Latest / Pod Save America / Biden Secures Temporary Ceasefire, Trump Threatens Obamacare

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Biden Secures Temporary Ceasefire, Trump Threatens Obamacare · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Shiesty Felon Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Welcome back from Thanksgiving, guys. Great to see you both.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Great to be back.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sure is. Tommy's right here in studio. We
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: love that.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: All healthy.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So on today's show, we've got a lot to talk about.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Congress fights over funding for Ukraine, Israel, and the southern border.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: The battle for second place heats up between Nikki Haley
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and Ron DeSantis. Trump threatens to make another run at
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: repealing Obamacare. And George Santos has a very public and
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: entertaining meltdown over his looming expulsion vote. But first, we
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: are finally getting some good news out of Gaza. Late
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: last week, negotiators in Qatar announced that Israel and Hamas
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: had signed off on a temporary pause in fighting and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: an agreement in which Hamas would release 10 or more
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: hostages a day for four days and Israel, in exchange,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: would release Palestinian prisoners. That deal went into effect on Friday.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Over the first three days of the truce, Hamas released
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: a total of 58 hostages, primarily women and children, and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Israel freed 117 Palestinian prisoners. On Monday.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Israel and Hamas agreed to extend the pause in the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: fighting for two additional days. Here's President Biden, who helped
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: broker the deal, speaking about the negotiations.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: For weeks, I've been advocating to pause in the fighting
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: for two purposes, to increase the assistance getting into the
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: Gaza civilians who need help and to facilitate release of hostages.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: And we know that innocent children in Gaza are suffering
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: greatly as well because this war that Hamas has unleashed
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: is so has such consequences. And this deal is structured
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: so that it can be extended to keep building on
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: these results. That's my goal. That's our goal, to keep
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: this pause going beyond tomorrow so that we can continue
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: to see more hostages come out and surge more humanitarian
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: relief into those in need in Gaza.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what's your take on the deal and the Biden
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: administration's role in making it happen?
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I think the deal was unequivocally a good thing. And frankly,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: it was probably pretty clear from the beginning that some
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: sort of negotiation was going to be the best way
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: to get back hostages and to get humanitarian aid into Gaza.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: There's no doubt that President Biden and his team has
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: been working this really hard behind the scenes. There's been
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: lots of talk of the CIA director flying all around
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: the world. President Biden's been on the phone with Netanyahu
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: almost daily, it seems, talking to the emir of Qatar.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And it sounds like Biden himself has helped unstick the
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: negotiations at moments when it seemed like it could fall apart.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: So I definitely think they deserve a lot of credit.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Where they lose me a little bit is when they
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: claim that this deal happening is somehow evidence that the
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: hug BB approach is the best and only way to
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: conduct foreign policy with the Israeli government. But like this,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: this ceasefire happening, getting prisoners home, the hostages home, it's
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a very good thing.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, the two stories that I think that
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: stuck out to me is one, just stories that describe
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: who the hostages were. And it just reminds you that
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: this was I mean, these are, in some cases, children
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: returning to like a completely broken life who watched their
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: parents murdered and then were held in captivity. It's old
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: people who were, you know, have medical needs. And it just,
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: in the stories of the hostages, you see the depravity
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: of what unfolded. And then at the same time, you
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: have stories coming out in the last day or two
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: that report that the level of civilian destruction and death
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: and inhumanity in Gaza is at a pace... unrivaled in
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: this century, a level of destruction and that you have
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: to go back to Vietnam or World War II to
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: find an equivalent of. And so any respite from that,
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: any pause in that, any way of diplomatically resolving this
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: conflict is a good thing.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess the Biden administration's argument on the hug
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: strategy is, you know, if they had pressed bb for
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: a ceasefire early or even threatened to withhold aid earlier
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: then bb wouldn't have listened he would have invaded anyway
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and then biden would have lost a chance to rein
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: him in in the future because i guess bb would
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: have been pissed at biden for scolding him but i
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: just don't know first of all it's impossible to know
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: it's impossible to prove the counterfactual but um i don't
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: know it's like you look like to levitt's point you
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: look at the The New York Times had a report
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: over the weekend about the civilian casualties, and they estimated 10,000
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Palestinian women and children killed so far. And it just
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: seems like there's no way that destroying Hamas and keeping
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Israelis safe requires killing that many kids. It does not.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And even though it's true that Gaza is a densely
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: populated area and that Hamas uses civilians as human shields,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: you can believe both of those things to be absolutely
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: true and still think that You just can't kill 10,000 people.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: The laws of war require proportionality in your response. And
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I think it's very hard to argue that 14,000 people
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: dead in Gaza, half of the Gaza Strip being flattened
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: is a proportional response. And which is not to say
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: that some sort of response wasn't warranted, but there's a
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: lot of space between we have to do something and
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: what has happened so far. I think the other challenge
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: for the Biden team and for the United States is
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: that the entire world thinks that the U.S. was fully
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: supportive of and bought in to what has happened so far.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: And there is still the question of what comes next
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: after this ceasefire expires. Because I assume that Hamas will
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: hold on to a certain number of prisoners, probably military males,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: like the adult members of the IDF they took. Although
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Hamas considers every Israeli to be a military prisoner because
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: they're mandatory military service. But so we'll see what happens next.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Hopefully that Biden is better able to use that leverage
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: to rein in any future military effort, assuming there is one.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the ways he has leverage, and we
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: talked about this last episode, is potentially conditioning aid to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Israel so that they only get help from the U.S.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: if they take certain steps, chief among them being reducing
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: civilian casualties. Biden was actually asked about this over the weekend.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: He called it a worthwhile thought, which I had not
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: expected him to say. I don't know if you did.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I was excited when I heard him say that, but
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: then I watched the Sunday shows and Jake Sullivan, his
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: national security advisor, pretty firmly walked it back in several
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: different interviews. So I don't think that they're seemingly going
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: to entertain conditioning aid. I think they still think that
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: this like direct high-level private diplomacy with NIAO is the
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: best way to influence Israeli behavior.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it's obviously up to them whether
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: they sign a supplemental if a supplemental passes, and we'll
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: talk about that. We already talked about how Bernie Sanders
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: put out a statement and then he also wrote an
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: op-ed over the weekend saying that aid needs to be conditioned.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Senator Chris Murphy was asked about this. He's open to
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the idea as well. I just wonder, like, I wonder
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: how many Democrats you get on this and if it's
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: enough to actually shape the package. But I guess, you know,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: we'll see. Tommy, what kind of conditions? Obviously, there's been
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of options floating around. We've talked about some
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: of them. What would you like to see attached to
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the next aid package?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I do think that Murphy to Bernie Sanders gets
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: you sort of the range. Like Murphy basically said, we
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: should condition aid to ensure it's used in accordance with
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: international human rights laws. That does seem like the absolute
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: bare minimum that one should do. That's not a criticism
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: of Murphy. It just seems like that's obviously we should
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: And is also, I think, kind of an affirmation of
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: what is already U.S.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Law.
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: I believe. Right.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: In the 2020 primary, Ben Rhodes and I worked with,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: we did an event with J Street where we tried
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: to get all the candidates to agree to saying that
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: USAID should not be used to annex the West Bank
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: or otherwise support settlement construction. I think that's another obvious one.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I'm personally more in the Bernie Sanders camp where I'd
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: like to see the conditions be a little more broad
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: and focus on the underlying political problems, including settlement expansion,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: settler violence at the West Bank, requiring a commitment to
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: peace talks. But the rub there is that Netanyahu's current
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: coalition would never be okay with agreeing.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: To those terms.
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's nothing, I mean, there's nothing even in Bernie
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: Sanders' list of things that he believes USA should be
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: conditioned on. There's nothing in that list that is not
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: mainstream US policy, right? Like there's just, it's just that
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: making it a condition is somehow seen as sacrosanct. The
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: point that was striking to me, I think it was
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: the Times made that military experts were making is the
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: US faced a ton of criticism for the level of
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: civilian casualties that it inflicted in Iraq. And Israel is
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: using U.S.-supplied weapons that are far larger than what we
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: were willing to use in urban areas in Iraq, despite
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: the fact that even that caused a lot of civilian
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: death and destruction. And the idea that it would be U.S.
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: policy to not use these bombs in urban areas when
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: we use them directly, but that we are okay with
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: them being used in urban areas when we are not
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: using them directly, does not make sense to me.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: What was the gist of Jake's walk back? Jake said, yes,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: President Biden acknowledged the idea of conditioning aid, but said
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Biden's approach will be this high level diplomacy behind closed
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: doors that generated results, getting hostages back, getting more aid in,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: et cetera. So he was repeatedly pressed on a follow
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: up being like, so does that mean he's for conditioning aid?
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: And Jake ducked it in a way that clearly signaled
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: to me that that's not the path they're going down.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: The question that I would love Biden and the administration
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: to answer is like, why not? why wouldn't you condition aid? Like,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I realize you like your diplomacy approach, but what is
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: wrong with that? And they're going to say, well, Israel
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: needs to defend itself. Well, if we were only providing
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: funding for the Iron Dome, which they use for defense,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that's one thing, but that's not the only aid that
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: we're sending. If we're going to send weapons over there,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: then like what?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the aid request will be far more expansive. It'll
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: include hellfire missiles and all kinds of offensive operations.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: So it's like, why? why would the Biden administration say, no,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: we're going to send them weapons and hopefully they'll do
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: what I tell them to do. But if not, what
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: are we going to do?
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's also, what is their, that is a publicly,
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: if they're publicly, their position is we do not want
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: to condition aid because publicly their position is basically what
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: Tommy was saying, that they're going to hug Bibi. But
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: is there value to there being conditions placed on aid
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: that the Biden administration is reluctantly dragged to as they
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: get to be like kind of to continue to maintain
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: their position that they want to do this diplomatically. They
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: want to do this through back channels while at the
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: same time they're facing pressure from at home that's requiring
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: them to push harder, right?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Like there's, so maybe they'll, maybe they won't be a
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: veto threat if there's conditions.
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: Presumably if something passes this, I mean, we're going to
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: get to all of it, but like the idea of
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: anything passing seems like so fucking difficult. But like, oh,
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: let's add solving Middle East peace on top of Ukraine,
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: on top of the border. So if something passes, Biden's
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: going to sign it.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I think it's probably a pretty sincerely held belief by
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Biden that that's the wrong path. And it's part, let's
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: be honest, it's part politics, part U.S. domestic politics. It's
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: also part this weird belief that we need to treat
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Israel and relations with Israel as this special singular relationship
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: where we can't criticize Bibi and Yahoo in public and
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: we can't condition aid the way we do for every
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: other country. And it makes absolutely no sense to me.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: But You know, I'm not in government. Did you guys
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: see that Dean Phillips? He's running for president, by the way,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: in Congress in Minnesota.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: He suggested that U.S. special forces should go into Gaza
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: to get hostages back.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I have seen him do this a couple times now.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: He's running against Biden from the left in a presidential
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: primary calling on sending U.S.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Special forces into Gaza. Well, I think it's... That makes sense. Well,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: he is on the... I also heard him say he
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: was on the... His foreign policy experience is being on
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the subcommittee.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: For the Middle East. I heard him mention the subcommittee. Well,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: that explains it. Anyway, anyway.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So as we mentioned, Congress is also going to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: attempt to pass the aid to Israel along with aid
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to Ukraine and Taiwan. And Republicans say they won't support
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: any of it unless Democrats also agree to more border
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: security funding and new border policies. Some of the proposals
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: being discussed include making it more difficult for migrants to
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: claim asylum, resuming border wall construction and detaining asylum seekers
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: while their cases are considered. Let's start with Ukraine. Tommy,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: how critical is the funding for Ukraine?
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Long term, it's absolutely critical. I think it's the difference
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: between winning and losing or the difference between winning and
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Ukraine cutting a deal with the Russians. It is very,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: very bad for them. I think we're not the only
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: country providing weapons systems to Ukraine. South Korea, the UK,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: the EU, the European countries are providing a lot. But
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: I think if we cut off the spigot, it will
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: be very hard for those countries to fill the gap.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: You had made some, they pledged a million artillery shells
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: by March of 2024. They've already said they're going to
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: fall short of that goal. So they're already struggling to
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: meet their commitments. And so what that means is Ukraine
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: runs out of weapons systems. They run out of ammunition.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: They have to change the way they're fighting. They probably
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: have to cede territory for strategic reasons. They lose the
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: ability to counterattack in meaningful ways. And in the long run,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: like Russia is just bigger, right? It's like eight time zones,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: 11 time zones. It's got more people. It's got more
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: of an industrial capacity. This has become a stalemated war
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: of attrition where everybody's just lobbing as many shells at
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: each other as they can per day. And Russia will
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: be able to manufacture those or get them from North Korea,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: whereas Ukraine is now going to have to husband them
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: even if they get what they need from us. That's
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: why the U.S. took this very controversial decision to give
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Ukraine what are called cluster munitions, which are horrible for
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: a variety of reasons. But I think the Biden administration
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: agreed to do that because... they were running so dangerously low,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: the U.S. in their stockpile and also the Ukrainians, and
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: they just like literally couldn't match the Russians fire for fire.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: So if they can't get this done, it's pretty likely
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: they lose the war. I mean, long term. Long term.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: It won't be like an immediate like, you know, deal
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: getting cut, but I do think it puts them in
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a terrible position.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: So the question is, will Republicans agree to this? Obviously,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: there's Republican support in the Senate for Ukraine, though that's
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: not uniform. In the House, they Speaker Johnson was down
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: in Florida today. They asked him about this, and he said,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: we can't allow Putin to march through Europe, and we
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: understand the necessity of assisting there. And he said he
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: feels confident that it's going to get done.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: But he wants to condition it on the completion of
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: a successful No Nut November.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Is what he was saying over the weekend.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: And that does.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: And then, of course, then his son has to verify
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: it with a very specific process.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Right, which takes some time.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Which is, there's a black light involved.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Wow. I did not expect that segue from Tommy.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: It was getting a little dark in here. I felt
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: like this was a Tuesday recording, not a Monday.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Well, now we're going to get to talk about immigration
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and border policy. A lot of Democrats, including progressive Democrats
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: like Vermont Senator Peter Welch.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: When does No Nut November start?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: It's the first.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's already.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Midnight on the 31st of October.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Guys, it's almost December.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Congrats.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I guess it has to be No Nut December.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Well, no bad ideas.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Anyway, immigration. Immigration. We had all kinds of Democrats now
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: saying they're open to tougher border policy. What do you
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: guys think about that?
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: Well, like one thing that's been, I think, a little
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: bit strange about this. So just so just that Republicans
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: are basically saying, why, why we can't, why would we
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: send money to defend a country abroad if we're not
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: defending America here at home, that kind of thing.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: And then you see that pulls off the charts.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: And then you see Democrats don't have to take a
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: poll for that one.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: And you see, like, I think like.
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: Schumer put out a statement being like, these bastards will
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: do it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: And like, he basically said, Republicans are injecting this divisive
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: policy debate into what should be a bipartisan, you know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: agreement on sending aid to our allies to stop Putin
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and Xi. And he said, but we're open. We're open
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: to more borders. And I get it.
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: Like, I think probably the politics of that are about,
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: you know, this is ultimately going to be a, if
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: there is some kind of a deal, it will be
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: a deal that angers the hard right, which will not
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: accept anything other than the kind of right-wing Republican House
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: proposal as a victory. And this was any kind of
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: change to asylum that involves raising the threshold for what
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: asylum seekers have to claim is something that would anger
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: the left and progressives and immigration activists. And so you
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: start by signaling that you're being dragged to this. And
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: I get that, but like, this is also, again, we've
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: talked about this many times, but like, The idea that
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: we're in yet another debate where it's Democrats fighting tooth
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: and nail to send money overseas while Republicans are trying
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: to secure the border. If we are actually going to
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: be in a situation where Democrats and Republicans are coming
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: together to negotiate something for the border, it can't just
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: be because Republicans made it. We should own that we
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: believe in a humane but stable, whatever, set of reforms
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: at the border and that we are not being dragged
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: by Republicans to solve this crisis, but actually want to
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: address the crisis.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I also think it frankly shows that Republicans have changed
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: the politics in pretty shrewd ways by busing migrants out
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: of states like Texas to places like New York, right?
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Because in August- Which we all thought was a dumb
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: stunt when it happened. Well, we thought it was a
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: dumb stunt when it was, you know, a private jet
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: to Martha's Vineyard, but there was a more like sustained
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: systematic effort to spread the cost of these policies because
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: you had Eric Adams saying in August of this year
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: that 100,000 asylum seekers had arrived in New York City
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: in a little over a year. in that the city
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: had spent $ 1. 45 billion on services, which he said was
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: just fiscally unsustainable.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Let's be clear, it was still a morally abhorrent stunt,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but it seems like it had the effect that it
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: was intended.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: I think it stopped being a stunt. I talked to
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: the mayor of Chicago about this when I was in
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: Chicago for Love and Relieve It, and the coverage of
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: the Nantucket flights and the kind of shenanigans around that,
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: put that aside, there was just a steady stream of
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: buses going from Texas to Chicago, bus after bus after bus.
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: And that stopped being national news, but nothing that happened
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: to Chicago is national news. The place could burn to
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: the ground and it would be like third story in
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: New York. But still, it's something that just continued and
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: became a sustained local big political issue.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, our asylum system, it's not set up for
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the amount of migration that we're seeing right now at
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the southern border. And asylum system is for people with
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: legitimate fear of being persecuted in their home country based
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: on race, religion, political beliefs. It wasn't set up for
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: people fleeing from poverty. It wasn't set up for people
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: fleeing the sort of gang violence that we're seeing in
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Central and South America, even though people's asylum requests have
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: been granted for some of those issues. And we have
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: a legal immigration system where people are supposed to apply
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to immigrate to this country. And then if you have
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: an asylum claim, you have an asylum claim. And if
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: you have a refugee claim, you have a refugee claim.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: But right now we have more people trying to cross
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the border than I think they said in any time
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: except like three different years in all of U.S.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: History.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: And we just don't have, we don't have the processing.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: We don't, the communities, even welcoming communities, right, who want
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to help out immigrants and migrants who are coming just
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: do not have the resources. And instead these people who
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: are coming here Looking for opportunity, looking for safety or
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: just like sleeping on the streets like it's just not
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: we're not.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Cut out for this. Yeah, I think the current system,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I think clearly is not serving anyone. Well, what's really
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: tough to read when you dig into these negotiations is
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: you keep seeing graphs like Democrats used. to make protecting
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: the dreamers a part of any such negotiations and have
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: dropped that provision. And man, that's really... terrible policy and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: hard to swallow, you know, because I think the commitment,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: it used to be bipartisan. Remember Donald Trump wanted to
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: support the dreamers as well.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, well, Democrats still want to support the dreamers.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying, I don't think it's good.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: No, I was going to say though, I think if
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: you're going to, if Democrats are going to have to
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: swallow some of these border restrictions. And again, I think
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: there's some level of increased border funding and, uh, changing
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of asylum policy. That's just right on the merits, but
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: very likely they're going to have to swallow more than
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: they want.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Because you're going to have like Tom Cotton and all
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: these Republicans jamming the stuff in and they're going to
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: want to get Ukraine and Israel done. Right. I would
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: put out like if we're going to agree to that,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: then let's put the dreamers back on the table.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: That's but of course, that's what I'm saying. But what
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: you're reading is they've dropped those provisions in the Senate even. Yeah.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Were they were they in the initial. What do you
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: mean dropped?
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Were they no.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Longer contingent as part of a negotiation to give them
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: something else they want? That seems to have been swapped
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: out for Ukraine funding. The the. Right.
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: Like it's like the thing you're getting is Ukraine funding.
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: I mean, the thing that's like what I'm trying to
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: understand is, OK, so there was always like stepping back.
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: There was a broad immigration reform compromise that was always
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: being negotiated. And it's some form of more stringent rules
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: at the border, far greater border security, maybe funding for
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: some kind of a wall or whatever. There's just like
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: there's the like stick part of it. And then there
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: was a set of reforms that include legalizing Dreamers, path
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: to citizenship, et cetera, et cetera. This negotiation seems to
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: be entirely focused on border security and asylum seekers. And
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: the question is, if you give and you and if
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: you like supply, if you if you agree to a
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: bunch of not just reforms to the asylum process, but
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: a ton of funding for additional border security funding for
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: the wall, which Biden's already kind of relented on funding
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: for agents, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Have you
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: given on the one place that could in the future
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: make it possible to help the dreamers to do a
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: path to citizenship, to do the all the kind of
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: broader reforms that everyone recognizes that are humane and needed.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you, you are. And that's why you shouldn't give
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: it up.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: What's how small this, it depends on how small it
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: depends what this is.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: But I also don't like this, the way this has
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: been framed as like carrot and stick. And you know,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: everyone used to say that, Oh, when Obama was president,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: he only did the border stuff because of pure politics.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: So he could get the other stuff too. And it's like, no,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: like a sensible, humane immigration system that works would provide
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a path to citizenship for the 11 million, 15 million
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants in this country. It would legalize the dreamers.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: It would have a legal immigration system where you could
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: even increase the amount of immigration that comes to this country,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: but you do it through legal channels. Same thing with
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: asylum and refugee claims. And then, yeah, make sure that
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: other people aren't coming in illegally.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Into this country.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: That would be actually just a sane immigration system. That's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: not just like, give Republicans a little, give Democrats a little.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, no, I'm just saying it has been framed.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: The framing of it has been sort of twisted.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, the politics, part of what happened is I
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: think there was a way that Democrats used to talk
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: about immigration, nation of immigrants, nation of laws, right? And
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: then I do think that during the 2016 primaries, there
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: was this basically kind of a shift to the left
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: and just how we talked about it, not actually- 2020 primary.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: In the 2020- God damn it. I know.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: But yes, there was a shift in how we talked
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: And then I think the parts, the kind of the
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: harder parts that would inevitably be part of any deal
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: became de-emphasized. And then when they come up, they're seen
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: as a capitulation. But yes, of course, a draconian border
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: policy and a set of reforms that do not recognize
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: the humanity and needs of people trying to get next
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: to the United States is not just, you know, bad
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: politics and it's bad for the world. But that doesn't
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: mean every deal that would involve some form of border
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: security is like a massive failure that there can't be
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: a successful compromise of some kind.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: The other thing they just need to rethink is the U.S.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba and places where you're seeing
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of migration outflows because the economy has been crushed. Yeah.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: And by the way, Trump's entire 2016 campaign and his presidency,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: his first term also like put a lot of gas
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: on the fire to say the least, right? Because when
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: people think about border policy and they think about family separation,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: or they think about Trump telling us that caravans full
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: of terrorists were coming, right? Then they think, yeah, why
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: are we reinforcing and the wall, right? Why are we
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: doing all that kind of shit? But like what they're
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: not thinking about is that there could be another system
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that actually works, that is humane, that's legal. And that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: like has immigration makes sense. But so, so Trump contributed
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: to this in a big way as well.
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: There's also just the, like, I think, even like the
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: Republican statements about this, like they don't want to support
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: additional funding for judges, anything that would like make the
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: process work better, unless you're also addressing what they describe
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: as the pull, right? Which is like the draw to
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: the United States. And I think for a long time,
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: that was about the fact that there's no internal enforcement,
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: that this was about people coming and seeking jobs. But
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: on top of that, you have these huge numbers of
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: people seeking asylum or refuge or just trying to find
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: a way out of these countries that are in crisis.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: And that has been a kind of like, I think
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: the situation at the border has been overtaken by those events.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Speaking of Republicans, let's talk about the 2024 Republican primary
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and the fierce battle for second place. With less than
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: 50 days until the Iowa caucuses, are Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and their respective super PACs spending all their time and
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: money going after the guy who's winning by 40 points? No,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: they're not. They are going after each other. The New
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: York Times reported that Nikki Haley's super PAC spent $ 3. 5
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: million on ads attacking DeSantis over the last two months
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and not a single dollar attacking Trump. Similarly, DeSantis' PAC
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: spent 10 times more money hitting Haley than going after Trump. Tommy,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: it seems like the two of them are going all
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: in on Iowa. Why do you think they're going negative
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: on each other instead of Trump?
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Because they're stupid. I don't know. I mean, you keep
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: reading these articles where various interest groups in super PACs
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: have said that all of the testing they've done on
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: anti-Trump ads or messaging have backfired and hurt them. But
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: if that's the case, drop out. Why are you still competing?
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like they all think that they
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: can narrow this race down to two and then, I
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: don't know, somehow change the game in New Hampshire and beyond.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: But that's a ridiculous suggestion.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Did they not learn this lesson from 2016 when all
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: of Trump's challengers started beating each other up because they
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: thought that they could take everyone else out and that
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: they could be the last one standing to face Trump?
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And then because like, you know, Jeb and Marco and...
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Chris Christie, they all sort of attacked each other and all,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I'm forgetting some, they all attacked each other. And so
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: then Trump just benefited from it. Like, we're just going
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to do this again now?
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: On top of that, it's not like these attacks that
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: they're leveling against each other are helping them either.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about it.
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: But like, DeSantis is having this sort of like, this
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: like civil war inside of his super PAC because they're
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: feeling like DeSantis is getting hurt by the fact that
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: he's going after Haley now. Like that this guy cannot
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: launch an attack on anybody that doesn't make people dislike him.
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: And it's like, For some reason, this rule doesn't seem
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: to apply to Trump, right? Trump, go after Haley and
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: go after DeSantis and go after everyone. Everyone's like, that's
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: our fucking guy. But these guys go negative for one second.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: They're like, I don't like it. I don't care for it.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: That's because that's who Trump is.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's because of who they are.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, so the DeSantis story, which we did not
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: get to talk about because it happened last week when
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: we were all on break. Never back down, the super
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: PAC that is essentially running his whole campaign. He's basically
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: outsourced the whole campaign to the super PAC. And so
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: when Never Back Down is running these ads about Haley
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, they are backfiring and hurting DeSantis because the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Never Back Down branding is so close to DeSantis because
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that's like his whole campaign. So voters in Iowa are
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: smart enough to be like, oh, that's a DeSantis ad, right?
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And so DeSantis and his wife are like very upset
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: about these ads. The CEO of his Super PAC, of
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: his Never Back Down Super PAC, resigns. This was right
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: after And NBC has this great report on this story
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: where there's this big fight and Jeff Rowe, who's the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: chief strategist for Never Back Down, gets in a fight
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: with a board member who's like a longtime confidant of
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, this guy named Scott Wagner. And Jeff Rowe
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: yells at him, you have a stick up your ass, Scott.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And then Scott Wagner gets up and responds, why don't
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: you come over here and get it?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: By the way, hey.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: What?
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: Anybody who's a lifelong friend of Ron DeSantis has to
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: be a fucking, just one of the worst human beings
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: to have a conversation with. That is an incredible response.
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: 10 out of 10. That's the craziest response I've ever heard.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Why don't you come over here and get the stick
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: out of my ass?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I think it's a great response. You stand up. Why
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: don't you come over here and get it? I thought
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: it was cool as hell. I didn't know.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: There's some real sexual tension in that response.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: That doesn't make it worse to me. I didn't know
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: if get it meant get the stick or just get it,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: like get some. I think he's referring to the stick.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought, yeah, I thought the stick too.
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: Like, oh, if I have a stick back here, why
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: don't you come and remove it for me? You know,
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: let's have a fight. Let's have a physical fight. Let's
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: solve this by fighting. The other thing too is, I
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: hope it's not, this is a meeting about, this is
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: a meeting of the Never Back Down board discussing how
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: best to back down.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: That's what they're arguing about. Well, should we back down
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: like this? How do we back down over here?
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: So what ends up happening is they decide to start.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: So a couple other consultants or, or confidants or friends
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: of DeSantis.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Again, some Tallahassee goobers.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And what's the hardest to believe is that he has
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: this many friends.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Um, they have decided to set up on second super
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: pack called, uh, uh, fight hard, fight long, fight, right, fight, right, fight, right.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's called fight, right. FightRite is the new super
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: PAC that's now going to attack Haley with ads with
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't have the Never Back Down branding. So they think
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: that they're going to attack Haley and people aren't going
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: to know that it's Ron DeSantis, even though it's going
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: to be funded by the Never Back Down.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: It's a bit like when Garth Brooks became Chris Gaines.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: What?
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Remember?
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: No. Remember when Garth Brooks put on a mustache? Because
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: basically the other thing too is I was like reading
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: about it. I was like, wait, there's another, they're funding
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: another PAC. I was like, where's the money coming from?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: He's transferring. It's coming from Never Back Down.
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Coming from inside the house.
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: So they send a million dollars to this new super
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: PAC that works for the super PAC that works for
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: Ron DeSantis because that's going to, this is your problem. Hey,
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: there's your problem right there. The super PAC name is
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: too out there. And then Ken Cuccinelli, who was, you know,
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: fucking asshole from Virginia before he was now running this PAC,
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: sends a letter like he's on the record being like,
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: I disagree with doing this.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: The whole thing is incredible.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I want it to be on the record that I
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: disagree with you.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: What record? For who? For history? Guess what?
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: It's already in the NBC story.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: I think we figured out who leaked it. Yeah. By
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: the way, I was just like, this isn't going to
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: be an HBO movie. You people are not interesting enough.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: No.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: This is the best sentence you've gotten. I'm the only
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: one that likes it. Also, just again, Jeff Rowe, the
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: chief strategist for the DeSantis super PAC, was Ted Cruz's
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: campaign manager in 2016. So he has watched this movie before.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: He should know damn well that the strategy he's running
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: for Ron DeSantis is the one he ran for Ted
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Cruz and didn't work. And he's just running it back.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: But he is making some money. A lot of money.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: They have this big door-knocking operation in Iowa. Again, the
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Super PAC is running the field organization here. And Jeff
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Froh has told people that he believes the group's door-knocking
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: push could be worth as much as 10 percentage points
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: on caucus day. Tommy, do you think the operation is
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: going to give him 10 points that are not showing
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: up in the polls?
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I cannot overstate
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: how stupid that is. We had the most unbelievable field
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: team and organization, GOTV organization in Iowa in 2008. And
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: the difference is, by the way, is the Never Back
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Down field team, they're hiring them all. They're all paid staffers.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: These are not volunteers who love Ron DeSantis and really
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: care about the mission. Now, these are like, they're going
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: to hire 2,600 people by Labor Day, so they said
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: in some New York Times story in May of 2023.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: They have no idea what they're doing.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: This is not going to work.
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: Well, there was the one example of someone was caught
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: on a ring camera, one of these guys that was
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: hired by the PAC. And he was like, if you
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: don't vote for DeSantis, I'm going to.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: What did he say? He goes, I'm going to... It
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: was something funny. I'm going to kick your ass or something.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: And then he's like, sorry, I'm pretty stoned.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he said he was high.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: He said he was too high. There was this Times
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: story that quoted Jeff Rowe in May of 2023 talking
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: about their strategy. He said, quote, he argued that Mr.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Trump had shied away from key fights that motivate the
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Republican base and on which DeSantis had led, including on
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: LGBTQ issues, schools, and taking on corporate America. This is
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: the direct quote. How do you beat Trump, Mr.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Rose said?
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Well, you beat Trump by beating Trump. And where Ron
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: DeSantis has beaten Trump is by doing what Republican voters
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: want him to do the most.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: What?
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: What does any of that mean? Yellow Disney?
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Is that what that meant? So this is a New
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: York Times article about Iowa that just ran Sunday, I think.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And- The whole thing is about like Haley and DeSantis
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: going after each other. And basically the strategy is everyone's
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: going all in on Iowa, except for Chris Christie. And
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: if Haley can get second in Iowa and beat DeSantis,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: then she goes to New Hampshire where DeSantis is basically
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: like collapsed. He's pulling in the single digits and she,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I guess, beats Trump in New Hampshire. Maybe she comes
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: close enough and then she goes home to South Carolina
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: and that's where she really makes her stand. So that's
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: her strategy. DeSantis' strategy, I guess, is just to get
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: second in Iowa and then I don't even know what.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Or maybe win Iowa, but I don't think that's happening either.
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: But you glossed over it. DeSantis is now in fifth
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: in New Hampshire. That is fucking devastating.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: And so if you're DeSantis and you get second in
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Iowa somehow... And then you go to New Hampshire and
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: you get like fifth. I guess he's thinking that the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: momentum for getting second. Yeah, you just get a bounce. Yeah,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the Iowa, the second place momentum you get in Iowa
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: just like carries you up to second in New Hampshire.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: People in New Hampshire love taking their cues from those
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Iowa rules. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, that's right.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Anyway, you go through this whole thing with Haley and
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: DeSantis and at the end it says, Trump campaign officials
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: say their operation has already amassed 50,000 signed cards committing
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: to caucus for him and 1,800 caucus captains. And then
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the DeSantis campaign said it had more than 30,000 people
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: who committed and the Haley campaign declined to provide any
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: such data points. Yeah.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: So the take home there is by their own standards,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: DeSantis has 20,000 fewer voters in Iowa than Donald Trump.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's a good setup.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It also said he visited his 98th Iowa county a
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: week ago after holding around 10 small public events over
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: three days. And then Trump went to one rally in
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Fort Dodge. Got 2,000 people, which is more than all
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: of DeSantis' events combined. I do. I read that, too.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I do wonder.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Trump has people who travel for him who go to,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Out-of-staters?
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: It's like the fall of the dead.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: It's like when Mark Penn accused Barack Obama of busting
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: in people to the Iowa JJ.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think we ever fully got to the
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: bottom of that. God damn it.
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: I don't know that we fully know exactly what happened.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about these early states here, but like,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I feel like once we go to the rest of
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the states? Tommy, you were pointing out that the rules
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: are getting a little rigged in favor of Trump here, huh?
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: This is the thing that people have to understand. As
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: we learned in 2008, all of us here, this is
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: ultimately a campaign for more delegates, right? No, it's not
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: just that Haley needs to win in Iowa. She needs
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: to win overwhelmingly in these early states so that she can,
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: I guess, get enough media attention and a bounce so
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: that people in all these other future states where they're
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: not paying any attention right now will decide that 60%
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: of them currently are supporting Trump. They'll all flip because
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: what people need to know is Trump's people have changed
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: the rules to make it easier for him to win.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: A couple examples. In Massachusetts, a candidate used to need
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: to win 5% of the statewide vote to get delegates.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: In 2020, Massachusetts Republicans changed the threshold to 20% to
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: get delegates and made it so that a candidate getting
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: over 50% of the vote gets all the delegates. So
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: it turns into a winner take all at this threshold.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: California is on March 5th, Super Tuesday. It awards 169 delegates.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: California Republicans changed the rules so that a candidate who
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: gets more than 50% of the votes gets all of
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the delegates. Previously, most of the delegates in California were
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: awarded congressional district by congressional district. So basically, Trump's allies
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: have made a huge push to create these winner-take-all triggers
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: in all these early states, like all the primaries before
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: March 15th. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2016,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: 15 states and territories had a winner-take-all trigger like the
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: ones I just described. In 2024, 23 states and territories
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: that vote early before March 15th will have a winner-take-all trigger.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: So long story short, it will be very hard to
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: stage some sort of come-from-behind victory because of these rule changes.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: And also, Trump could have this thing sealed up on
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Super Tuesday pretty easily. Before his first trial is even out.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: And like you said, like, Republicans already had more winner-take-all
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: states than Democrats. Democrats just do proportional every state. And
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: now it's like, now it's supercharged, right?
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Their rule had technically been you couldn't have a winner-take-all
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: before March 15th, but they created these little thresholds and
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: loopholes to sort of make de facto winner-take-all. I do think, though,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: it's like.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: It's over.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: It's over.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Rigged.
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: So whether or not it's winner-take-all, I think, would matter
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: more if we're talking about like what happened in 2016,
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: where you have this like kind of big field that's
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: refusing to narrow. Like the reality is whether, you know,
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: whether Nikki Haley is losing by eight points, 20 points,
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: 30 points, it really doesn't matter.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Trump is cruising to the nomination.
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: And like the only question that is not, it's like
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: if someone else is potentially gonna be the nominee, it
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: means that they have to overtake Trump faster. It has
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: to happen quicker. The consolidation has to happen faster. And
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: it has to happen with enough time before you get
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: to some of these big states.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: Right. Because you can't say, all right, we're going to
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: take second in Iowa, do better than expected in South Carolina.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Then we're going to, you know, collect a lot of
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: delegates on Super Tuesday and we're going to grind it
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: out and win in the Connecticut primary on April 2nd.
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Because they've rigged the rules so that Trump is going
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: to get all of the delegates out of these states
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: where he's the only Republican candidate anyone has heard of.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: And again, once you hit the majority of delegates, primary's over.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: So Trump is, of course, acting like he's already the
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: nominee with good reason and laying out plans for a
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: second term. Over the weekend, he posted on Truth Social
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: that he's seriously looking into alternatives for Obamacare and that
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans should, quote, never give up on their fight to, quote,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: terminate it. The Biden campaign pounced and the president himself
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: talked about this on Monday.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: And my predecessors, once again, God love them, call for
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: cuts that could rip away health insurance costs. How likely
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: do you think it is that Trump can actually pull
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: this off after famously not being able to get it
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: done in 2017 and then telling us he was going.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: To have an alternative for Obamacare for 10 years now?
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: not being famously not being able to get it done
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: in 2017 and then telling us he was going to
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: have an alternative for Obamacare for 10 years now.
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: I don't before we even get to like where the
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: fuck did this come from? Like he it seems like
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: someone at his country club mentioned a Wall Street Journal
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: piece or something like this is such a strange bank
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: shot to get to him talking about Obamacare and like
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: So basically there was a Wall Street Journal piece that
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: misrepresents something Elizabeth Warren said about Obamacare to say that
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: Elizabeth Warren finally admits that Obamacare costs money. And Trump
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: sees this and then uses it to basically take a
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: swipe at John McCain because he thought about John McCain
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: on the toilet and then puts this out there. And
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: then now it's a whole news cycle and Biden's taking
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: a shot and everybody should. But it's like, where did
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: this come from, right? Like Republicans have clearly recognized that
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: this is a losing issue for them.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: My theory of this round of Trump running for president
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: is he's got much better people around him. And they're
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: all trying to keep him as disciplined as possible. And
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: so far it's working. And they're like, maybe it's good
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: that he's off Twitter. Maybe we'll get him back. We
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: won't do a lot of mainstream interviews. And they're trying
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: to keep him on message. But Trump can't stay disciplined
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: for that long. You cannot just keep him contained like this.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: He is going to make political mistakes like this one.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: And the world is his canvas.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Someone got to him and was like, you've got to
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: be careful on the abortion stuff. Republicans are losing on abortion.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: You've got to at least pretend, moderate. No one got
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: to him on the ACA stuff. Well, he's on the
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: abortion stuff. That's where his heart is. He always has that.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: But he will try to walk this back. I bet
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: he will try to walk this back, and it hopefully
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: won't work.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Very smart of Biden, I think, to come out and
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: do a statement on this. I think Trump will absolutely
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: try to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Why? Because he's
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: a dumb racist who hates Obama and wants to destroy
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: everything Obama ever did. That's my genuine feeling for why
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: he actually cares about this. And what it will mean
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: in practice is 20 million people will lose their health
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: care that they gained.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Because of the affordable care. And something like 150 million
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: people who depend on health care because they have pre-existing
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: conditions and insurance companies can't discriminate against them because of
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: pre-existing conditions, they will lose that protection. Young people will
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: lose the protection of being on their parents' health care
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: until they're 26. All the seniors who are now paying
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: less for prescription drugs, thanks to what Joe Biden did
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: in the Inflation Reduction Act, will pay more for prescription
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: drugs because of this now. There will be no more
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: lifetime limits for on how much health care you can get.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: So like if you're if you're seriously, seriously ill and
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: your insurance will only cover up to used to used
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: to only cover up to a certain amount. Obamacare got
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: rid of that. That will come back now. I mean,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: it's just it is ridiculous.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Catastrophic.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: How likely is it? Well, so, you know, like you said,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Trump will want to do it because he's Trump. If
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: there's a Speaker Mike Johnson in the House, you can
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: bet that the House will do it. There are a
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: bunch of crazies there. They can barely elect a Republican speaker.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: They're so right wing. And then in the Senate, So yes,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Collins and Murkowski were no's, but they could support an
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: alternative to the Affordable Care Act. Or if Trump wins,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: it seems very likely that in that world, John Tester
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: and Sherrod Brown don't hang on. It's possible they do,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: but unlikely. And if that's the case, then Republicans will
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: have the votes in the Senate to get rid of Obamacare.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: And again, they can do it They can probably do
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: it just through a budget process, through a budget reconciliation
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: process and not and they won't need the 60.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: I mean, if they if Republicans write Republicans in the
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: White House and they take the Senate, keep the House,
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: they will certainly try to repeal Obamacare. It is hard
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: to imagine they wouldn't succeed. They almost succeeded last time.
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: They the reason Trump is still mad about it is
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: that it was only by a kind of like last
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: minute reprieve from John McCain that the thing survived at all.
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: And by the way, he could have gone either way
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: in that whole fucking thing. because he was a capricious guy.
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: And it was a fit of... Not a fit of pique,
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: but it was like a.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: It was a little.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: It was a 50-50 shot. I mean, remember we watched it.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: People were.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: We were like... We were... Just the fact that.
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: We were hopeful John McCain might not repeal Obamacare, we
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: got shit for seeming like a bunch of naive.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Goobers and like... Which often we are. And often we are.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: But yeah, no good.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Just some numbers on this. 22% of the American people
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: supported Trump's last attempt to get rid of Obamacare in 2017.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: The current.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Favorability rating for the Affordable Care Act is between 57%
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and 62%, according to Kaiser. And this from a Fox
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: News poll in 2020, they asked people, would you rather
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: keep the Affordable Care Act or replace it? 64% said keep,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: 32% said replace, 32% of Republicans favored keeping it, and
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: that was in a 2020 poll. So this is just
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: political suicide.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: If there's a way to keep this....
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: As like central to the election. I can't think of
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: a more damaging thing for Trump. The least popular he
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: ever was as president was when he was trying to
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: repeal or close to the least, maybe tied for second,
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: was when he tried to repeal Obamacare is extremely unpopular.
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: And in terms of what you would be able to
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: talk about, like abortion, democracy and extremism and Obamacare, like
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: that would be like if it is the third story,
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: that would be very good.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: And again, I saw a bunch of people reacting to
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: this news by saying, this seems like a small thing.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: He's going to end democracy. He's going to end democracy.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, the people, all of us who
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: pay close attention to politics, and maybe some of the
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: people who are saying that have health care that they
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: pay for, they could say that. But for the people
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: who are disengaged in politics, who are not paying attention,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: they hear that they're going to lose their health care.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: That's how they're going to vote. That's how they're going
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: to vote. All right. Finally, George Santos is back with
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: a vengeance. But he could be out of Congress within
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: the week. The Republican chair of the Ethics Committee has
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: introduced a resolution to expel Santos after their bipartisan investigation
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: found that the congressman used his campaign funds to pay
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: for personal expenses like Botox, Hermes bags, and a subscription
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: to OnlyFans.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Fucking legend.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Santos is taking this in stride. Here he is during
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: a Twitter Spaces interview on Friday.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: They all act. like they are on ivory towers with
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: white pointy hats and they're untouchable. I mean, within the
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: ranks of the United States Congress, there's felons galore. There's
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: people with all sorts of sheisty backgrounds. And all of
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: a sudden, George Santos is the Mary Magdalene of United
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: States Congress.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Can we pause real quick?
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Can we pause?
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Pause real quick. Mary Magdalene got the Congress.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: What is he talking about?
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: I think he's saying that he's being unfair, you know,
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: that Mary Magdalene... was cast out.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she was cast out.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: But was he friends with Jesus?
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: Did he witness the crucifixion? I still can't get past,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: they're on ivory towers wearing pointy white hats.
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I was gonna talk like, hey man, that's
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: not what ivory towers are for. Ivory towers are for
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: people that are kind of like naive intellectuals who don't
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: know how the world works. I don't know, are the
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: pointy hats, I don't know where that came from. And
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: by the way, Felons Galore, incredible drag name. just waiting
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: to be taken.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Why don't we roll the rest of the clip?
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: We're all going to stone this motherfucker because it's just
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: politically expedient. I want to see Michael Guest, the chairman
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: of ethics, put his resolution. Matter of fact, I think
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: he should be a man and stop being a pussy
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: and call the privilege on the damn motion. This precedent
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: sets a new era for of due process, which means
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: you are guilty until proven innocent. We will take your
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: accusations and use it to smear, to mangle, to destroy
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: you and remove you from society. I don't care. You
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: want to expel me? I'll wear it like a badge
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: of honor. I'll be the sixth expelled member of Congress
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: in the history of Congress. I'm not leaving.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I'm not.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Come hell or high water, these people need to understand
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: it's done when I say it's done.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know about that, pal. First of all, god
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: damn it, legend. I say it again. I say it again.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's the first time the words pussy and
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: a privileged resolution were used in the same sentence by someone.
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: I also just, I also like, it's so jarring when
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: he says pussy, a word that's hard even for me
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: to say, because it's like, because it's like, I'm sorry,
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: but like, that's, you're using a gay voice.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: And like, he does.
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: He's like in his gay, because he's fighting, he's being
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: a diva, so he's in his gayer voice. And it's like,
• 48:18
  Speaker 5: then you're going to say that? Then you're going to go,
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: then you're going to bro out on us?
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: I don't like that.
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: Also, just one, he says, When he says, uh, shysty,
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: my spidey sense is tingling. And I realize that there's
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: two paths before George Santos now. There's the one I
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: hope he takes, which is reality show diva.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: That's the path. The other is like QAnon anti-Semite.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: He might look at those paths and say, why not both?
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Why not both? I mean, there was a House Ethics
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Committee investigation report, but this wasn't just conjecture.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: So I'm interested in what happens here. An expulsion vote
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: needs two-thirds of members to pass, assuming all the Democrats
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: vote to expel him at this point, which I assume
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: they will. Some of the people like Jamie Raskin, who
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: we talked about before, who didn't want to expel him
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: before the Ethics Committee finished their report, are now saying, like, yeah, no,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: we've had due process. This is what we were asking for.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: A very principled position, by the way.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Very principled, and I agree with that position. And so
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: if you get all the Democrats, you still need 70 Republicans. Now, Santos...
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: in that Twitter spaces interview said, I think they're going
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: to vote me out because I can count votes, which
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: seems doubtful. Yeah.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Said a liar.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: But and then someone asked Mike Johnson about this today.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: He said on the resolution, he said it remains to
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: be seen. I've spoken to Congressman Santos at some length
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: over the holiday and talked to him about his options.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: But we'll have to see. I wonder if Johnson tried
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: to get him to resign on his own. I'm sorry,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: imagine those two trying to relate over a coffee. That's
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: a buddy coffee. I love it.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I fucking love it. There's the pitch.
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: What's a drag queen grifter and just a weird legal zealot?
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: One of them is on OnlyFans. One of them gets
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: in trouble if they go to OnlyFans with his son.
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: What do you mean you don't have our Avis reservation
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: and we have to take that train together?
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: What do you mean our phones are dead? All the
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: flights are canceled, but my son is home. You don't
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: have a son.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: What do you think? What do you think? They're going
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: to vote him out?
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: I think they want this guy gone. I think they
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: want him gone.
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think, like, I think the, you know,
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: the only thing that they, the only reason they were
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: keeping him around in, like, the McCarthy era was that, like,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: they needed every vote. They needed every single vote. And
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: it's true that they go to a special, like, you know,
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: it's hard to imagine. It's hard for them to, they
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: can't count on the seat.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: That's for sure.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: It's, yeah, it's a more, it's like a Biden district.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: They might lose it.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: And the, the, We only lost it the first time
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: because everyone fucking fell asleep at the wheel who was
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: part of that race.
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Un-fucking-believable.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: This guy's wandering around being like, yeah, I'm a scientist, too.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: I'm getting away with this. It's un-fucking-believable.
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: And also, by the way, the thing that came out
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: of the ethics report, which is like, it's an amazing text.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: What a scam.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: What a scam.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about the scam?
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we should talk about this for a second.
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: Because at the time we talked about this, and it
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: was really confusing, or at the time we talked about
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: how these reports didn't make sense, So one thing that
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: was in some of the disclosures way back when was
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: that he had loaned a tremendous amount of money to
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: the campaign. I think like $ 80, 000.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: And then another check for more. But anyway, he started
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: with the $ 80, 000.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: And everyone was like, wait, because he's a businessman. But
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: where's this money coming from? Because he also was like
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: behind on rent or had been evicted from an apartment.
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: It was all really confusing. Turns out that was made up.
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: There was no $ 85, 000 or $ 80, 000 loan. It was $ 3, 500
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: or something like that. And so then he pretends he's
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: loaned the campaign $ 85, 000, uses it to show strength to
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: get donations, and then just starts paying himself from the
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: fucking donations.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: Legend. Thinking that no one would check to see that his.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: $ 80, 000 loan to his own campaign was only $ 3, 500, which
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: he was right.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: He was totally right. He was totally right. Except eventually
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: he got got. Well, those wax wings can only get
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: you so high. And then they did indeed melt. Yeah,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Wonder what the calculation is for these Republicans, because why
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: do they need him around, right? They're going to lose
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: a seat in the special, probably. They'd probably also lose
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: it in the next election. So, like, why not get
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: rid of him now and saying that you're expelled? And, like,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: does Mike Johnson need every vote?
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: But, like, what else are they passing between now and 2024?
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: I guess all the supplemental, then a continuing resolution to
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: fund the government in January. But beyond that, like, can
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: you afford to lose one more vote? And like, versus
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: the political consequences of having all these Republicans saying that
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: they voted to keep, I mean, think of the fun
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: ads you could run.
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: The other piece of it too, is it's like, actually
• 52:43
  Speaker 5: it's just, it's a statement about how weak Kevin McCarthy was,
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: because why did you need every single Republican vote? You
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: don't have the Senate. So nothing's passing that's not bipartisan.
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: So it was like, I need every vote to do
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: my dumb messaging bills to prove to the hard right
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: that I'm cool. So that eventually when I do a deal,
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: they don't expel me from my job, which is.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: What they ended up doing. But then George Santos saw-
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: his Jesus Christ, Kevin McCarthy, get crucified, which is why
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: he's Mary Magdalene. But will there be a resurrection?
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: That's the big question.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Is that why he's Mary Magdalene?
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: None of us know. We're all trying to figure this out.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: I'm still on the pointy white hats. I don't know why.
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: I don't know what the pointy white hats were either.
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: I do think, like, if they decide, I can't imagine why.
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: I don't know why anybody would vote to keep DeSantis.
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: I think the New York delegation is like, get him out.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, they're New York Republicans.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: There have been two resolutions. One of them was from
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: fucking them. But I do think, like, it is.
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: The previous expulsions were Confederates and people who were convicted, right?
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: This is not a conviction. There's some logic to that,
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: but I don't think they'd hang their hat on it.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Anyway, good times.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: We'll miss you, man.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, we really will. Well, we'll see. We'll see.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: He could say, he could say, don't jinx it, Lovett.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Don't jinx it. We don't know yet.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: Have you pitched for Lovett or Leavitt? I bet he'd
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: come on. Have you at least had a comedian impersonating
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: George Santos?
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes, we did.
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: Oscar Montoya came on and did an incredible George Santos.
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: And we have to have him back. We're going to
• 54:00
  Speaker 5: have to bring him back.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: It's time. John Stantos over here is a big fan
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: of this guy.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Hey.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: What?
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Huh?
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: What?
• 54:07
  Speaker 5: Huh?
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: Huh?
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: Do you understand?
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I genuinely didn't.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: You're standing it.
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: Oh, I do.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: I do. I'm a George Stantos. Something the kids currently say,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: but it was actually coined by John.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: He said John.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: That's why I thought it was to me.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: John Stantos.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: I know. It's hard to tell that you're John.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: I'm a George Stantos. That one needed some more time
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: in the joke oven.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Hey, come on.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting right here with you guys. John's trying to
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: wrap it up.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to wrap it up. It's been a long show.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: You never back down, okay?
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: It's been a very long show. Is it? We have
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: two quick housekeeping notes before we leave.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Felt flew by.
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: Good show.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Long show.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: The most important event of the year is happening on
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Thursday night.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: What?
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: It's a live televised debate between Republican presidential hopeful Ron
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: DeSantis and the man he absolutely isn't running against, Governor
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom. So we will be doing a group thread
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: to cover this debate. Did you guys know you'd have
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: to do a group thread Thursday night?
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Actually, I'm learning about it now. By the way, I
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: think I'm in Phoenix, but I'll do my best to join.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Three of us, plus Dan, plus the rest of the
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Crooked crew will all be on Discord to get access
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: to this and more events like it. Make sure you're
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: subscribed to Friends of the Pod. You can head to cricket.com
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: slash friends to learn more. We're going to group thread
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: this debate. We're just going to have some fun. We're
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: just going to have some fun. Just going to have
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: some fun out there.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: First question, what channel is it on?
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: What channel is the.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: Fox?
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Fox, it's Fox. Sean Hannity. Right, bummer. Sean Hannity. I
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: have some... Moderating.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: I have some friends in the Newsom camp, and this
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: has created.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: A lot of work for them. Yeah, I bet.
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: I bet.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: Well, it's worth it.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: We'll see.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Let's see.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: I think it was the right thing to do.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it just seemed like Ron DeSantis has a
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: bit more to lose since he is a current presidential candidate.
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: It's a total waste of time for DeSantis. The whole
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: thing is amazing.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Also.
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: Well, the only thing is it's good that he's not...
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: As long as he's not talking to voters, he's not
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: hurting his campaign.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: I think when they both agreed to it, it made
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: some strategic sense, but now it's just like DeSantis is plummeting.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: He's not in the right states doing it.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: It's crazy. Anyway, speaking of live events, Pod Save America's
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: got two more.
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: Two more.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: You can catch us in El Cajon on December 7th.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: and San Jose on December 13th. We'll be joined by
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: co-host Sam Sanders and Adisu Demesi. Get your tickets at cricket.com
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: slash events now. And that's our show. We did it.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: We'll talk to you guys on Thursday.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production. Our producers
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo. Our associate producer is
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Farrah Safari, writing support from Hallie Kiefer. Reid Cherlin is
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
• 56:51
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• 56:55
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• 56:57
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• 57:03
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• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Sign up at crooked.com slash friends.