrived at on
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: a bipartisan basis, they are binding to the committee. So
• 37:26
  Speaker 6: my criteria is, is this the kind of deal we
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: would have gotten under normal circumstances if these people were
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: not threatening default? And that's my criteria is that I
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: think it's terrible. I think we should offer no policy
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: or budget concessions in exchange for not defaulting on the
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: full faith and credit of the United States of America.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: But we are where we are.
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: And so now my criteria is, look, is this the
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: kind of deal that we would have done anyway later?
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: Because the truth is, Speaker McCarthy is the speaker. And
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: if you're going to get a bipartisan budget deal, it's
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: not going to look like the kind of bipartisan budget
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: deal that we had when Nancy Pelosi was speaker.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: So so if what you're saying is a deal in
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: which the thing Democrats get is Isn't the country not
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: going into financial collapse?
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: What are the places where Democrats are seeing give or
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: what do you want to see? What will make this
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: a bipartisan compromise in which what Democrats are extracting from
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: these negotiations go beyond just lifting the debt ceiling?
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: Well, one of my key priorities is something called parity.
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: And it's a very simple concept, which is you have
• 38:37
  Speaker 6: two categories of discretionary spending. And it's defense and non-defense.
• 38:43
  Speaker 6: And for the last 10 years, in order to sort
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: of keep the peace and do bipartisan appropriations, regardless of
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: who's president, regardless of who runs the legislative branch, we've
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: kept parity. Defense and non-defense have been roughly equal as
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: they go up. Kevin McCarthy is trying to stray from
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: that and increase funding for the Defense Department while decreasing
• 39:03
  Speaker 6: funding on the domestic discretionary side.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: We're not going to do that.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: So that was actually what happened in 2011, right? So
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: in 2011, the sequester was basically a kind of a
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: trigger that would cut both discretionary and defense spending, right?
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: That was sort of the way we could, but we
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: ended up hitting that sequester and doing the cuts, but
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: then didn't later we go back and undo some of
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the defense spending?
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: Cuts?
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, we we undid the defense cuts and we
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: undid the whole thing overall because it was nonsense.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: The idea that like equal.
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: Pain will bring the parties to the table is not
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: true anymore, because I do think that this Republican Party
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: is uniquely dangerous and doesn't care about about governing. And
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: so I don't think we should assume that if we
• 39:53
  Speaker 6: have a sort of Damocles over the Defense Department and
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: a sort of Damocles over, say, the Health and Human
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: Services Department, that.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: That's going to do anything for us.
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: What we have to do is have an arrangement where
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: there's a modest increase in spending or a freeze in
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: spending subject to inflationary costs. And then we move forward
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: with a budget because absent a budget agreement, we're going
• 40:17
  Speaker 6: to end up with a freeze anyway, something called a CR.
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: And so we're in a strong negotiating position on one
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: level because we have the executive branch in the control
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: of Democrats and half of the legislature. But on the
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: other hand, it takes an agreement with Kevin McCarthy in
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: order to move forward on appropriation. So if it unlocks that,
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: that's great. I still think it's a stupid precedent to set.
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: I still think that it's insane that the media in
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: particular has normalized this hostage-taking to the point where I
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: think most people who are only paying passing attention think
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: this is another like shutdown clock, another sort of, oh,
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: Democrats and Republicans, cats and dogs. That's not what's happening here.
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: These people are really threatening, you know, the United States
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: dollar as global reserve currency, possibility of the stock market
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: getting chopped by a third or a half interest rates
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: going up.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: This is serious stuff. And we have to come to
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: a resolution in the next 10 days.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: But it, But one of the challenges that it works
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: as leverage because all the polls show, right, that the
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: blame for it would be laid equally at the feet
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: of Democrats and Republicans. So I don't know how we
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: get out of Republicans using it as a cudgel when
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: the media shows them that it works. And we seem
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: to have, in this case, unlearned the lesson from 2011
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: that we simply don't negotiate over the debt ceiling. But
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that saying that we had any other choice.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: It does seem like for what this moment does feel different.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: So did something change that forced us to unlearn that lesson?
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: I don't know the answer to that.
• 41:50
  Speaker 6: You know, I've been thinking about that and whether, you know,
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: I want to substitute my judgment for the for the
• 41:55
  Speaker 6: president's here, because I can imagine that if you're in
• 41:59
  Speaker 6: the Oval, right, and Janet Yellen and everyone else is
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: coming to tell you, you know, interest rates won't just
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: go up temporarily.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: They may go up for 10 years.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: Stock market won't just take a hit, it'll get cut
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: in half. We won't just.
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: Lose or temporarily furlough some number of tens of thousands
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: of government jobs like you do in a shutdown, but
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: we might lose millions and not get them back. And so,
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: you know, that'll get your attention if you're the leader
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: of the free world. I still hate the idea that
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: we're negotiating. I still hate the idea that this has
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: been normalized, but we are where we are. We have
• 42:33
  Speaker 6: 10 days left to avoid default and we have to
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: do whatever we can.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: To land the plane.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: So when you were last on the show, we talked
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: about this. We talked about how stupid it is to
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: just have this loaded gun sitting on the table every
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: two years. And it just seemed like there wasn't momentum
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: when we had the lame duck, when we could have
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: unloaded this gun to get it done. I asked you
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: about this. You said you didn't have the votes. I
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: asked again, basically to no effect. You have been pushing
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: very hard for this, but it just didn't seem like
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: the Democratic caucus... was focused on caring about understanding the
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: inevitability of this moment that we're now in. And as
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: someone who wanted to unload this gun, how frustrated are you?
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: How long will it take us to learn this lesson?
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Why did we not take care of this when we
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: had the chance? And does that mean there's a hope
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: to do it in the future?
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: We should have.
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: And I think it's becoming a mainstream position among Democrats
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: that we just need to repeal this stupid statute and
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: whether that ends up happening by virtue of the courts
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: ruling in favor of the administration should they pursue the
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: 14th Amendment or that the next time we have leverage
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: in a situation like this that we just decide to
• 43:53
  Speaker 6: repeal the statute. I don't know what the pathway forward is,
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: but I do think the political momentum for repealing the
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: debt ceiling is there because I think initially people just
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: use a shorthand and say, well, That's a tough vote
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: because I'm going to look like I'm repealing the debt
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: forever or that I'm for endless spending.
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: But I think most people who pay attention.
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: They're going to hold you accountable for whatever you decided
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: to spend money on in the appropriations process. And there's
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: no getting around that by saying, well, I'm not for
• 44:23
  Speaker 6: the debt, but I am for the spending. And so, look,
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: I think we have an opportunity here over the next
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: several months to kind of recalibrate where what the but the,
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: the institutional position of the democratic party, as I was
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: sort of an outlier saying, Hey, this thing is coming
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: down the pike and it's dangerous and we need to
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: defuse the bomb.
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: Um, but I did not succeed.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: So, uh, uh, I want to move on to another
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: topic because, uh, the debt ceiling is the most important
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: and most boring thing the country is currently facing.
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: Uh, I was like, I can feel your viewers bleeding
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: off while we were talking about.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: You got to get them back. So you're leading the
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: charge on banning children under 13 from being able to
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: use social media and requiring parental consent from 13 to 17.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: You also would ban tech companies from serving minors algorithmically,
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: like sort of algorithmically generated content. It's a bipartisan bill.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: What are the prospects for it? What is the pushback
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: you're hearing either from colleagues or from tech?
• 45:21
  Speaker 6: Well, I think, first of all, I think most people
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: nod vigorously when I say a 12-year-old And younger should
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: not be on social media. So I don't think that's
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: even a controversial position anymore. 13 through 17 is a
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: little different, right? Because, you know, I talked to staffers
• 45:37
  Speaker 6: of mine who say, hey, you know, in my teenage years,
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: that's literally how we interacted. And my point is, you know,
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: most kids who are online via their phones, their parents
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: are paying for the phone.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: Right. We're working.
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: And so parental involvement is already the case. For the
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: most part, Internet access and connectivity is something that your
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: parents have to arrange unless you're really financially self-sufficient in
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: a way that's unusual for a kid. But my view
• 46:04
  Speaker 6: is that the parents should know what's happening and that
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: the algorithmic boosting is really where the mental health danger
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: is occurring, which is not to say that no algorithms
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: can be used. Like some of our opponents have said, like,
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: ha ha, the whole Internet is full of algorithms.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: You're banning out.
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we understand the internet is full of algorithms. We're
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: talking about the specific part of Instagram or TikTok or
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: other feeds that algorithmically determine with incredible precision the thing
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: that is most likely to deliver quote unquote engagement.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: How long will you linger? How likely are you to click?
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: And what they have found is that engagement is at
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: a maximum when you are outraged or angry or or disgusted,
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: or despairing. And so now we have a business model
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: that almost guarantees that a whole generation of people are
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: fed an algorithm that makes them despairing, disgusted, angry, isolated,
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: and all the rest of it. And I don't think,
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: first of all, I'm not sure adult brains are capable
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: of sort of beating the algorithm, but certainly a 14-year-old
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: is not capable of doing that. What are the, what's
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: the opposition to the bill? I'm going to take the
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: kind of good faith opposition first. One is, hey, this
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: sounds a little big brothery. I think that's a fair
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: enough thing to worry about. I don't think the government
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: should be in the business of picking content. And this
• 47:31
  Speaker 6: thing is content neutral. I think the other concern I've
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: heard is from LGBTQ plus groups about the ability for
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: queer kids in particular to find each other, to find support.
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: to do research, to not feel alone. And I think
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: all of that is important. But remember, we're not banning
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: a kid from using social media. It's just that the
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: social media platform will not have that feed that is
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: algorithmically boosted. You still ought to be able to type
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: in whatever you want, find things that you want, have
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: a feed, be on social media. It's just the algorithm
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: that's shoving you outrage bait, which will no longer be
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: permitted for kids 13 through 17.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it does seem like there's a lot of, evidence,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: especially around adults, about the harm that being fed this
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: kind of content causes, the impact it's having on politics.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: But it's less clear in terms of the core issue
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: around kids, which I think has focused people on depression, self-harm,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: suicidal ideation, suicide threats, suicide attempts, more kids dying of suicide.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Josh Hawley has a bill that would just ban kids
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: under 16 from being on social media. That's obviously more
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: draconian than what you're proposing. But it does seem like
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: right now parents are buying the phones. Parents feel right.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, you talk to parents about this. They feel
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: that their kids are dragging them onto social media because
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: all the other kids are on it. Do you see
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: any merit to going further and just saying, hey, this
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: stuff is so right now this is brain poison. It
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: hurts kids more than cigarettes do. Like it's taking their lives.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe kids just shouldn't be on this till they're out
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: of middle school, till they're in high school at the earliest.
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: I'm sort of sympathetic to the view, but I think
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: that there's more evidence that young you get. And there
• 49:22
  Speaker 6: are fewer upsides the younger you get, right? As you
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: get a little older, you know, my kids can learn,
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: you know, fishing or crochet or piano or there's some
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: cool stuff you can learn from social media. But I
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: didn't see a ton of benefits for a nine-year-old, an 11-year-old,
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: even a 14-year-old. So, you know, this sort of age
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: gating stuff is always kind of goofy, right? Because should
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: a kid be allowed to thrive at 16 or 16
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: and a half or whatever? And the kind of absurdity
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: of picking a particular age is, you know, presents a
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: bunch of challenges. So look, we tried to set a
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: threshold that made sense. And I think the worry that
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: I have is that the tech companies are now saying, well,
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: we're not really sure.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: That it's us, right?
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: And I guess what I would say is, look, if
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: I were like the principal investigator on some scientific study,
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: I would say, sure, we need two decades of longitudinal research, right?
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: And I'm thinking, kids can't wait that long.
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: We have to be precautionary when it comes to We
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: have to assume that everything that the data is showing
• 50:35
  Speaker 6: and that our own personal experience, not mine in particular,
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: but all of our collective experiences are telling us we
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: have to believe our own eyes and our own ears
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: and the indications from the preliminary data and just protect
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: this next generation, not to keep them offline, but to
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: make sure that their online experience is safer for them.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: All right, let's move on to another topic from the
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: young to the old. Dianne Feinstein is back in the Senate.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: She's on a lighter schedule, but she did vote to
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: move some stalled nominees out of judiciary. There's been some
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: reporting that she seemed to not acknowledge or possibly not
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: even remember that she had been absent. What do you
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: say to people like me that believe she should resign
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: and that California deserves to have two full-time senators?
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: Well, the decision to resign is in her possession. And
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: and I think that's the main thing to remember is
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: that this isn't a question of, oh, Chuck Schumer should
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: be tougher or something.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: This is in her possession where the law operates. She
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: gets to decide when and if to step down. But
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: I will say that, you know, to the degree and
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: extent that the business of the Senate, in particular, the
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: Judiciary Committee is slowed down or stopped. then it's no
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: longer just a question of whether a particular person enjoys
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: a particular job and continues to think they are good
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: at it. It's a question of what's in the best
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: interest of the country. And I have some confidence that
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: she will eventually come to that conclusion if she's no
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: longer able to serve. I think on the other side,
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: and I kind of understand where your listeners are coming
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: from here is that, you know, you do want to
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: make sure there's room for someone to be sick and
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: come back.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Right. Right.
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: John Fetterman, Mitch McConnell, right? Like lots of people have
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: stuff they have to deal with and then come back.
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: And if you have a reasonable level of confidence that
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: the person is going to return to fulfilling their duties,
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: that's a whole different conversation. You know, if they're going
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: to be gone for five years, that doesn't work. If
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: they're going to be gone for two or three months,
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: then I think, you know, they have earned an election
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: certificate and they are, I think, not entitled, but I
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: think it's appropriate to allow someone To get better. If
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: I needed two months to get better, if something happened
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: to me, I would want two months to get better.
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: If I was maybe never going to come back, that's
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: a different conversation.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: Will you pledge to not seek re-election to the Senate
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: in 2058? That is when you will be in your mid-80s. Oh, yes. Okay.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Can we just flag this? Just put a card on this.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Because we're going to forget. But we got them.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: Mid-80s.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: Mid-80s. All right. Senator, you're one of the best messengers
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: in the Democratic Party, which is how we preface our
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: hardest questions. Voters aren't thrilled about the prospect of a
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: Biden-Trump rematch. There was a focus group out of the
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Washington Post today that said there was a lot of
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: concerns among swing voters. But once they were presented the
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: choice between Biden and Trump, I think it was nine
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: of 15 broke towards Biden, much more worried about the
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: prospects of a Trump reelection. But a lot of concerns
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: about Biden's age and fitness. If this is his biggest
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: liability as a candidate, what does he need to do
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: to address it and to overcome it?
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: I think he's starting to do that.
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, the White House Correspondents' Dinner, he
• 53:59
  Speaker 6: made a bunch of, I thought, pretty good jokes about
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: his age. And, you know, I was thinking about this.
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: I think Bernie Sanders is 80. Nobody talks about his
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: age now. He's not commander in chief, I understand. But
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: I think that Joe Biden has to demonstrate that he
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: is vigorous. that he is energetic. Because I think seeing
• 54:20
  Speaker 6: is believing. The numerical age is, I mean, it's a
• 54:26
  Speaker 6: big number, right? And so the only way that you
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: can persuade people that you are energetic enough, that you
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: have the acuity to do the job is to demonstrate that.
• 54:38
  Speaker 6: And I think he's going to do that over the
• 54:40
  Speaker 6: next a year and a half. But I think that's
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: the big challenge is that if you're just arguing over
• 54:45
  Speaker 6: whether 80 as an abstraction is quite old and most
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: people are retired by then, I mean, that's just a fact, right?
• 54:54
  Speaker 6: What I think Joe Biden has to demonstrate is that
• 54:56
  Speaker 6: he's different.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: One last question. We had Hawaiian food at a company-wide
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: lunch last week. It was 10 out of 10. People
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: have been raving about it. People aren't talking about this.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: They aren't talking about it. It's not getting the attention
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: it deserves. What can you do as, again, the most
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: popular senator in the country to get the people outside
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: of Hawaii to understand what's on offer?
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: So I just had a poke bowl for lunch right here.
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: And it's almost lunch, but then I had to jump
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: on the Zoom. And I just want to make this point.
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: And I know this isn't the question you asked. You
• 55:34
  Speaker 6: guys are all doing poke bowls wrong.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: It's not a sandwich. It's not chipotle sandwich.
• 55:39
  Speaker 6: You don't get to make a hundred different choices and
• 55:42
  Speaker 6: put all kinds of different nonsense on it. It's usually
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: pretty simple. Cube dahi or cube some other kind of
• 55:49
  Speaker 6: fish and some seasoning. But don't go to places that
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: spell poke with an I.
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: And maybe just wait till you're in Honolulu before you
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: get any poke.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: All right. I mean, I think that's pretty definitive. Senator
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: Brian Shantz, thank you so much. Always good to see you.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Keep the economy running, all right? I'm going to try.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: Keep it going. Okay. Thank you.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, we wanted to gear up
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: for Ron DeSantis' official campaign launch this week with some
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: thoughtful analysis about how he's handling what will undoubtedly be
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: his biggest challenge as a candidate, being a person that
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: other people like. Here's a clip that made the rounds
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: on social media this weekend after he pressed the flesh
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: in New Hampshire.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: What's your name?
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: I'm Tim Hampton. Okay.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: How are you? I'm wonderful. What's your name? What's your name?
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: I'm Tim.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. I'm wonderful. Where do I go? I'll come
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: in here.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: There's so much like artifice in politics and you have
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: to be comfortable in these weird situations that are totally
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: fake and manufactured where you're in a diner and there's
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: seven people, but 25, you know, news cameras, they're filming.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: You and you just can't seem to do it.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: You don't even have to have so much charisma. Hey,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: what's your name? Tim. Hey, Tim, how are you?
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: I'm Ron.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Try that.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I'm Ron.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: Ask Tim about himself. Don't say OK and then just
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: fucking run away like a weirdo.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: It's really funny. It's you know, we have this incredibly
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: stupid way of picking who our president's going to be
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: and we get it wrong half the time. It's a
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: multiple choice question with two answers. We get it wrong
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: 50 percent of the time. But I will say this
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: process of forcing very tired, hyper ambitious lunatics into. to
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: go into diners when they're at their most exhausted and
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: nervous and have them interact does reveal something. How do
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: we know he's exhausted? He's fine. He's barely even running.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying when they're in there, when they're in
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: the thick of it, when they're in the really in
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: the thick of it.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: This guy's fucking our age. No, no, I'm not talking about,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying right now, I'm saying over the 44
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: years old.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: That's not the point. I love DeSantis. This is stupid. No,
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: let me, let me do it again.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: No, this is much more fun than what you were
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: going to.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: No, but that didn't make sense. That wasn't the point
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: I was making.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: I wasn't saying he's exhausted.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I, I'm not saying that he looks exhausted
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: or is exhausted now. I'm saying over time, this ridiculous
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: way of having candidates interact with normal people ultimately shows
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: us who they really are. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: And he is, and this is the beginning of the campaign.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Imagine what he's going to be like at the end
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: after he's been doing six events a day for months.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: It is also wild that Rhonda- You're going to punch
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: someone in the face. We're contemporaries with this man.
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: He looks older than us.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: I look something. I don't know what it is. It's
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: already years.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Now, in fairness, he did have a much deeper interaction
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: in Iowa with a fan who shared how far they'd
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: traveled just to get a chance to meet him. Let's watch.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, nice. How far is that from here?
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Go about an hour to see him.
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: Okay, nice.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: He already has his back to him. And what you
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: can't see there is he walks away.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: So he turned on him as soon as... Okay is
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: his end of the conversation.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: You get one question. You come up to Ron DeSantis.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: You say something. You tell him who you are. You
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: tell him where you're from. He says, okay. He moves away.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: He's really already falling in love. the trap of like
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: the stories are that he can't relate to people. And
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: so now he has to relate to people. Then everybody
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: watches how he relates to people and then he can't
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: do it. You're going to start getting the stories like,
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: oh no, the real, you got to get to know
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: the real Ron DeSantis.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Well, and when you hear that about yourself, because undoubtedly
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: he's reading all this criticism or internalizing it in some way,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: then you get in your own head. And so now
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: you're trying extra hard to be the relatable guy.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: This is him trying.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: This is him trying.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: And the current narrative is like, he can't do this stuff,
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: but his wife is his secret weapon. That's why he
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: has her out and stumping, et cetera. So I'm sure
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: he'll get you know, put off by that and feel like, no,
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: I can do it myself. You've also, I've heard of
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: candidates who have the opposite problem. Like someone who worked
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: for Al Gore told me that they had to stop
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: prepping him so much because he would go into meetings
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: and meet with like New Hampshire state reps he'd never
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: met before. And he'd be like, hey, Bruce, good to
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: meet you. How's your wife, Sally, and your four kids,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: like Oren, Jim, Jan, and whatever. And it was like, okay.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: Because he was a student who had to ace the test.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, more natural.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, he's, Ron DeSantis doesn't have a, yeah. It's
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: just awkward.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: A Trump person said about Tim Scott, Tim Scott doesn't
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: have to write likable at the top of his piece
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: of paper, which I think tells you a lot about this.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: At least Ron DeSantis isn't running against someone in the
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: primary who just has a knack for zeroing in on
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: a person's absolute weakness and exploiting it as much as possible.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Destroying it.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is just going to.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: It's not like Trump is some great retail politician. He
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: throws toilet paper at people and insults them and then
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: says he's smarter than everybody in the room and leaves.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: I think he's pretty good at retail. But he's more
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: charming than this.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: He's good at talking to people and making them feel
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: listened to. And I don't know, he slaps backs and
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: hangs out. He has nothing better to do.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: He hates his family. He's got tons of free time.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Well, he, it's different, right? Because Trump, Trump I don't
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: think is great in like the diner.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: He doesn't do this well.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Because, so he knows that and so he just doesn't
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: do it. And what he does is the performance is,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: on the stage and he's really good at that.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: He does this shit too.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: He like signs people's stuff and hangs out.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: But he likes to do the thing of like, he
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: likes to like go into a, like a, he'll go
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: and he likes to go into the diner and then
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: talk to everybody.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: He wants to do his, he wants to do his stand,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: he wants to do his tight five.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he wants to do his five, yeah. Like when
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: he goes into McDonald's, he says, I've eaten everything on
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: this menu.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, he has. All right. So finally, it's
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: clear that DeSantis has mastered the subtle, subtle art of pandering.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Let's listen. Iowa's like the Florida of the Midwest, they said.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: but I just want to let you know, after watching
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: all the good stuff you've done in Iowa, it may
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: be that Florida is the Iowa, the Southeast.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: So we'll see. What do you think, Tommy? I was
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: going to eat that up.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: What, what?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: That was so tortured. I know. It's tough.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: It's tough.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: I'm sad. Say it again. Uh, Rhonda Santus makes people
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: feel like, uh, uh, Their needs are met. Donald Trump
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: makes people feel like they have no needs. This guy stinks.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: His voice is so annoying. Someone wrote him that line, too.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Of course. He seemed sort of proud delivering that line. Very,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: very cringeworthy.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. He's been dreaming about running for president for
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: so long, and now he's finally doing it.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: Reminds me of a roommate I had back in the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: day who was going to a little school in Northeast
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: DC called Strayer University. And he would meet women and say,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: I'm going to the Harvard of Northeast DC. But he
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: would always leave out the DC part. So he'd say,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: I'm going to the Strayer. It's the Harvard of the Northeast.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: And they'd just be like, I think Harvard's in the Northeast.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that was more charming than the rest of the joke.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: But yeah.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Look, this gives me no pleasure. I mean, this is just,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: we're going to get fucking Donald Trump as a nominee again.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: I don't want, like, this sucks. That's the takeaway. I
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: wish Ron DeSantis was a little, I don't want Ron
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: DeSantis to be president, but like, Donald Trump is a,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I still think, a uniquely dangerous threat to democracy. And
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: all these fucking goofs. are like just... They can't do it.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: And this was an event where, this is this Feenstra
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: family picnic thing in Iowa, this was the one where
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: he was sort of graded on a curve and people
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: said he did well.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was?
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: This was the one where... Flip burgers, did the glad handling.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Because he went to Des Moines and was like.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. This is the first event in Western Iowa. Oh, okay. Yeah.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Not the big shot at Trump when he went to
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: Des Moines and said, it's sunny outside.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. That was a couple events later.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: It's like, slam!
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Got him. Man, this guy. This guy's really fizzling. Yeah, well.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: He's really fizzling.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: He's going to learn. I'm telling you. Watch my guy,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: Tim Scott. Okay.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: Just watch him.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: Just keep an eye out. You're all in on Tim Scott.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: I'm not all in. I'm in. He's my Ted Cruz
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: of this cycle.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: You and Mike Murphy of Hacks on Tap.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, really? You and Murph.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you. Just watch it. All right. Just watch it.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying what's going to happen.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying keep an eye on it. Tommy, do
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: you want to take Vivek Ramaswamy? That guy. Should we
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: do a draft?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: He's doing a lot of press.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Should we all draft? We should do a draft.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: We'll do a draft. He didn't lose his virginity. He
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: was 46th. That's... Allegedly.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: Allegedly he lost it earlier or didn't lose it at all?
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: He said to Ben Terrace he's not a virgin anymore, right?
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying not to get sued over here.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: Allegedly.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: I think he said that to Ben Terrace.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Ben Terrace had to ask him because he said
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: he would not have sex until marriage and he was,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: I think, at the time, a 46-year-old single guy.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: If there is even a hint that Tim Scott's candidacy
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: might threaten Donald Trump's candidacy... You will see Donald Trump
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: go so fast from welcome to the race to making
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: fun of the 40-year-old virgin. It will be relentless.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: No, I think it will be worse than that.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: Let me read this tweet from Ben Terrace. Tim Scott
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: will be the first Prez candidate I've ever asked about
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: the status of his virginity. Initial answer, I'm not talking
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: about my sex life with Ben Terrace. Then he stood
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: up and said, I have to go potty. Care to revise?
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: He's a Lovitz guy.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: I said that we're not going to elect a single president.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: So maybe there's still time.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he just has to meet the right person.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a story. That's a campaign trail story. There
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: you go.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: Ultimately, he implied he did not wait until marriage.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: So there's some... That's why I said elect.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: To be revealed.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to be revealed.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Brian Schatz for joining us. Don't know why
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: you keep coming back on. After hearing some of the questions,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: love us. But thank you. We appreciate you joining.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: Always good to see you.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: And we'll talk to you all on Thursday. Bye. Pod
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Charlotte Landis. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer, Ari Schwartz,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman, Ben Hefko,
• 1:06:01
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• 1:06:04
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• 1:06:09
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