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How Many Republicans Will Follow MTG? · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 2: Right now, we are living through some of the most
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  Speaker 2: tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick,
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  Speaker 2: and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll
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  Speaker 2: try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and
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  Speaker 2: thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Walz,
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  Speaker 2: Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Charlemagne
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  Speaker 2: the God, and so many more. That's all in the
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  Speaker 2: New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: Tom Vitor.
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  Speaker 3: On today's show, Trump is trying to end one war
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  Speaker 3: just in time to start another. We'll talk about the
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  Speaker 3: latest in Venezuela and Ukraine. We'll also talk about Marjorie
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  Speaker 3: Taylor Greene's somewhat shocking resignation from Congress and whether the
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: intramarital rebellion against Trump is real and growing, especially in
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  Speaker 3: light of the president's new flirtation with a proposal to
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  Speaker 3: extend Obamacare subsidies. Against our better judgment, we'll also touch
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: on the latest with the RFK Jr., Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan-Lizza
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: love triangle that has everyone Googling the definition of felching.
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  Speaker 4: Not love it. Not love it.
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  Speaker 3: No, of course not.
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 1: No, I knew what it was. John, I knew what
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  Speaker 1: it was, so I didn't have to look it up.
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  Speaker 3: Then Pennsylvania Congresswoman Summer Lee stops by. Boy, she's going
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  Speaker 3: to regret being in this episode. She talked with me
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: about how congressional Democrats are trying to hold ICE accountable,
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  Speaker 3: the latest on pushing for the release of the Epstein files,
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  Speaker 3: and lots more. But let's start with some big news
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  Speaker 3: about Trump's efforts to retaliate against anyone who's tried to
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  Speaker 3: hold him accountable. A federal judge has 86ed the indictments
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  Speaker 3: of New York Attorney General Tish James and former FBI
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  Speaker 3: Director James Comey. Based on the finding that Pam Bondi
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  Speaker 3: illegally installed the prosecutor in both cases, former insurance lawyer
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  Speaker 3: turned Trump defense attorney Lindsey Halligan. Judge Cameron, just.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine returning to Pam Bondi music is dismissed.
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  Speaker 4: Good.
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  Speaker 1: Did we win?
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  Speaker 3: Does that mean I'm dismissed? Can I go home now?
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  Speaker 4: New job.
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  Speaker 3: Can I go back to Florida? Judge Cameron Curry held
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  Speaker 3: that when Trump and Bondi forced out the sitting U.S.
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  Speaker 3: attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia because he and
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  Speaker 3: the rest of his office refused to bring charges against
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  Speaker 3: Comey and James, his replacement should have been appointed by
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  Speaker 3: the judges in that district, not the administration. That makes
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  Speaker 3: the indictments and everything else invalid. Judge Curry dismissed the
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  Speaker 3: cases without prejudice, meaning the government could theoretically try to
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  Speaker 3: get new indictments signed by a different prosecutor, though in
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  Speaker 3: Comey's case, the statute of limitations ran out on September 30th,
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  Speaker 3: which the judge also noted. Still, the administration said it
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  Speaker 3: will appeal the judge's ruling, and they do have a
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  Speaker 3: few other potential options for getting a new prosecutor in
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  Speaker 3: there to try again. I just want to read you
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  Speaker 3: guys my favorite part of the ruling, and then you
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  Speaker 3: can react to Judge Curry wrote that the DOJ's argument would, quote,
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  Speaker 3: mean the government could send any private citizen off the street,
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  Speaker 3: attorney or not, into the grand jury room to secure
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  Speaker 3: an indictment so long as the attorney general gives her
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  Speaker 3: approval after the fact. That cannot be law. I know
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  Speaker 3: that seems pretty cut and dry. I mean, they got
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  Speaker 3: pretty close to just sending in any private citizen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they got closer and closer. That's for sure. An
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  Speaker 1: insurance lawyer has never been a prosecutor. Like, that's getting
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  Speaker 1: getting closer. Yeah, I talked to Leah Lippman about this
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  Speaker 1: on our YouTube and the Strict Scrutiny YouTube, and she's
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  Speaker 1: a genuine expert, so I would suggest checking that out.
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  Speaker 3: On the Pod Save America YouTube.
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  Speaker 1: If you haven't subscribed already, what are you doing? There's
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: a question as to whether or not the Comey indictment
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  Speaker 1: can be revived because there's an extension because there was
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  Speaker 1: already an indictment. The issue here is that Pam Bondi
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  Speaker 1: put out a memo on Halloween basically saying retroactively that
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  Speaker 1: Lindsay Halligan has a special role in the department that
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  Speaker 1: allows her To do this, the bigger problem for them
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  Speaker 1: is their position is, even though the law says after
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: 120 days, the courts have to appoint a prosecutor, their
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  Speaker 1: view is every time you fire an interim prosecutor, that
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  Speaker 1: clock goes back to zero, which doesn't make sense because
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  Speaker 1: why would you ever then have the rule that lets
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  Speaker 1: the courts do it if you would never need to
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  Speaker 1: put it in place?
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  Speaker 3: And clearly it's a problem because Halligan is now the
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  Speaker 3: fourth judge interim us attorney that a federal judge has ruled, uh, is, uh,
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  Speaker 3: is an unlawful appointment.
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  Speaker 1: So it's like being the head.
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  Speaker 3: Okay.
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  Speaker 4: To number two, Tommy, what do you think? I enjoyed
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  Speaker 4: it because not only the judge was like, not only
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  Speaker 4: is your indictment invalid, you basically don't exist as a person,
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  Speaker 4: your entire existence is invalid. It literally refers to as
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  Speaker 4: a defective appointment, which could apply a lot of different ways.
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  Speaker 3: Leave this courtroom in shame. Yeah. Get out of here.
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  Speaker 4: Um, And also it sort of it freezes a bunch
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  Speaker 4: of the other parts of the appeals process. Yeah, the appeal.
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  Speaker 4: What happens next on appeal is confusing. In the Comey case,
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  Speaker 4: it does seem like you're outside the five year statute
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  Speaker 4: of limitations. So I think he would try to use
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  Speaker 4: that to get it dismissed. It's also a question of
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  Speaker 4: like Trump. Who is Trump going to get to bring
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  Speaker 4: this case again? He's probably going to have to put
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  Speaker 4: forward a U.S. attorney candidate, get that person appointed, get
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  Speaker 4: that person confirmed by the Senate. because no one else
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  Speaker 4: is going to take up this case. It's clearly a
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  Speaker 4: terrible case. I mean, Rudy seems like he's got some time.
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  Speaker 1: It's sort of funny to think about it. He's also unprecedented.
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  Speaker 1: So it's like, was there an indictment against Comey? Because
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  Speaker 1: she's just a stranger off the street. Like if somebody
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  Speaker 1: on the street's like, I've indicted James Comey, I'm the U.S. attorney.
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  Speaker 1: But according to the law, they're not like, is there like,
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  Speaker 1: so that there is genuinely an open question as to
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  Speaker 1: whether there could be an extension. It's worth also noting
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  Speaker 1: that They're all going after this judge as being some
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  Speaker 1: kind of democratic plant who's out to protect Tish James
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  Speaker 1: and James Comey. But smartly, she uses part of the
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  Speaker 1: logic is the same logic that Eileen Cannon used to
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  Speaker 1: dismiss the case that Jack Smith had brought because Jack
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  Speaker 1: Smith wasn't legally appointed, according to Eileen Cannon. So they're
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  Speaker 1: defending on the same logic there. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, the invalid appointment of Halligan is just like
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  Speaker 3: tip of the iceberg in the problems with both of
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  Speaker 3: these indictments, as we have seen, like You could get
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  Speaker 3: a really, a prosecutor who was both skilled, experienced, and
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  Speaker 3: legal in there, and they would still have real problems
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  Speaker 3: with both of these cases.
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  Speaker 1: Barely legal prosecutors. This is what we're dealing with here.
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  Speaker 4: This case looked at just this question of whether it
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  Speaker 4: was valid under the appointments clause. Yeah, there are a
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  Speaker 4: bunch of other issues that are still pending.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaking of Alien Cannon, did you guys see this
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  Speaker 3: long New York Times story over the weekend where- So
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  Speaker 3: it's connected to this because so they're like, OK, now
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  Speaker 3: Trump appointed the guy in the Eastern District of Virginia.
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  Speaker 3: He refused. He was a Trump appointee. They thought that
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  Speaker 3: he would bring a case against Comey. He refused. Everyone
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  Speaker 3: in the office refused. They had to find Lindsey Halligan
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  Speaker 3: off the street. Now this isn't working out. So now
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  Speaker 3: they get a new thing where in Florida they've convened
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  Speaker 3: a grand jury to look into all of the Obama
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  Speaker 3: era conspiracies that's got Trump all upset. with Russiagate and
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  Speaker 3: all the rest of it. Why in Florida, you may ask,
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: because they're claiming that the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, which was
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  Speaker 3: about stolen classified information, is somehow connected to the Russiagate stuff,
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  Speaker 3: which it's not. But they want it in Florida because
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  Speaker 3: they think better grand juries, better prosecutors, better judges down there.
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  Speaker 3: Better weather. And so they're going to try to subpoena
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  Speaker 3: John Brennan and all the 2016-era Obama administration officials. to
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  Speaker 3: go down there, but they're not happy with the first
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  Speaker 3: grand jury they have, which I guess is still in
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  Speaker 3: a district that's a little too blue with potentially judges
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  Speaker 3: who respect the rule of law. So they are convening
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  Speaker 3: a second grand jury that starts this January in Fort Pierce.
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  Speaker 3: Why Fort Pierce? Because there's only one judge that you
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  Speaker 3: can draw at Fort Pierce, and that's Judge Cannon. And
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  Speaker 3: the grand jury there would draw from an extremely red area,
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  Speaker 3: unlike the grand jury around Mar-a-Lago, which is Palm Beach,
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  Speaker 3: which would be a little bluer. So they are now
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  Speaker 3: trying to have a district with a judge that's in
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  Speaker 3: Trump's pocket, a prosecutor, a U.S. attorney that's in Trump's pocket,
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  Speaker 3: and a grand jury that is super Trumpy.
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  Speaker 1: They're going to show up on that. You've got to
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  Speaker 1: Take a fan boat up to the fucking swamp courthouse
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  Speaker 1: in your legally required jorts to go in front of
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  Speaker 1: the judge. And if you lose to the to the alligators,
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  Speaker 1: you fucking go. It's, it's, it's swamp justice. Swamp justice
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  Speaker 1: for John Brennan. Swamp justice for Adam Schiff.
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  Speaker 4: Next fall on the history show. Swamp justice.
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  Speaker 3: I just think that obviously all of this is, it's funny,
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  Speaker 3: but very dangerous. But I think that the, what we're
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  Speaker 3: seeing here from the Halligan fiasco and the Comey and, and,
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  Speaker 3: and James fiasco is like, you can't just like, legally
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  Speaker 3: loophole your way into prosecuting successfully a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 3: your perceived enemies for no crimes.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Like there's always like, and even, even Canon, if she's
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: in this, you know, overseeing this grand jury, yeah, maybe
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  Speaker 3: they can get to the subpoena stage and get people
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  Speaker 3: to testify. But at some point someone's going to appeal
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  Speaker 3: the decision to some other judge that has more of
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  Speaker 3: a respect for the rule of law than this group
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  Speaker 3: of dipshits. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing over time is the, how
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  Speaker 1: sophisticated does your corrupt judge, operation have to be to
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  Speaker 1: succeed in america and the level of sophistication required is
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  Speaker 1: dropping but it is still the waterline is still above
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  Speaker 1: where lindsey halligan's.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Attorney yeah yeah yeah which is good news for now
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: uh so far it doesn't seem like losing the comey
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  Speaker 3: and james cases in such an embarrassing fashion um is
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  Speaker 3: deterring Trump and his goons from using the government to
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  Speaker 3: punish other Americans they don't like, at least trying. Pete Hegseth,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: who calls himself the Secretary of War, announced on Monday
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  Speaker 3: that he's launching a military investigation into Senator Mark Kelly,
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  Speaker 3: who's a retired naval officer, for the crime of saying
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  Speaker 3: in a video with other Democrats in Congress that military
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  Speaker 3: service members don't have to follow illegal orders, a message
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: that led Trump to demand that Kelly and the other
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Democrats should be arrested and put on trial for seditious conspiracy,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: which Trump said is punishable by death. The Pentagon said
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: they may end up recalling Kelly to active duty status
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: in order to court-martial him. Kelly issued a response saying,
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  Speaker 3: in part, if this is meant to intimidate me and
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  Speaker 3: other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding
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  Speaker 3: this administration accountable, it won't work. You guys think this
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  Speaker 3: is a serious threat or some bullshit Hegseth cooked up
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: to make Trump happy that isn't really going anywhere?
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  Speaker 4: Tommy? Yeah, I think what Jason Crow and everyone's saying
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: is right. What Kelly's saying is right. This is an
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  Speaker 4: effort to intimidate them and silence them and try to
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  Speaker 4: get other people to be quiet going forward. I do think, though,
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  Speaker 4: once again, they are making some significant legal mistakes in
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  Speaker 4: the process of this little vendetta that we should talk through.
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  Speaker 4: The first is that, so the Department of War, Department
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: of War, I hate saying that. They said they're reviewing
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: these allegations in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: the UCMJ, which is basically the military justice system. Then
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: dumbass Pete Hegseth tweets out a statement calling the congressman
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: the seditious six. And he said Kelly's conduct brings discredit
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: upon the armed forces. So basically, he's calling Kelly guilty
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: of sedition. Why does that matter? Because in the military,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: there's an important concept called unlawful command influence. It refers
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: to a statement by a commander or a senior military
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: leader that seems to influence the case. And that's a
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: big deal in the military because you take orders from
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: your superior. So if your superior, in this case, the
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  Speaker 4: secretary of defense or war, is saying this guy is
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: guilty of sedition, then if you work under him, if
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: you're a defense attorney, if you're a prosecutor, if you
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: are a member of the court martial jury pool, of course,
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: you're going to be influenced by that. So I think
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: he's probably shot himself in the foot if this were
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: actually a legal case. Big picture, it's not. I mean,
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: there is a plaque that hangs at West Point. The
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: title is Loyalty to the Constitution. And it talks about
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: how the U.S. military does not swear loyalty to our leaders,
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: but to the Constitution. And that, quote, our American code
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: of military obedience requests that should order in the law
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: ever conflict, our officers must obey the law. That's what
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: these guys are talking about. And they're clearly just worried
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: that there is currently a policy in the in boats
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: based on bad evidence. So, um, I don't think this
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: is going to work for Hegseth. Also, I think there's
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: another piece of context that someone I was talking to
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: today pointed out, which is that in the Ukraine talks
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: that we'll get to in a minute, one of the
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: key parties is a guy named Dan Driscoll, the secretary
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: of the army. Um, he is, uh, also besties with
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: JD Vance when Hegseth was dealing with his whole signal
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: gate thing. A lot of people were like, get rid
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: of that clown, put in Dan Driscoll. So now that
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: Dan Driscoll is at the big boy table, negotiating the
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: big piece thing. Hegseth is at home freaking the fuck
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: out and flailing. And this is his way to curry
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: back favor.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: With the White House.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: That would make sense. Interesting political side note.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Yes. The Washington Post had this story about all the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: legal machinations to try to get approval for these strikes.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: They were trying to have it go through the CIA.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: But Stephen Miller found that imperfect because they wanted to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: be public. And the Post reported that junior officers in
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the military fearing potential legal exposure asked military lawyers, JAGs,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: for written sign-off before taking pardoned strikes. So there is
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: already agitation inside that people are being asked to participate
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: in military actions that may be ultimately seen as illegal.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: The other part of this is Hegseth made a point
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of saying publicly, like, I can't go after Alyssa Slotkin
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: because she was CIA. I can't go after four of
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the others in that video because they're not technically retired.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I can only really go after Mark Kelly using the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Uniform Code of Military Justice because Mark Kelly served his
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: country for 25 years. The other thing that's jumped out
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: at me about the video, the original video that set
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: this off, is they're very careful. It's very careful. Clearly,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: these are people being very thoughtful and aware of the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: fact that this would cause blowback. And they make a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: point of saying you can refuse unlawful orders. And I
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: found that word just, that's a choice, right? Because they
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: could say you must refuse unlawful orders, but they chose
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: their words really carefully to not be making any kind
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of a, they're not compelling anyone to do anything. They
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: actually make a point of just stating what is ultimately
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: the law, which is you do not have to follow
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: unlawful orders. They issue no commands as a former member
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: of the Navy, whatever the implication is that Hegseth is
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: making that he's using his sort of position as a
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: retired captain. to influence people. They chose their words to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: avoid this if it was going to go all the way.
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  Speaker 3: And I think the Code of Military Justice actually says
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: you must refuse lawful illegal orders.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they said both in the video. I
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: think Jason Crow said must at one point too, but
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: the point stands. They're not telling these guys what to do.
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  Speaker 4: They're just pointing out what the law says. They're just
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: restating the law.
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  Speaker 1: And then others have since pointed out that the law
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: is clear. You must follow lawful orders. You are required
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to disobey.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Also, even if they try to recall Kelly to active
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: duty so they can try to, you know, use military
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: justice here. He has a lot of legal options before
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: he even gets to that point. Like he can go to,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: he can go right to federal court if they try
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: to recall him for active duty and argue first amendment violations,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: due process, misuse of recall authority, jurisdictional overreach being like, what,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: like this has nothing to do with my military service.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: This is something that I did outside of military. It's
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: free speech. So there's a long way to go before
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: he's even, you know, they try to attempt to court-martial
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: him or do anything like that. Like, Pete Hegseth, the
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Secretary of Defense, can't just go around and anyone who's
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: retired just immediately call them back into active duty so
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: that they can put them on trial.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: Like, that's just not— It's flailing.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't just do that.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Gallego made this point, too, that, like, there's a lot
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of very serious people that are not Trump goons, like,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: all along this process of enforcing the military code of justice.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: So, yes, I agree.
• 17:22
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• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Kelly and the other Democrats didn't specify in the video
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: which potentially unlawful orders they were referring to, but as
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: we've said, and some of them have said in interviews,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: that service members have expressed concern to them about the
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: legality of Trump and Hegseth just blowing up boats in
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: the Caribbean and near Venezuela, killing dozens of people now
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: who the administration has has claimed, without evidence, are bringing
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: drugs to the U.S. And it seems like Trump is
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: planning more military action that could become a full-scale war
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: with Venezuela. Reuters reported on Sunday that the U.S. is, quote,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: the coming days, potentially beginning with covert operations. The chairman
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Raisin-Kane, visited
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: the U.S. Southern Command in Puerto Rico on Monday, where
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: most of the 10,000 American troops who have surged to
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: the area are based. The State Department just designated Venezuela's
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: President Nicolas Maduro and some of Maduro's allies as members
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: of a foreign terrorist organization, specifically Cartel de los Soles, which,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: by the way, doesn't really exist. It's just a Venezuelan
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: figure of speech used to describe corrupt military officials involved
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: in the drug trade. So this news comes just as
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: a new CBS poll has 70% of Americans opposing military
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: action in Venezuela, including 53% of non-MAGA Republicans and even
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: 34% of MAGA Republicans, a slight majority of Americans do
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: approve of the boat strikes, 53 to 47, but 75%
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: say that the government needs to show evidence that the
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: boats are carrying drugs, which of course they have not. Tommy,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: what do you think? Does Trump just think he can
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: somehow oust Maduro without a large-scale military operation that most
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Americans won't support? He just, like, thinks that there's, like,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: an easy way out here where we can get him
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: without any cost to the U.S. military and that everyone
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: will be happy?
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: I guess. I mean, maybe we'll find out. So I've
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: talked to people who worked in Trump 1.0, and I
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: heard that he got pretty close to doing this in
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: the first Trump term and that he genuinely wants Venezuela's
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: oil because they have a ton of reserves. And now
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: in Trump 2.0, you have Marco Rubio in there serving in, like,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: seven different jobs, including archivist. And he came up in
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: hardline Miami political circles where leftist governments in Latin America
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: are the enemy. And he thinks that not only do
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: you want to take out Maduro, but he thinks that
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: you take out Maduro and that leads to the toppling
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: of the Cuban government. And that's like his real passion project.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: So at the same time, all of them are getting
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: lobbied by this woman, Maria Machado, who's a Nobel Prize winner,
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: unlike Trump. And these very, very brave, but very conservative
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: Venezuelan opposition leaders, business people, exiles. who claim they're like, oh,
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: we have a regime change plan. It's like plug and play,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: 100 hours will always work for you. Yeah, it'll be seamless.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: They also, I think, seemingly are whispering to Trump that
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: maybe Venezuela did, the ghost of Hugo Chavez did steal
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: the last election, which we can get into. So that's
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: the kind of context swirling in the background. I think
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: Trump probably sees these polls and knows this is a
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: bad idea. I'm positive he's hearing from the Bannon, Tucker
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: Carlson wing of the party, like, yo, man, this is
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: not what MAGA signed up for. Like you overtly ran
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: against regime change wars. Maybe it's a head fake to
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: pressure Maduro into leaving voluntarily, well, at gunpoint, but voluntarily.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: There's purportedly a deal on the table where Maduro was like,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: I'll leave in two to three years, but we'll cut
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: this oil deal with you.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: What is he, Joe Biden?
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Which is kind of hilarious.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: Maduro's a bad guy. He stole the last election. He's
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: a fucking authoritarian. But trying to float an I'll leave
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: in three years deal with Trump is very funny. Invading
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: is insane. This is a country that is like, It's
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: like a third bigger than Texas. There's like armed factions everywhere.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: There's like former terrorist groups on the border. They have
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: real military hardware. I hope to God we don't do this,
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: but we have a lot of naval assets in the
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: region right now.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: I love that when they were contemplating war in Iraq,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: we're going in there for the oil. Bush is going
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: in there for the oil, was seen as like sort
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: of a leftist conspiracy. And now it's just out in
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: the open that it's like, you know, Trump might want
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: to get the oil.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Also, you know, it's sort of, There was a debate
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: in Congress and then a vote.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: The UN got involved?
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: There was a lot.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Democrats in Congress can't even get briefed on the vote strikes.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: The great sin of the Iraq war is that he
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: got a bunch of Democrats to sign off on the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: authorization of the use of force. We went into that
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: as one beautiful, united, stupid country in Congress. And they're
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: just doing it without Congress. They're doing it without any...
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: On the boat strikes, they're walking around with like kind
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: of coming up with novel reasons to justify the military actions.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: It's like it's unbelievable.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they have a fucking gall to criticize
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: those Democrats for that video when they refuse to provide
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: any legal justification whatsoever. Even one that you could say
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: is phony or that you disagree with or that's flimsy.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: They're not even trying that. No legal justification for the
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: strikes and no evidence whatsoever that these boats have been
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: carrying drugs.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: I think people will get prosecuted over this policy. I
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: hope it's Pete Hegseth. I hope it's not lower-level people
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: within the bowels of the U.S.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: Military.
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, the guy in charge of Southern Command, the
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: admiral in charge of Southern Command, resigned over this policy
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: because he thought it was unlawful. Look, they're just murdering
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: people in boats. We don't know who they are. One
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: of the boats reportedly turned around. One seems to have stalled.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: You can see the video. There's these snuff videos of
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: hitting boats just sitting in the water at night.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And by the way, even let's say they do know,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: even that, like, we're just so far from a real justification.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: We're not allowed to just blow people up, even if
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: they are drug traffickers with drugs, because what, that's not,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: what kind of self-defense is that?
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: It's not a thing.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: It's not a thing. That's why that you see all the,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: and that guy resigned. Also, there's like a bunch of
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: lawyers resigned or were forced out around this.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: A bunch of them.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Or they're just benefiting from the chaos of the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: fact that people are being shuffled. People are stepping down, right?
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Like there's just, they're just jobs that aren't being currently
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: filled by the kind of serious national security lawyers that
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: would have been there in previous administrations. Yeah.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: And look, I know there's listeners like screaming at the
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: phone right now being like, what about Obama and his
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: drone policy against Al Qaeda and the way you guys
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: stretch the AUMF within an inch of its life? Like,
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: I agree with a lot of that criticism, frankly. The
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: response would be at least there was a vote to
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: authorize the use of force against Al Qaeda and associated forces. Like,
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: That pretext hasn't even happened here. They're just designating them
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: terrorist groups made up based on this like made up term,
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: this made up cartel association that came from like Venezuelan journalists.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: Also, the Obama administration did not start just drone striking
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: a bunch of boats and then saying, trust us, we
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: think there were some terrorists in those boats and we're
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: not going to tell you who they were or what
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: or what the evidence is or anything else.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, absolutely not. I mean, the argument would be that, look,
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: you don't. A lot of the drone strikes, like you
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: don't know who is at a target. There were a
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: lot of big mistakes that were made. There were some
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: infamous ones in Yemen in particular. And that like, you know,
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: by the end of the administration, you're hitting targets in
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: Somalia based on an AUF that was dealing with the
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: 9-11 attacks. I get all the criticism. I agree with
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: a lot of it. But like, just want to be
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: clear that this is a new, different, even more absurd thing.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And before we move on from this, we're going
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: to war maybe because Venezuela rigged the 2020 election.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah. You heard it here first.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Ghost of Hugo Chavez kind of thing? This is the
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: real thing that Trump believes now?
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: Apparently.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: I guess he's always believed it, but now it's resurfacing?
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: I've heard that Maria Machado is kind of whispering this
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: to him. I don't know that for sure. I've heard
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: it from people who are like experts in this policy world.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: It's insane.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: So stupid. So stupid. Trump and Rubio are still dealing
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: with another war they promised to end before starting this
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: new one. American and Ukrainian negotiators met in Geneva over
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: the weekend to revise a Trump-brokered peace plan so favorable
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: to Russia... that at least one Republican senator thought the
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: US didn't even draft it. Those talks yielded a, quote,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: refined peace framework that was more acceptable to Ukraine. But
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: we still don't really know what the prospects are. The
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: EU put out its own counterproposal to the Trump plan,
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: which the Kremlin said on Monday is completely unconstructive and
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: does not work for them. I was even confused trying
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: to figure this all out about the flurry of news
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: around this and these negotiations and the plan over the weekend. Tommy,
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: can you explain what happened and what's in the Trump
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: plan as far as we know?
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that Mike Rounds statement was very confusing.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: It's like the origins of the plan seems to be
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: up in the air based on this conversation with Rubio,
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: who briefed a bunch of Republicans who then suggested that,
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: I don't know, it's all very weird. Like what the
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: administration says is that this has been basically negotiated by
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Steve Wyckoff, Trump's golf buddy and kind of envoy for everything.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: And then this Russian guy named Kirill Dmitriev, who controls
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: the Russian sovereign wealth fund. The specifics are unsurprising if
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: you followed the maximalist Russian demands over the years. It
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: seems to have just leaked out. Like Witkoff, again, these
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: guys don't know how to use DM. I think Witkoff
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: tweeted something like, oh, did this come from K, meaning Kirill?
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: I think he was supposed to DM that, but he
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: thinks the Russians leaked it. That timing is notable because
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Zelensky is dealing with this massive corruption scandal and the
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: Russians are also getting really aggressive and they're firing drones
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: like Polish airspace and all these other European countries. There's
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: all these sabotage operations. So I think that's how it
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: came out. And that seems to have fast-forwarded a process
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: that got us to these negotiations that were happening over
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: the weekend in Geneva.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Do we think we're in a better place now?
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, the original 28-point plan was like just
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: full surrender. It was basically Ukraine gives over the Donbass region.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: They gave over Crimea. Karason and Zaporizhia are frozen along
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: the battle lines, and the Russians occupy the parts. It's
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: de facto recognition that Russia gets what they're occupying. And
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: then it capped the size of the Ukrainian military. It
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: says Ukraine can't join NATO, but they could try to
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: join the EU. It would force them to hold elections
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: in 100 days. And then the security guarantee part of
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: this is just fucking bullshit. There was this Axios story
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: that's like, oh, there's a NATO-like security guarantee.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I saw that.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: Absolutely not. No NATO troops are allowed to be in Ukraine.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: That was sort of seen as like a tripwire force
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: that you have in place in Ukraine where the Russians invaded.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: It would immediately pull in Europe. That's off the table.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: The U.S.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: Is not providing anything close to a NATO-like guarantee. But
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: the Russians get amnesty for crimes committed during the war.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: They get reintegrated into the global economy in the G8.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Sanctions get lifted. And then the U.S. and Russia do
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: some deal to cooperate on energy and AI and rare
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: earths and stuff. That 28 point has been now negotiated
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: to 19 points, and then the rest goes to the leaders.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: So I think it's getting a little better, but it's
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: not good.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: It feels like also it could get better to the
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: point where then Putin decides, no, now it's too good.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: And it seems like it's in his interest to just
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: continue dragging this out. Yeah.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, either he continues to take territory or he.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Gets a deal. Love it. On Twitter this morning, J.D.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Vance weighed in, as is always helpful, where he had
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: this long tweet. taking a bunch of potshots at fellow
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: Republicans who didn't like the White House's plan. And he
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: ridiculed their, quote, passion for Ukraine as, quote, bonkers. What's
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: your sense of the politics for the White House and
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: the Republican Party here?
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I do always appreciate when J.D. Vance directs that fucking
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: patronizing smug tone at Republicans. So they just get a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: little whiff of it. You know, look, this is an
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: issue that divides Republicans and they have a lot of
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: those these days. And I don't think the politics of
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: this are very good for them. Mitch McConnell put out
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: a statement about this and he made this point at
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the end of it that I thought was, I think, relevant.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: He said something to the effect of the United States
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: is not neutral in these negotiations and we should not
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: pretend otherwise, which is wishful in two ways. One, He
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't want America to be neutral, but really what he
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: wants is us to be less biased toward Russia, right?
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: He continues to operate in the fantasy that America is really,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: actually still maintaining what he and the other kind of
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: old school establishment, neocon style Republicans believe, which is obviously
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: seeing the invasion of Ukraine by Russia as a dangerous
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: act that if, you know, allowed to be successful, bodes
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: terribly for Taiwan, the rest of Europe, you know, the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: free world. But that's obviously not where Trump and Wyckoff are.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I know Wyckoff gave yet another interview, I think this
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: was with Carlson, talking about how much he likes Putin
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and doesn't see him as a bad guy. Whatever the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: reality of what they believe is their posture, they come
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: across as being so guileless in dealing with Putin. And
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the idea that you're going to attack Republicans for being
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: obsessed with this issue for pointing that out, I don't
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: think is particularly smart.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: It's just interesting. Like, look, this is just another peace deal,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: so-called peace deal, where Trump's version of getting a peace
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: deal done is just the stronger side gets everything and
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: the weaker side gets told to take it at gunpoint.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's what happened in Gaza too. It's also
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: just worth pointing out that like the, the U S
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: and the Russians are like cutting this deal, uh, bilaterally
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: and then presenting it to the Ukrainians and others conversations
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: happening as the rest of the world is in South
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: Africa at the G 20, which we are boycotting and
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: the cop climate forum just wraps up in Brazil, which
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: we also boycotted. So it's like the degree to which
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: we have just taken ourselves out of the traditional forums
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: and structures that would solve an issue like this is
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: kind of, it is remarkable and unnerving.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: And I think it's just, I mean, from JD Vance's tweet, it's,
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: we shouldn't have to solve things like this and let's
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: let the stronger power win. And because it doesn't matter
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: to us. And if they, if Russia comes for us, well,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: we're strong too. So we can deal with that then.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: But that's basically the thinking, which is very great powers era.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: But none of it makes sense. You have the envoys.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: You are negotiating the deal. I don't know what it
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: means for whatever passion he's claiming people have. It doesn't
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: justify negotiating a deal that is more favorable to Russia.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: First of all, it's not clear that that ends this
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: war any sooner because the Ukrainians are not going to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: go along with a deal like that. And that won't necessarily,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: and the fighting. And by the way, anything, any deal
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: that doesn't provide any kind of security guarantees, like what, why?
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: It's just, why do you think Russia is so concerned
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: about having NATO troops in Ukraine? Why would they, if
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: they want a deal, why would they care? And they
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: care because this is a pretext to whatever, gain some leverage,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: gain entrance to the global economy, and then just wait
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: a couple years and assume America like a goldfish. moves
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: on and then do it all over again.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: It's like the next, this sort of, this tells Ukraine
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: in practice, you're no longer a fully sovereign country. Like we,
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: the US and Russia get to tell you when to
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: have an election. We get to tell you the size
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: of your military. We get to tell you if you
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: can join NATO. And then it makes Ukraine a sitting
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: duck if Putin wants to take, bite off another chunk
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: in a year or two. But also what happens if
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: the Russians shift some of these troops and they just
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: sit them outside a Baltic country and all of a
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: sudden a NATO country is about to get invaded? I mean, look,
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: the Russians are far, firing drones into Poland on the regular.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: The polls just accused them of blowing up a rail
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: line used to resupply the Ukrainians.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Fast forward to two years when J.D. Vance is tweeting,
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: the passion from the Beltway GOP for NATO is just,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: it disgusts me. That was the end of his tweet.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: This disgusts me. Show some passion for your own country.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: The other part too is like, NATO is a promise, right?
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Does anyone believe that Donald Trump is going to stand
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: behind NATO? The only, like, What is actually holding NATO
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: together is the fact that I do think there's credibility
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: in Europe's now claim to defend its fellow members. But
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know that anyone could believe Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: and J.D. Vance would have the passion for defending our allies.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: That's probably why they're shitting bricks in Taiwan, too.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: At one point in this 28-point plan, I think there's
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: a reference to the U.S. mediating talks between the Russia
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: and NATO.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: And it's like, wait, we are NATO.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: What are you talking about? We're not some outside observer
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: here that's going to— anyway.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: But thankfully, those bricks are some of the most sophisticated
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: bricks on planet Earth. And as long as they keep
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: shitting those bricks, you know what I'm saying?
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, I do.
• 35:09
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• 36:26
  Speaker 3: The biggest news on the continued fracturing of the MAGA
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: coalition came rather suddenly on Friday night when Marjorie Taylor
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Greene posted this video along with a letter of resignation
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: from Congress.
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: Loyalty should be a two way street standing up for
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: and used by rich, powerful men. should not result in
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: me being called a traitor and threatened by the president
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: of the United States. And I do not want my
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: primary against me by the president that we all fought for,
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: only to fight and win my election while Republicans will
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: likely lose the midterms. I refuse to be a battered wife,
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: hoping it all goes away and gets better.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: So Trump responded on Saturday by calling MTG a quote,
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: nice person. telling NBC that she needs to, quote, take
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: a little rest. And then he went back to bashing
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: her on Truth Social as a, quote, lowlife, and once
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: again called her Marjorie Traitor Brown. Now, this is a
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: combination of his two nicknames. First, it was Marjorie Taylor
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Brown because brown is rotting and green is not, and
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: she's rotted. Yeah, that was the first swing, and it
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: was not a good one. So then he said, then
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: he realized, oh, traitor was right there. So now then
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: he called her Marjorie Traitor Green, but now he's decided
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: to bring both together. which is why we have Marjorie
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: Trader Brown.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: It's a trunk for sure.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: He trunks it.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's true.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Why do you guys think she did it? What was
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: your reaction when you saw this?
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: So, first of all, I'll just be honest. I was like,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: oh no, which I can't believe. Like just at my first,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: I was like, Marjorie, no. So here's what I'm struggling with. Marjorie, no.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Like take it at face value. You could, have said
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: everything she says in this video or version of it
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: while saying, and so I will not be seeking a
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: new term, right? I, what I'm struggling with and with
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the logic of is the country is in dire straits.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: We need people who are willing to fight, uh, just,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: you know, no fear or favor. So I'm leaving early.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I'm going to leave my seat open. And, and, and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: it's especially strange. And we'll talk more about sort of
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: the broader problems inside of the Republican caucus in the
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: house right now. But, uh, we're about to enter a
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: period where she would have probably more power inside of
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Congress than she could ever hope or anyone at her
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: level in Congress could ever hope to have in a
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: normal period. So that's what I find strange about it,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: even if you take what she's saying at face value.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I had a similar reaction. I was like,
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: there's something kind of sad about Marjorie Taylor Greene deciding
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: she can't be the world's biggest Trump supporter, but also
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: want the Epstein files released and not think it's a
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: great idea to just like funnel arms overseas. And that
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: was kind of like my takeaway. And I guess like
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: I guess being in Congress just really sucks unless you're
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: one of like four people because they make all the
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: decisions while the decisions get foisted upon you. Even the
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: committee chairs have no power. They just get jammed by
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: the White House and they're told to grin and bear it.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: And then I think I do think the security. threats
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: are quite real, especially post Charlie Kirk. Like I heard
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: from somebody that MTG's kids were getting harassed in a
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: very unsettling way. And like she seems genuinely disillusioned with Trump.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: She was not ready to eat shit for him if
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: There's a democratic Congress, like her speech where she said,
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: I refuse to be a battered wife and hope it
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: all goes away and gets better. Like that was a
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: pretty jarring comparison. I also believed her when she said
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: she believes in term limits and doesn't think Congress should
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: be quote a lifelong career or an assisted living facility.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: I found myself applauding that line too. And then like
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: the Machiavellian take on it is she's basically quitting to say, well,
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: I'm actually even more America first than, than he is
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: right now. And she's like, when people figure out the
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: statement is rigged, I'll be there to rebuild. I wasn't
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: totally sure what that meant. So as long as she
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: doesn't attack Trump directly, she focuses on issues. Maybe she
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: thinks she's got more power and flexibility from the outside.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: Cause like everybody hates Congress and she'd be like, I
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: hate it so much.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I quit.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: I think people, most people believe understandably so that motivating
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: almost every politician is like a drive for power and attention.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: And I think, it's very possible that, you know, she
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: broke with Trump. She started getting some shit. She broke
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: again and she started getting threats. And maybe she just thought,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: I don't care if I have more power the next
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: year in Congress. I don't care that I have more
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: months on my term. I just want out and I
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: don't want to deal with this and I don't want
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: to deal with the public eye. And I just want to,
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: that's it. And in some of the reporting, I noticed
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: that some people close to her said, this is not a,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: this is not a shtick. She's not running. She's out
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: of politics. She's stepping away. She's done. And maybe it
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: was just too much for her. And maybe there's like
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: no explanation deeper than that. Maybe not, but it's one possibility. Yeah.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, who knows? I mean, right now, right now,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: like I really just like, I, I'm approaching this cynically
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and I was like, there's got, there's just really no
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: hints anywhere about what she would do. She's said she's
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: not running for president. She said she wouldn't run for Senate.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: She's not running for governor. Uh, And then she put
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: out a longer post when she was tamping down the
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: suggestion she was going to run for president. She said,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: the fact that I'd have to go through all that
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: but would be totally blocked from truly fixing anything is
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: exactly why I would never do it. And it's a
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: very defeatist... Yeah. It's just not the statement a politician
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: normally makes.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: Cynicism won.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But I did come away at the end and
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I thought, all right, I have no idea. I don't
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: know Marjorie Taylor Greene's mind. She's surprised me at every turn.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: But.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: It is, what I thought, what I got to the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: end of it is like, maybe she's not running for something,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: but there is a kind of- Maybe.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: She's running from something.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Well, for sure, for sure. But I did come away
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: with it thinking, this is sort of what you say
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: if you are thinking about starting some kind of like
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: a media company or some kind of a public facing anti-establishment,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: not pro-Trump, but MAGA post-Trump something. She's got that boyfriend
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: who's going to have a tougher time asking questions in
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the Oval Office than he used to.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: They seem happy. From Gitmo, yeah.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: They got the shirtless pics going.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: So many.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: So I don't know.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: That was what I said. Maybe this is like, the
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: net will see her and say, look, you can either
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: be the hero or you live long enough to become
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: a podcast host. You know what I'm saying? And so
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I do think.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: You know what happens? It's like maybe genuinely in her
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: mind right now, she's thinking, I'm done for good. Then
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: you get home to Georgia. and you're in your house,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: and you're really quiet.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Pretty quiet.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: It's pretty quiet.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Takes piling up by the front door.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: You look at those takes, and you're like, maybe I
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: could do something to get back into this, or maybe not.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: But the other part of this that's so strange, though,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: is all of the going hard on Epstein, that all fits, right?
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: She did have a kind of eat, pray, love thing
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: kindness turn as well at the end.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, post-Charlie Kirk.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: And then from that to go just, I'm out. That's
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: why I just feel like, I don't know. The whole
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: thing is still, the truth always, the truth makes sense.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: So far, I don't think this entirely makes sense.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: It was not lost on anyone that MTG's announcement came
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: just hours after Trump appeared in the Oval with Zohran
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: Mamdani and couldn't stop gushing over the guy he'd previously
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: been calling a communist lunatic. We have a longer reaction
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: to the Trump-Mamdani meeting on Friday that you can check
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: out on the Pod Save America YouTube channel. But seeing
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: the reaction from MAGA World since then has been interesting,
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: to say the least. The Fox News chyrons quickly switched
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: from showdown with socialism to what I saw today was
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: just Trump and Mamdani vow to work on affordability. It's like, wow,
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: this is different. But quite a few MAGA politicians and
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: influencers weren't as willing to go along with Trump's change
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: of heart. Everyone from Elise Stefanik, who was thrown right
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: under the bus by Trump in the meeting.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: So good.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: To Laura Loomer, to Nick Fuentes, who said the friendly
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: meeting is proof that Trump and MAGA are hypocrites who, quote,
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: don't believe anything they're peddling. What have you guys made
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: of the reaction to the meeting?
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just.
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: Continue to be amazed by how positive it was and
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: the reaction was generally. I mean, I think Zoran Mandani
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: got huge credit for it. I did see some like super,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: super lefty types attacking him for, I guess, capitulating and
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: not taking to the streets and protesting Trump. I think
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: that probably speaks to why Zoran Mandani is in elected
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: office now and has the capacity to do things to
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: help people and why some others to his left are not.
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: But I don't know, I hope Trump gets hammered for this.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: I do like if it adds to the mega divide.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: I think he's mostly just a guy who loves love
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: and loves the press and was happy with that combo,
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: you know? Loves praise.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he does, yeah, for sure.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: Or felching.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: For sure, for sure, sort of a political felching. I'm
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: sorry I said that.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: I started it in my bed.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I think the one thing that I think will linger
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: on his side is they really were going to make
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Mamdani the villain or one of the villains in the midterms.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: And I think they can still do that. Like, there's a, oh, no, Trump's,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: you know, he's defying the attack. And I think it
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: makes it a less potent attack. But I think they
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: can still attack Democrats as socialists. They've never run out
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: of ink to do that. But if you're like a
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: House Republican... And you already feel as though you're on edge.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: You may be going to lose your job. You're worried
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: about the upcoming health care votes. You're you're you're like
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: you're just you're just feeling like put upon and unloved.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: And then you turn on the television. There's Donald Trump
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: chumming it up with the person that you all thought
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: was going to be public enemy. Number one, it's got
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: to add insult to injury.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure they're not happy. No, which is nice.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Elise Stefanik was, I think she posted like, well, we're
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: just gonna have to disagree on this one, because he's
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: still a jihadist.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Right, right, yeah. And the whole thing is all so embarrassing, right?
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Because it's like, Elise Stefanik put on the clown suit
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: because Trump loves clowns. And he's like, I want to
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: see these clowns dance around.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: And now she's a sad clown.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, sure. But then it's like he like is
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: in the Oval Office being like, I don't like clowns anymore.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I like this guy. And she's like, what? It's like sucks.
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: Also, like, fuck you, Elise Stefanik. Like you made your cause, right?
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: Going after colleges for not combating anti-Semitism. And then you
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: call this man a jihadist. which is the most blatant,
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: disgusting form of Islamophobia I've heard in a long time.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: So you're a terrible person. You were a moderate who
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: decided to go all in on MAGA. Trump doesn't like you.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: The moderates don't like you anymore. I can't wait to
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: watch you lose your election. You got played by Trump.
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: You got played by Zoran. Take your bigoted bullshit somewhere else.
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: You suck.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Back to the Kennedy school for you, Elise Stefanik. Enjoy it. Yeah.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Fuck you. You get McKinsey. You get the Kissinger. Yeah.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: Blah, blah, blah. Professorship or something. Yeah.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: So more serious frustration with Trump in the White House
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: is brewing in Congress as well. On Monday, Punchbowl quoted
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: a very riled up, unnamed senior House Republican.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: Oh, no.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Who, and this is in light of the MTG stuff,
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: who said that, quote, nearly all House Republicans are, quote,
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: more upset than ever with the White House and Mike
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Johnson and essentially called the White House team arrogant. Imagine that.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: That same senior House Republican also hinted that, quote, more
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: explosive early resignations are coming, calling the situation a tinderbox.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Hard to not be gleeful reading that. But how real
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: do you think this is? How much of an impact
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: could it have on Trump's agenda and or the midterms
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: next year? It is funny that we've waited till now
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: to speak out against the fact that the White House
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: has been treating Republicans in Congress like they are White
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: House staffers.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, probably not helpful, these quotes where Trump says
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: that the Congress doesn't really matter anymore, now that they
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: did the one beautiful bill that he rules Congress with
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: an iron fist. He had Steve Bannon referring to it
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: as the Duma. So the current majority is 219, 213.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Marjorie leaves, it's 218, 213. Three special elections coming up.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: You have Cheryl's seat, you have Turner's seat. Abbott held
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: that one open for the better part of a year.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: so that we wouldn't get one more. Tennessee, it's hopeful.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Let's say we lose it. Hope we win it. Could
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: win it. It's going to be hard. Let's say we
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: lose it. You're at 219, 215. That means they can
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: only lose two people, right? That goes from a house
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: that could pass something like the big, beautiful bill, that
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: a house that couldn't. If there really are other potential retirements, plural,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: if you have two more retirements, you're at 217, 215.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: That means Thomas Massey Personally decides yes anything that the
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Republicans can do in Congress without Democrats Donald Trump We're
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: going to talk about the health care proposal the inconceivable
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: that that could pass without democratic votes. So all of
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: this means that in the next year, Democrats just have
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: more power. And by the way, the other tension here
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: is this quote, right? Like this is information, right? Like
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe a bunch of House Republicans are talking to each
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: other about whether or not they're going to leave early.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: But now all House Republicans know that all House Republicans
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: saw that a bunch of them are talking to Jake
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Sherman about leaving early. Nobody wants to be the guy
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: that hands the gavel to Akeem Jeffries. So get it
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: like this is like, I don't know what Mike Johnson,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: his quiz Thanksgiving is fucked because if you're thinking about
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: retiring early, you don't want to wait because all of
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: a sudden you don't want to be the last one
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: out before you're the one that has to decide to
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: hand the gavel over to the Democrats or go to
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: split committee. So it's, I don't get too excited about
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: what could happen with these numbers, but let's just say
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I could write a nice poem to Olivia Knutsy about it.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: This sort of proves Trump right about one thing, which
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: is you show just a little bit of weakness, you
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: lose just one A little one issue, one vote, one
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: off your election and the whole fucking thing can start
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: crumbling down because they for how long now have all
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: these Republicans basically acceded to the fact that they were
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: going to just be a satellite office of the White House.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: And Mike Johnson did not think. that his obligation was
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: to his caucus. He thought it was to keep Donald
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: Trump happy, no matter what, even when he didn't agree
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: with them, even when you could tell he didn't enjoy
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: lying for him, but he just did it because he
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: knew he needed to keep Trump happy. And most of the,
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: and all the Republicans went along with them. And now
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: that they're starting to, you know, see some weakness here and,
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: and see the, see the poll numbers. Now they're all like, Oh,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: wait a minute. Maybe, maybe we should not have hitched
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: our entire future to this guy who was leaving in 2028. Yeah.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Well, this is look like, any kind of like effort
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: to have control, it looks stronger than it is. But
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: if your politics requires you never being weak in a democracy,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: even one that is as flawed and broken as slip
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: and slipping away as ours, it's brittle. It's brittle. And
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the whole thing can fall down around you because these
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: are just human beings. They didn't sign on to be
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: vassals for Donald Trump. And they may do it for the,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, they did it. They did it. They're going
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: to do it, right? They're political creatures and they have
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: egos and they have, incentives, but they're still people.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: It is even in the most, if you take the
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: most cynical view, right? Is it better now to be
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: a Republican politician? when you could also just be a
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: MAGA influencer, like I think you could make more money
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: as a MAGA influencer. You could definitely, you get more attention.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: So like, what is the, what is the benefit of
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: being in Congress?
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: A lot of these guys that you go a couple
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: of steps down the call sheet, they don't have the,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: they don't have the, they can't do it. They can't
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: That's fair.
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: But I mean, like if being in Congress sucks now,
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: wait till you're in the minority and you can't get
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: anything done and you're just fundraising and like defending impeachment.
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, MTG talked about like having to defend another
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: Trump impeachment. She's right. That'll, Almost certainly happened. But yeah,
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, Speaker Johnson, the knives are out for that guy.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: And it's fun to watch. I mean, he thought that
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: he and Trump had the covenantized settings at the same level.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: It turns out Trump had him off from, you know,
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: 5 p.m. until morning.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure once he does his own thing. I'm
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: sure once he doesn't have the speaker role anymore, Trump
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: will treat him just like he treats Kevin McCarthy. You know,
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: like those two have never been closer now.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I'm just picturing Mike Johnson showing up on Monday with
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: everybody at work like, I brought donuts and it's pizza,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: bringing back pizza Wednesdays.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: Pajama Fridays.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: Trust Falls.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: Hawaiian shirt Fridays.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: On the subject of Republican defections, the party is still
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: figuring out how to handle the health care premium hikes
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: that are about to hit 20 million Americans on January 1st.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: This is, of course, because the Affordable Care Act subsidies
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: are set to expire after Trump and Republicans in Congress
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: refused to work with Democrats to extend them. But there
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: was news over the weekend that Trump was preparing to
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: release his own plan this week. which would reportedly be
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: a two-year extension of the subsidies with new income-based limits
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: on who would qualify and a minimum premium payment required
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: for everyone. The White House apparently forgot to consult with
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: Republicans in Congress, as they are wont to do. And
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: now the entire proposal is on hold. because of reactions
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: like this from an anonymous House Republican who told MSNOW,
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: you know it's bad if they're going to MSNOW.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: That's the part of this that made me wonder.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: And the quote from the anonymous House Republican is, I
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: wasn't expecting the proposal to be Obamacare-lite, absolutely not supportive
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: of extending ACA subsidies. And there's all this reporting that
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: they did, the White House did pull back the proposal
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: from this week because there was so much of a
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: backlash among Republicans in Congress.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Too bad, bitches. you've anchored the negotiation.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: What do you guys think of the proposal itself? I mean,
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: I think my big takeaway is I'll believe it when
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: I see it. I mean, we've been, you know, getting
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: a plan to repeal and replace since 2015. I think
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: in 2020, he started giving us the two-week countdown, and
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: here we are, 2025. I guess it's good that he
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: knows it's a political disaster. I would love to see
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: him extend the ACA premiums. I do think the things
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: they're focused on are so weird. Like, they're worried about
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: this ghost premium issue, so they're trying to eliminate basically
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: zero cost premiums because they think that they'll root out
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: fraud if you make people pay like five bucks a
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: month or something. If there's broker fraud or something they're
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: really worried about, go after the brokers. I don't totally
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: understand this obsession, but I just, I don't know how
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: you get this for Congress. I just, I don't get it.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I saw the, the, the, the, the details
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: that had leaked of what they were proposing. And then
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: I kind of went looking around because, uh, it was
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: sort of like, it seemed better than what it should be,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: to be honest. Uh, It's not Obamacare-like, whatever that means.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: It is a reminder that Donald Trump has put himself
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: in a terrible political situation because rather than proposing, while
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: the subsidies were in place, a Republican reform that people
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: could have gotten behind, it is now undoing the elimination
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: of the subsidies. So it changes the politics of it
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: for him. But I think the fact that you have
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: a bunch of Republicans in the House saying that this
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: is not something they want to be a part of,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: and you have Jeanne Shaheen saying this is a great
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: jumping off point, and it gives you a sense of
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: what the politics are, So some House Democrats, I think, rightfully,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: for the purposes of negotiation, being like, this is fucking disgusting.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: But in the grand scheme of things, had this been
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: what came out of, say, the shutdown, we would have
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: described that as an incredible victory.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: So the first thing to be aware of is that
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: it is only dealing with the enhanced subsidies, right? And
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: so it's not touching any of the rest of the
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: Affordable Care Act, which is important to mention because Trump
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: and other Republicans seem to suggest at various points in
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: the last couple of weeks that maybe they were going
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: to do a whole new plan or a whole replacement plan.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: So it's just the extended subsidies. And what they would
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: do is if you did that minimum premium payment, there's
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: an estimate from, I think, Kaiser that a million fewer
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: people could be enrolled in Obamacare. So a million people
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: could lose their health insurance. which is obviously not great.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: It is much better than the 20 million people who
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: would get hit with premium hikes.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: And by the way, that's an estimate based on people
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: who would be willing to pay the premium. The detail matters,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: how big of a monthly premium is this? If it's
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: a small amount, people might go for it, et cetera.
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: Et cetera. And if you say now that people over
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: 700% of the poverty line aren't eligible for the subsidies, well,
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: That sounds like 700 sounds like a big number, but
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: that's like you're getting to like $ 55, 000, $ 60, 000 a year.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: And so if you're a family, you're making $ 75, 000, $ 80, 000
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: a year, and now you're not getting the extended subsidies,
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: like that hurts them too. So it's not, I would
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: not say it's great, but if faced with a choice
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: between that plan and nothing, like I still think you'd
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: want that plan, but also to your point, Lovett, I
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: can't imagine. It seems, it's bad, but it seems too good.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: for especially House Republicans to get behind it.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Here's what I don't understand. I can see something like
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: this getting through the Senate. And I think this does
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: feel like a Senate deal that they try to jam
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: the House with. I think you would lose some House Republicans.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: And as we just discussed, they don't have a lot
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: of room for error. So then the only way it
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: could pass would be with Democratic votes. I think you
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: would get Democrats that would vote for a plan like this.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is a two-year extension that kicks the
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: issue down the road. ostensibly so they can finally unveil
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: their big plan, but we know no such plan exists.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: So really what this does is create a new baseline
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: for future extensions. And I do think it's one that
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Democrats would live with and a great, given that we
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: have control over no houses of Congress, would speak to A,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: how well Democrats did in making healthcare the issue and B,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: just how bereft of ideas Republicans have been on healthcare
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: because they're just trying to figure it out now. And
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: like one of the ideas in there is to have
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: some money go into health savings accounts.
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Like they just when push comes to shove, they're either
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: going to do something that a bunch of right wingers
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: don't like or they're going to do something fucking heinous
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: that the country won't like. And so they've been they've
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: been stuck for a long time.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: All right. Before we get to my interview with Summer Lee,
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: we're going to take a quick dumpster dive into the
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: tabloid drama involving RFK Jr. and his alleged affair with
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: political journalist Olivia Nuzzi, who's already released some excerpts from
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: her forthcoming memoir, American Canto, about the whole thing. And
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: the upcoming release of the memoir has then prompted Newsy's ex-fiancee,
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: political journalist Ryan Lizza, to tell his side of the
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: story in a multi-part series on his new substack. The
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: first installment from Lizza accused Newsy, in a highly cinematic
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: twist at the end of the post, of also having
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: an affair with former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford when
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: he was running in the primary back in 2020 against
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump. The second installment, which dropped on Saturday, Fast
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: forwards to 2024 when Lizza, he doesn't say how, discovered
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: erotic poetry that Kennedy had sent Newsy. Where would you
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: guys like to begin and how graphic shall we get?
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, we've been making felching jokes all day, so
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: go for it. Go all in. Let's go.
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the poem, Lizza says that the poem is many
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: too explicit to print, changed everything. And then in parentheses says,
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: thanks to Bobby, I am now aware of something called felching.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: This is from, now I'm quoting from the New York
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: Post story about felching. Of course there was one. Felching
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: is the term used for when one sexual partner sucks
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: semen out of another partner's anus or vagina following unprotected
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: penetrative sex, according to the National Institute of Health, which
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr. leads as part of his top role at HHS.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: I just loved the gilding the lily there in the
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: Post story about how we had to connect then the
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: NIH definition to HHS.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Hey, here's a question. How did Doge not get whatever
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: website defines felching for the government?
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: Did you save some pennies on that one?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: I feel like that is something we could have left
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: to the private sector.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: This whole thing, man. It's just so rare to see
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: two people both lean into a PR disaster.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: Usually the concept of mutually assured destruction restrains both sides.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: They've taken a very different... There's been some interesting think
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: pieces about how the modern media world incentivizes you to
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: go all in and put it all out there, and
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: that gets you money and that gets you notoriety. But wow,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: it's been tough. Tough read.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: First of all, I just want to say I am
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: a new subscriber to Ryan Liz's Substack, and I'm proud
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to give him the $ 10 a month. Really? I think
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: he's earned it. I think he's doing incredible work. Honestly,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: in the history of Substack, I'm curious what has had
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: more conversion over than these two posts.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, from edition one to the felching edition.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Just the saying, like, what I'm about to share with
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: all of you is so embarrassing, but I'm doing it
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: for the sake of journalism. By the way, she did
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: this with Mark Sanford first. Click here to subscribe. Like, yeah, yes, Ryan.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: I am in, Ryan. This is what it's for. Thank
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: you for doing Substack. Yeah, I mean, I guess I
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: could subscribe to Messagebox and find out what the polls mean.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: I gotta say, one thing I learned from all of
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: this is that editors are very important. These are two
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: individuals who are supposed to be some of the best editors.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: writers of their generation who have written some, some, some
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: pretty excellent stuff in the past things. But, uh, I
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: think great editors prevent extended bamboo metaphors. They probably prevent
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: self immolation. They probably prevent, uh, annoyingly referring to the
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: person you're talking about as the politician. When we all
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: know the person's name was Robert F. Kennedy jr.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I, I would like to separate, I think
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: these are two distinct, like, I feel as though like the,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: the Liza posts are, um, making lemonade, you know? Substack lemonade. Because, look,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I don't, but the American canto, I don't know, first
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: of all, what is a canto? Is it a poem
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: of some kind? I don't know what that is.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: It's a word British people can say, but we.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Use it. But the excerpts of the Nuzzi book are
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: very indulgent and a bit overwritten and kind of lyrical,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: but then you're like, wait, what is this about? Is
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: this about fucking RFK? What are we talking about? We're
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: talking about a fucking RFK? I don't want to slut
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: shame anybody.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: I feel like RFK Jr. is getting off here in
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: a way.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: Oh, you mean politically?
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, metaphorically, yeah.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: In a way that, like, he is the fucking Health
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: and Human Services Secretary. Like, as much as everyone wants
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: to talk about Ryan and Olivia, you know, it doesn't
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: really matter all that much, right? Like, that is their
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: private lives. And I realize that Ryan has a sub
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: stack and Olivia has now been hired by Vanity Fair.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: who's now looking into all of these surprising revelations that
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: Lizza has aired. Fine media story, I guess. But like
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr. sitting at HHS telling us that the vaccines
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: cause autism as he's writing poems about felching.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: The other thing, too, is, first of all, everyone's entitled
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: to a private life, including secretaries of health and human services.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: But he has issued some pretty strong denials that seem
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: to be contradicted. But by what we're learning, because I
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: don't know whether or not.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: It does seem like he has a troubled past with
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: the truth.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: For sure. Because it's not just that they've asserted that
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: there was no sexual relationship. Like he made like kind
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: of went even further to be like, I don't even
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: know this person. That's I'm paraphrasing. He lied. He pretty
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: clearly lied about all this.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Look, I agree. He's the bigger issue. Him being
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: a liar. And there was an incredible contrast over the
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: weekend of all of this swirling around. And then Tatiana Schlossberg. Uh,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: his relative was a sister.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: It's his, it's his niece.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: Sorry. Wrote this beautiful piece, the New Yorker that everyone
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: should read about her battle with leukemia that got into
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: the way, uh, decisions he is making at HHS. We'll
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: make it harder for her to get treatment. We'll make
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: it harder to find cures in the future. It's like
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: beautifully done and brilliant. I do think it may be
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: her cousin. It's her cousin because Caroline's cousin is RFK
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: either way. I just read it. It's it's excellent. Um,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: I do think there were some, um, ethical questions around
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: Olivia's relationship with Robert F.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Kennedy.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: That were not really grappled with. Like the New York
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: Times style section piece about her book, just kind of
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: yada yada right past that and didn't really touch it.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: I was like, it feels like this is actually a
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: kind of significant question if you are dating the person
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: you're covering and then according to Ryan Lizzer, writing them
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: strategy memos for their campaign and providing advice.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: And he has also accused her in the second sub-stack
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: of catch and kill operations on his behalf, that she
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: was engaged in catch and kill operations on RFK Jr.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: 's behalf. and other journalistic transgressions that have still not
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: been disclosed in addition to the strategy memos thing.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: How are we not subscribing to this fucking thing? Yes, $ 9. 99,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: Ryan Lizza. There you go.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: And then she said to Lizza, apparently, allegedly, that she
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: was afraid if anyone found out about their affair that
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: Bobby would kill her.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's a big deal.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Well, because that's the cliffhanger for the next installment.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: Again, we're all just, the felching has taken up.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: A lot of... Yeah, a lot of space in my brain, yeah. Also,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: Mark Sanford still exists. I hadn't thought about him in
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: a while.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: Keith Olbermann fucking inserted himself into this whole story, too.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't even see the Keith Olbermann posting. I didn't
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: get to the... I didn't see the Keith Olbermann post.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. He was post, because in there, he
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: dated Olivia at some point, and so Ryan writes about that, and,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: of course, Olbermann jumps in on the Twitters, but then
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: he also, you know, gives an interview to the New
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: York Times, you know, talking more about it.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: Good.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: More.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is also weird, and then I just remembered...
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: Cheryl Hines did that weird interview with.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: Podcast sensation Katie Miller.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: Katie Miller, Steve Miller's wife, where this kind of came
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: up and she was attacking Olivia and defending Ralph Kennedy.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: All 11 viewers were horrified.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and he just seems like an awful guy. Did
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: you guys know that Geraldo Rivera wrote a memoir in
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: 1991 with the title Exposing Myself that detailed all of
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: his exploits?
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: Anything about felching in there?
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: I got to read it now.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: I just, you know, It's nice to have a media storyline. Like,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: the monoculture is dead, you know? It's nice to have
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: something like this where it's like, yeah, ultimately, this is
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: the person in charge of, say, vaccine schedules, and that's
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: a bummer. But other than that, the stakes feel kind
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: of low, you know? Like, I don't know why I
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: get to know all this stuff, but it's out there.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going to read it.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a lot of detail.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Relationships are hard.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: They are.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: Relationships are hard.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: Especially now. Especially. When do you think part three drops?
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. Can you send it
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: to us now? I will.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: Because you're a subscriber.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: I'll send you a gift.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: Well, there were some Google Docs going around over the weekend.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: I'm sure you guys got sent those. I felt a
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: little unethical.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: I don't believe in stealing content. I support creators like
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Ryan Lizza. I will say, though, I had a choice
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: between a yearly subscription or monthly. And I was like, buddy, listen,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know where we're going to be after this
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: fucking story's ending, but I don't know if I'm going
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: to be paying you anymore. All right? Sorry, Ryan Loza.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I think ultimately, I'm glad you're telling your story, but
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: a couple months from now, am I paying Telos?
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: Was there like a founding felcher option?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was. There was. Yes. You get access to
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: insider felching news before any of the rest of the community.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Quarterly Zooms with the Felching Advisory Board.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: This is.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: We did this to ourselves.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: This is, this is who gives us health advice.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It makes big decisions and hires and fires people
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: and testifies for Congress.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: He's worried about all the lies to them.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: All the impunities and all this, like, forget about red 40.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: How about you're fucking out there felching. Yeah.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: I also just like, what, what is the appeal? This
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: guy's throwing off RFK jr. It's unbelievable.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I don't see it.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: Is it the, poetry it's the poetry hopefully we'll hopefully
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: we'll find more of the poetry anyway we'll do it
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: we'll do a live reading if it warrants it okay
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: when we get back from the break you'll hear my
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: conversation with who who's our conversation with poor congresswoman summer
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: lee who just came here to talk about a very
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: serious issue ice overreach in american cities uh she was
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: here in los angeles monday for a field hearing with
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: the oversight committee and karen bass and other la officials
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: she's going to tell me all about that and and
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: lots more but before we get to that quick reminder
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: that through November 30th, we're offering 25% off annual subscriptions
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: to Friend of the Pod. If you haven't spent all
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: your money on Tilos.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: I have such an idea.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: Oh, no.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not even going to do it now. I have
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: an idea. Subscribe, subscribe.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: Is Dan going to do it? We're going to see
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: that Dan has done it. a Substack Live with Frank.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: He should. He should.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: From a message box T-Los crossover. You get access to
• 1:09:08
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• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: Terms and conditions apply. Congresswoman Summer Lee, welcome to the pod.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: Oh, so excited. Thanks for having me.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: Of course. For people who don't know, you represent Pennsylvania's
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: 12th district, which is in and around Pittsburgh.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: You're also on the Oversight Committee in the House. And
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: you're in town for a joint hearing with L.A. officials
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee about federal agents'
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: abuse of immigrants and U.S. citizens. Hugely important issue I
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: want to get to in a minute. But first, a
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: lot of news I want to get your thoughts on.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: Starting with the rather sudden resignation announcement from your house colleague,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor Greene. I know you probably haven't agreed with
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: her on too much. It's just an understatement to start.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: But you've been on the same side when it comes
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: to pushing for the release of the Epstein files, opposing
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: military aid to Israel, potential military action in Venezuela. Do
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: you see figures like Greene and other disaffected MAGA types as...
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: voters who may be gettable for Democrats going forward, open
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: to persuasion perhaps?
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 7: What an interesting question.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 6: You know, honestly, I'm not going to pretend that I'm
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: the person to know, but I am a natural skeptic, right?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 6: I came, like, when I was in Congress, I was
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: in the State House. I've been in the minority my
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 6: whole time, which means that I have seen many a Republican,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 6: you know, talk a good game, say they believe something
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 6: behind closed doors, and when the whip cracks, you know,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: they fall in line. So it takes a little bit
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 6: more for me to believe that somebody is persuadable or gettable.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 7: But we all love hope. We all like a glimmer.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: I believe, look, at the end of the day, whatever
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 6: gets you on the right side of history, even if
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: it's just like you're teetering and you come over for
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 6: a second, I do think it's worth, you know, I
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 6: think the opt-in is worthwhile. So I do believe in
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 6: creating an opt-in and not an opt-out. But I also
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 6: think that the real mark of whether some of these
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 6: people are really serious about a break Yeah. Is, you know,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 6: if they are willing to also acknowledge harm that they've done, right?
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 6: They did not live, and she has not lived as, like,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 6: you know... a figure who has not actually, you know,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 6: caused any problem. Like, no, like her policies, there was
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: an implication there.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 7: So like, I'm happy that she's seen the light.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry that, you know, her own tactics are being
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 6: used against her by the president.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 7: I'm sorry that that's happening.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 6: I hope that she realizes that, you know, this was
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 6: a terrible thing to inflict on other people, but what
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 6: does she do now to make up for it? What
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 6: does she do now that she is, if she has
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 6: seen the light, that's what I'm looking.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 7: For right now.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 6: But one way or another, we do need more people
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 6: and we are going to have to find a way
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 6: as Democrats to to appeal to people, to appeal to
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 6: their better sense, to help them to see and deprogram
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 6: some folks, right? Because if we're saying that there is
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 6: a bit of a cult over there, then we also
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 6: have to say that we're committed to helping people be
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 6: recommitted over to the.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 7: Side of justice.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: So speaking of strange bedfellows, I'd love to get your
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: take on Zoran Mamdani's meeting with Trump on Friday. So
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: I saw a few versions of This take from Ryan Grimm,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 3: which was amplified by a senior Mamdani advisor. And it says, quote,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: Trump and Mamdani giving the country a vision of what
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: bottom versus top rather than left versus right politics could
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: look like is, if not historic, a genuinely novel development.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: Do you agree? What do you make of that?
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 7: I agree that that's what Zoran's probably doing.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 7: And honestly, no, you know what?
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 6: I will say just as somebody who probably shared, you know,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 6: who's on this, you know, the side of the party
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 6: with Mamdani.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 7: My whole big thing is that I don't believe.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: That people organize their lives and their politics on this
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 6: left-right linear.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 6: It's like the people who have the corporations, the power,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 6: and then the people who don't. And I think that
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 6: that is a better orientation. It is a part of
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: the plan of helping more people opt in. I don't
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 6: think that Trump is doing that. I don't think that
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 6: he's doing that. I don't know if Trump even had
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 6: a plan when that man came in.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. What did you make of him being like showering
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: him with praise? You know what?
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 7: I don't know if I'm shocked. He's a shallow guy. Yeah.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 6: Like, he's kind of shallow, kind of vain. So, like,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 6: if a charismatic guy is smiling at him, Lord knows
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 6: what I'm talking about.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 7: He smiles, man.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 6: He does a lot of smiling, like, when he talks. Like,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 6: he'll tell somebody something. They'll deliver bad news with a
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 6: wonderful smile on his face.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 6: Like, it's a part of the charisma. So, I'm not shocked,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 6: you know, that, you know, Trump would. be receptive to
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 6: something like, I don't know. I won't say I'm not shocked,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: but I guess I'm not that he would be receptive
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 6: to something like that. And I do think that he's
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 6: getting his ass kicked on affordability right now.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 7: Like really.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 6: And as, as we do get closer to midterms, you know,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 6: they are going to have to, they're either going to
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 6: have to, whatever their plans are for the country, right.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 7: They're authoritarian, you know, fascist plans, whatever they are.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 6: If they include keeping and maintaining the majority, then they're
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 6: going to have to start to be responsive to the
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 6: fact that nothing has changed fundamentally unless it has gotten
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: worse on affordability.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: It struck me that every time it's mentioned that there's
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: potential overlap with right-wing populism and left-wing populism, it always
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: seems like the right-wing populism, at least on the economic front,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: is changing. to date been completely fake like there hasn't
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: you know there's i think from the leaders yeah yeah
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: there's been rhetorical yeah um nods to it for sure
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: i have seen very few republicans actually get behind sort
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: of economically populist proposals it seems like a lot of
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: the populism is cultural identity around immigration and things like
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: that um so yeah i don't know if if bottom
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: versus top if Trump is really part of the grassroots.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's what my, that's a, what a funny thing
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 6: to say of a man who we know is if
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: we say that people are corporate capture, he is the corporate, right?
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 6: He didn't even have to be captured because he is
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 6: already of that culture, right? That's already his, you know,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: that's already his social, you know, kind of peers and
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 6: that's where he comes from. So no, I would never,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 6: there is nothing that he could do or say that
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 6: would convince me that he cares about, you know, folks
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 6: in social underclasses.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 7: We know that.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: We know that from every single policy that he has.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 6: Even the part that we're talking about, the affordability, I
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 6: do not think is something that he is doing benevolently.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 6: This is something that he is doing because he's getting
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 6: pressure from members of his party in the House right
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 6: now who know that they have to run, every single
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 6: one of them, all have to run on this record.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 6: They have to run on the fact that he has
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 6: spent an entire year just governing by executive order not
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 6: really giving any consideration to any of the, because I
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 6: think that some of them still expect to get something done.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 6: They're like, well, we have the White House. We expect
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 6: some money to flow into our district. We expect some projects.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 6: None of that has happened, and I think that you're
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 6: starting to see things leaking out about people feeling that
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 6: way there. I think the only reason why he would
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 6: care about affordability is that part.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's been so many takes about Mamdani's win,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: and you know a lot of people say, okay, well, Yeah,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: a Democratic Socialist winning in liberal New York City is
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: maybe understandable, but, you know, the rest of the country...
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, how liberal is it, though?
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 7: I mean, they have Rudy Giuliani and, like, Mike Bloomberg.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I was going to say that, you know,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: you were a former DSA member. You won in, you know,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: it's a bluer district.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 7: Washington, Pennsylvania.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: But still, Pittsburgh and surrounding Pittsburgh, it's not Manhattan.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 7: Not at all.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: And I wonder if you had some thoughts to share
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: on sort of the voters that you've met in your
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: district and how they've responded to someone with progressive views
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: like yours and whether, you know, and I know, you know,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: it's a when you first came to congress it was
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: 22 but like affordability was that still a big issue
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: with the voters uh around in your district.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah no no i think it's always that right nothing's
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 6: ever affordable enough and it just so happened that we
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 6: are also like in a crisis now so i think
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 6: that that is always an undercurrent you know in you
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 6: know our in politics and campaigns Yeah. So to be clear,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 6: you know, I represent all of the city of Pittsburgh
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 6: and it's still less than half of my district. I
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 6: actually am a majority suburban district. I even have, you know, excerpts.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 6: So like the county that that Pittsburgh is in, Allegheny County,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 6: is probably a bluer county.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 7: But I actually go into another county that has Westmoreland County.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 6: That has performed, you know, Trump. you know, pretty, you know,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 6: consistently and persistently. So I do get to talk to
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 6: very different people, you know, on the same day, right?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 6: I can go, you know, to a black neighborhood in
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 6: the Mon Valley, right? Historic still, right? Historic labor. We
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 6: had a lot of, you know, a lot of labor folks.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 6: This is this is the home of the labor movement,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 6: home of U.S. Steel, home of, you know, all that
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 6: that kind of hard hat. You know, it's a very
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 6: cultural labor is a cultural thing there. You know, we
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 6: talk to those folks and we'll talk to somebody in
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 6: Westmoreland County.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 7: We'll talk to people.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 6: You know, we talk about the same things from the
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: time that I was in a state house to now.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: I've talked about in some way using the language that
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 6: makes sense for folks to talk about the things that matter.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 6: That, you know, in our country, the wealthiest on Earth,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 6: you know, our kids shouldn't have a they should have
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 6: a quality education.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 7: It should be free, right? That you should be able
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 7: to go to the doctor. You should have healthcare, right? That,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 7: you know, our air quality, big in our region, right?
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 6: A lot of like presidential candidates think that you got
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 6: to come to Western Pennsylvania and you got to talk
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 6: about cracking and fracking and you'll knock on the door
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 6: and they'll be like, we don't want that.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 7: It's like a disconnect that people don't understand.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 6: So yeah, there is still that kind of, that blue
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 6: collar pride about Western Pennsylvania. And I think that that
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 6: populist message resonates there more than anywhere. I think that
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 6: people fundamentally want for themselves to, Even if they haven't
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 6: gotten to the point of wanting it for other people,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 6: they want for themselves, right?
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 7: That thing that is the American dream.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 6: They want for themselves the ability to, you know, buy
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 6: a house, you know, grow wealth, you know, be safe,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 6: be healthy.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 7: They want that. And that's what we talk about. And
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 7: we keep our message to that.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 6: And I think that people, when they are not persuaded
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 6: by like multi-million dollar ads saying that we're monsters.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 6: When they're not confronted with that, we've seen by polling,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 6: we've seen through our conversations that people want what we're
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 6: talking about and they want to be a part of
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 6: creating that, even in my district.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: So there's lots of concern out there, including for me,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: that despite the overwhelming vote in Congress, Trump's DOJ is
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: going to keep slow walking and potentially withholding anything in
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: the Epstein files that makes Trump look bad. What's your
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: level of confidence that we're going to get everything?
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 6: You know, first of all, I know a lot of
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 6: people have been tuned in for quite a while. This,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 6: you know, the discharge petition, so the now Epstein Transparency
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 6: Act going and immediately straight to his desk and getting signed, right?
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 6: I think people are tuning back in, but we did
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: get a subpoena, you know, three months ago. We were
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 6: able to force that vote in my subcommittee where I'm
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 6: the ranking member. We were able to get Republicans to
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 6: vote with us. And I think that that got the
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 6: ball rolling and the DOJ has been slow walking it
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 6: since then. So even all this good talk, that Trump's
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 6: doing about, I'll sign it, or I'll let releasing Republicans
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 6: to vote for it.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 7: He wasn't releasing them.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 6: That man is reading the tides. He's wanted this to
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 6: go away for so long. And I think that this
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 6: is one of the first issues that he has not
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 6: been able to make disappear.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 6: Whatever scandal he has had or whatever, you know, lie
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 6: he has told the people.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 6: He's his base has has mostly if he says he
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 6: didn't do it, he didn't do it.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 7: If he says that he's going to get around to it,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 7: he's going to get around to it.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 6: They mostly just said, let's let's move back. This is
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 6: this is one instance where it has not died down.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 6: We've had the longest government shutdown in history.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 6: We've had all year and people are still, if not
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 6: more than ever, demanding that these be released. So I
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 6: think that they're going to continue to try to slow
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 6: walk it. But we have actually subpoenas. from the estate.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 6: A lot of people are... Obviously, the DOJ has the most.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 6: They have whatever... If there is a smoking gun, they
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 6: have the real investigation.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 7: But his estate has... They have a lot. We've seen
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 7: the birthday book. We've seen the email.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 6: All those things came from the estate. We're now got
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 6: we just now got subpoenas to two of the banks
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 6: that we need.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 7: These are important parts of the investigation.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 6: And the slow drip is making more. I think it's
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 6: making people more apprehensive. Like they want more of it. So, no,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 6: I don't think he'll be able to have forever. And
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 6: at the end of the day, if he makes it
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 6: to the end of his term. A Democrat takes over.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 6: That's a Democratic DOJ.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 6: At some point, the truth is going to come out.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 6: The wealthy and the powerful will be held accountable on
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 6: this case. And I think that they are really unaccustomed
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 6: to facing that reality.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: And if they say if Bondi says, well, there's an
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: ongoing investigation. So, of course, we have to withhold money.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: While the investigations are going. That's the point. Can you
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: take them to court at some point? Is there legal recourse?
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 6: So that's a really good question. And I think that
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 6: we are going to have to explore that, right? Because
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 6: it is like the subpoena that we got back in
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 6: July that was signed, I think, in maybe early August.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 6: That was as legally binding as the discharge resolution, the
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 6: bill that came from that. So they are compelled. They
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 6: really are compelled to do it. And I think that
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 6: that's why it's so important that we don't let them
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 6: off the hook. I think so many people are looking
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 6: for like the next kind of organizing tactic around it. Like,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 6: you know, it's great that we have the full body unanimously,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 6: except for one guy, right? Pushing in that direction. But
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 6: we need the people to not let up on him, right?
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 6: To not let up on his DOJ because this is
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 6: obstruction at this point. So, you know, we are, we
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 6: do await, you know, they had the excuse.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 7: Oh, it's a shutdown.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 6: You know, the shutdown is over. So I think there's
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 6: going to be an opportunity. They talked about how big,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 6: how much there is, they need time. You know, obviously
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 6: they're pushing it. They're not pushing it.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: They're not pushing it.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 7: They've been pushed it.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 6: But no, I think that we're going to have to
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 6: look at every avenue because at the end of the day,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 6: if we allow the DOJ to not not respond to subpoenas,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 6: what does that say about our legal processes?
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 7: Again, this is this is endemic.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 6: And the entire the entire thing, the entire timeline of
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 6: Epstein and Glenn Maxwell's crimes, the obstruction is a part
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 6: of it. And the DOJ now playing this critical of
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 6: a role in it. I think, speaks precisely to why
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 6: people are like, well, what is there? What on earth
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 6: is there, right, that we're going through these lines?
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: What are you trying so hard to hide, yeah.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 7: Precisely.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about the ICE hearing that brought you here
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: to LA. What was the goal of conducting a hearing
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 3: out here, and what did you learn from it?
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 6: So, I mean, I know that it might not get
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 6: as much news anymore. So many things, you know, the
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 6: news ebbs and flows if it's not Epstein. But, you know,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 6: the way that Trump has been administering this, you know,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 6: his immigration enforcement policy has been just, I mean, inhumane
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 6: to unconstitutional, right? That has been the spectrum. LA is,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 6: of course, you know, that was, it was the epicenter, right?
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 6: This is where, you know, he started his test case, right?
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 6: To bring in federal forces, you know, to a city,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 6: to essentially unleash them on American people. you know, the
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 6: tactics that they've used. We've seen American citizens being detained,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 6: including one who spoke to us today.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 7: You know, it has been, it has been cruel.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 6: And I think it's important that we, even if Comer
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 6: will not call, you know, he's not going to call
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 6: a hearing. He's not going to conduct oversight on his administration.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 6: He's made that abundantly clear. But we still have to
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 6: do it in whatever way that we can do it.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 6: So coming to here to hear from the people to
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 6: directly their testimony, to put it into the record.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 6: Today, we launched from our committee, launched a database, you know,
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 6: a dashboard that will track ICE abuse. It won't just
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 6: it'll obviously attract, you know, abuse that we're taking, but
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 6: also allow people who are experiencing it to testify, you know,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 6: directly to the Democrats on the committee, creating a record.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 6: So whether or whenever we get into office, it's important
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 6: that these things are documented so that we know.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 7: Where there were abuses of power.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 6: We know where there were unconstitutional actions. even if, you know,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 6: the checks and balances are failing. So we wanted to
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 6: come here, right? We needed to come here because we
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 6: need to, A, we need to send a message that
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 6: we are not going to abide, you know, unconstitutional actions,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 6: even if the majority will. And we also have to
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 6: let people know that an abuse that happens in one place,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 6: in one jurisdiction, is an abuse to all jurisdiction. If
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 6: there is a lack of due process for some folks,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 6: then that is a threat to everybody.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 7: And we have to speak out about that.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 5: So.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: The warrantless arrest, detentions, abuse we've seen from ICE and CBP,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: you know, they have received quite a bit of attention
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: over the last year thanks to videos from eyewitnesses, court cases, protests,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: activists and leaders like yourself speaking out. It has dramatically
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: changed public opinion on Trump's mass deportation agenda from where
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 3: it was when he took office. But despite all of this,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: the administration seems like they don't give a shit and
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: are not going to change course as long as Trump
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 3: is president. You know, I see all that and I'm like,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: what can we do? Do we just have to wait
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: until the end of Trump's term before hoping to see
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: any kind of changes in this horrific policy?
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 7: I mean, with so many things that he chooses to
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 7: focus on.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 6: There is that there is that piece where they do
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 6: have these levers. They do hold these levers of power.
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 6: But the waiting part, I don't think that I don't
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 6: think that we should see it as waiting, because part
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 6: of the reason why we're here now is because, honestly,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 6: Democrats lost, I would say, the messaging war, the narrative
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 6: war around immigration.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 6: We ceded ground to people who were always inclined to have,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 6: you know, a very inhumane view of immigration that is
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 6: not their own bloodline, their own.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 7: Folks, right?
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 6: So once we lost that, right, that's how they were
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 6: able to start to convince other Americans that these policies
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 6: were necessary And that they're acceptable. So part of what
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 6: we need to do right now is we have to
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 6: win those folks back, too. Just as much as we
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 6: have to be prepared to govern, to govern in a
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 6: more humane way, we do need just humane immigration reform.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 6: I think that there are things within our immigration process
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 6: that we can acknowledge, including.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 7: Our own role.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 6: Our own role and how we interact with the with
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 6: the with the global community that causes, you.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 7: Know, immigration causes refugee crises. We have to talk about
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 7: all that.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 6: And we have to we in the meantime, we have
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 6: to create and we have to put forth our vision
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 6: for what is a better, more humane way. of accepting
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 6: people into our country, of protecting people as they get here.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 6: But also, I would say that this goes hand in
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 6: hand with our own criminal legal reform system, because both
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 6: of them are, I would say, equally inhumane. And again,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 6: that we had an inhumane criminal legal system where we're
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 6: locking up black and brown people, we're locking.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 7: Up disabled people and poor folks at the rate we are.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 6: We turned a blind eye to that for many, many years,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 6: and now we're seeing it with our immigration system, right?
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 6: We have to solve both of those crises. And we
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 6: have to build up, we have to organize, we have
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 6: to do all this. It's not that we're doing nothing.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 6: It's not that we're doing nothing, but it's that we
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 6: have to use the tools that we have. And we
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 6: have to be honest about the fact that, yeah, it's
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 6: going to be difficult time right now. So knowing your rights,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 6: helping our organizations that are doing legal defense or organizations
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 6: that are doing their know your rights or organizations that
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 6: are protecting the community and serving the communities that are
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 6: most targeted and most impacted. That's work right now.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 7: That's really meaningful.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: Last month, I spoke to George Redis, who's a U.S.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 3: citizen advocate. served in Iraq, and he was up in Camarillo,
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: north of here, and was detained by ICE, held for
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 3: three days in solitary confinement. You know, no phone call
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 3: to his family, no lawyer, didn't do a thing, wasn't
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: charged with anything. And he went to D.C. and he'd
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: been trying to get members of Congress to sign on
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: to changes in legislation that right now the law protects
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: federal agents from lawsuits if they engage in abuse, that
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 3: it doesn't protect other people from, but somehow federal agents
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: have this like carve out in the legislation. And so
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: he was trying to get some members of Congress to
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: sign on to that. Do you think that's something that if,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: you know, Democrats get Congress back that you guys would
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 3: want to pass?
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 7: I would.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, you think about this, there's a
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 6: reason why. I mean, if we remember just from, you know,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 6: the Black Lives Matter movement, Breonna Taylor, you know, how
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 6: dangerous like no-knock warrants are. If you were around then,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 6: you understand how dangerous it is to have, you know,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 6: just like ICE you know, patrolling, maybe patrolling, you know, prowling,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 6: you know, masked, you know, they're in unmarked vehicles. They're,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 6: you know, we heard from somebody, multiple people today who mentioned,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 6: you know, that they're essentially just pulling over anybody who
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 6: even looks Latino, right? That the courts then said that
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 6: they can essentially discriminate, right?
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 7: They can profile.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 7: That's dangerous. It's dangerous for every single person involved.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 6: But what does it mean to have a country where
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 6: American citizens have to walk around with their passports?
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 7: Because that's what that's what we're seeing.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: Right. What is it?
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 6: What does it mean to have American citizens and and
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 6: immigrants right in this country? And they're afraid to go
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 6: to work. They're afraid to go to school. They're afraid
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 6: that they may be killed in an interaction with ICE,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 6: as has happened.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 6: People have been killed in interactions with ICE having done nothing, having,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 6: you know, posing no danger.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 7: This is such a dangerous moment.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 6: And certain like policies like that protecting ice ages when
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 6: they are blatantly on camera abusing people.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 6: Obscuring their identity and not identifying themselves, though, making people,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 6: you know, making people, you know, submit.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 7: To someone who they don't know who it is.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 7: That's just that's that is.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 6: I just think that is so fundamentally so fundamentally wrong,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 6: so fundamentally unconstitutional.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 7: And obviously we need a real recalibration. So this is
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 7: one law. Yeah.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 7: We need a recalibration totally.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: We're a year out from the 2026 midterms. What would
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: you like to see the Democratic Party and Democratic leadership
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: do differently between now and the election to give the
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 3: party the best possible chance of taking back the House
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: and maybe the Senate?
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 6: We don't have enough time to talk about that.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: Anything top of the list?
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 7: Oh, my goodness. Let me try to organize my thoughts.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 7: We have so much.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 6: No, I am so worried that we are still learning
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 6: the wrong lessons from the November election, last November election
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 6: with Trump, this November's election with Mandani, and you see
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 6: other people like Spanberger and folks over in other places.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 7: I just think that we are chronically.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 6: Committed to learning the wrong lessons. Here's the thing that
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 6: I hope that we would first do. We talk a
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 6: lot about messaging problems. We have a messenger problem, right?
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 6: There are some folks who are so disconnected from the
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 6: everyday lived experience of your average person that it doesn't
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 6: matter what consultant comes in and gives us a message.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 6: People want to see an authenticity. They want to know
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 6: that we are choosing them. And I say this often, right,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 6: that the Democrats right now have to choose. We've been
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 6: trying to straddle defense, trying to serve two masters. And
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 6: for so long, we've actually gotten away without having to choose.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 6: We can be the party of corporations and the party
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 6: of people at the same time. But right now, in
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 6: this moment, people are, they see that, they're over it.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 6: And I think that last election cycle, I think truly
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 6: since 2016, people have been increasingly calling for the Democrats
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 6: to distinguish themselves.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 7: And to choose. You cannot serve two masters.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 6: So I think if I had to say, the first
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 6: thing that I want Democrats to do different is choose
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 6: your master. Who are we going to be? Who do
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 6: we serve? You cannot serve. You cannot serve the oppressed
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 6: and the oppressor. You can't serve the money and the many.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 6: You can't do both at the same time.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 7: So I think fundamentally, that's what I would ask.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 6: Second, just as a personal thing, I would ask Democrats
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 6: to be more courageous. If you have to get your
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 6: clout your claim to fame, if you can only get it,
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 6: if you can only be relevant by punching left, and
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 6: mind you, people will say that left are like, oh,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 6: the white left. No, I mean, in office, the left
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 6: are overwhelmingly women of color. If you can only make
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 6: your case by harming us, by fighting us, by truly
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 6: mischaracterizing us, instead, it seems like, I too believe that
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 6: they fight us sometimes more than they fight the Republicans,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 6: that they fight authoritarian, that they fight fashion, that they
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 6: use that, if they kept that same energy with authoritarianism,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 6: would we be here?
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 7: I don't think that we would. So I would like
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 7: to see that.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 6: As much as we understand that somebody who's running in
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 6: a Virginia statewide, you know, has to run in the
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 6: way that they do, why do they not believe that
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 6: people in blue areas deserve to be represented? That Black
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 6: voters and Latino voters and urban voters also deserve to
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 6: be represented. This is a representative democracy. Too often Democrats
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 6: are in the chorus, leading, lead soloists, right, telling urban voters,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 6: Black voters, that they have to sacrifice themselves the representation
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 6: that is actually helpful to them for some greater good.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 7: And it just, the pendulum never swings our way.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 6: I think that we can be a party that just
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 6: meets the basic needs of people without throwing away trans folks,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 6: without throwing away urban and black folks, without throwing away progressives.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 6: You can't say that we want to win and we
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 6: want to beat Trump and also say, but I want
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 6: to do it without you.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 3: Do you think if it's a messenger issue, do you
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 3: feel good about the candidate's Democrats have recruited to run
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 3: in 26?
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 7: Do Democrats recruit?
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: That's an honest question.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 3: I guess maybe the candidates, the crop of candidates we
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: have that are out there.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah, they just crop up.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 6: You know, I think that like with many election cycles,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 6: you know, People rise, you know, to the occasion.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 7: Every district is unique.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 6: Every district is every district has its idea of what
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 6: it wants. But I think that whether your district is
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 6: the reddest of blue districts, I won't talk about Democrats,
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 6: the reddest of blue districts or the bluest of blue districts.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 6: I think that everybody wants to see people who are
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 6: willing to speak up, who are transparent, who are present.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 7: And who are who are willing to speak truth to power.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 6: That's not a centrist or left or right thing. That's
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 6: just like that's a baseline. So I think that there
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 6: are more candidates who are willing to do that. I
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 6: do think that there's also been a reckoning about, you know,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 6: generational shifts. You know, Gen Z and millennials finally comprise
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 6: the largest portion of the voting electorate. But we don't obviously,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 6: you know, we don't have proportional representation at any level
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 6: of government. So there are more folks who are starting
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 6: to come in. And we have different lived experiences. Like,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 6: we've lived through different things, right? Our politics are informed
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 6: by just different conditions. And there is obviously a need,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 6: you know, for that sort of lived expertise and even
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 6: professional expertise to be represented in government. So people are
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 6: looking for that. And I'm not one of those people
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 6: who says that all old folks should go.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: Again.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 7: Representative democracy.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 6: I am the one to say though, that if you
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 6: find yourself in a moment where you're like, oh my God,
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 6: I really want to go back. I miss the days
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 6: where me and my Republican colleagues, you know, smoked a
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 6: cigar together. at the bipartisan club, right? Then those days
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 6: are gone. There is no normal to go back to
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 6: the country that they knew, the government that they've lived through,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 6: the Republican and Democratic parties that they grew up in
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 6: are comfortable with don't exist anymore. And they can't ever
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 6: exist again. We need people who have a vision for
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 6: where we're going next. And I think that that's what
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 6: the American people want. It's like, we understand that your
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 6: nostalgia is a thing, but your nostalgia is not like
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 6: a policy, you know, it's not like a policy agenda.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 7: Not all the old.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: People have to go, but maybe we can just bring
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: down the median age a little bit.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 7: The ones who don't have fire.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 6: Should go though again because there are some who have
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 6: fire the people old young because let me tell you
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 6: there are some young people who do not have fire
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 6: like there are young people who are very much of
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 6: the get in the fit in ilk like they're like
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 6: I want to come this is prestigious I got a
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 6: pen like I want to be here you know and
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 6: they're here trying to do the same politics that have
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 6: been done those politics don't work anymore yeah And we
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 6: need a change from all of that.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 3: Agreed. Congresswoman Summer Lee, thank you so much for joining
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 3: Pod Save America. And it was good to have you
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 3: here in studio.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 7: Thanks for having me. Call us back.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: We like LA.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: For sure. Anytime. That's our show for today. Thanks to
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 3: Summer Lee for coming by. We're heading out for Thanksgiving,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 3: but we'll still be sending content your way. On Friday,
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 3: you'll hear some of our live recording of our subscriber-only show,
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 3: Terminally Online. And on Sunday, Dan will be back with
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 3: a conversation with political analyst and fellow polling obsessive Amy
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 3: Walter from the Cook Political Report. Then the three of
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 3: us will be back with a new show the following Tuesday.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 3: Everyone have a great holiday. We'll talk to you soon.
• 1:39:33
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