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Vance Bombs at Brutal Town Hall · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: ahead of crime in real time. Welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: On today's show, we'll talk about Donald Trump closing strong
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: with a pro-Putin, pro-corruption message. That's how you bring it home.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: We've got fun new details about the untimely demise of
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Katie Zachariah's career, some updates on the pivotal Senate races
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: in Maine and Michigan, and J.D. Vance's latest 2028 audition
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: at a CBS town hall. We'll get into how it went.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Then you'll hear my conversation with Mayor Paige Cognetti, who's
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: running to flip a critical House seat in northeastern Pennsylvania.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: But first, Crooked Con is coming up right after the election,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and we have just added a bunch more great names
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to the lineup. We got Governor J.B. Pritzker's coming, Senator
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Chris Murphy, and then over from the House side, Ilhan Omar,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Robert Garcia, Sarah Jacobs, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride. We also
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: have Carlos Eduardo Espina. Simone Sanders, Townsend, Eugene Daniels, David Pakman,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Jessica Tarloff, Heather McGee, and then all the other people
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that we've announced on the website, plus more to come.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Great list.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Anyway, check out the full lineup and get tickets right
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: now at CrookedCon.com. We'd love to see you there. That's CrookedCon.com.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. Two weeks to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: go until Election Day. That's less than three Zacharias. And
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Republicans are just hoping that Donald Trump can give their candidates...
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Another week that's as focused and helpful as last week,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: where the White House message calendar included firing their ambassador
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to Greece over a corruption scandal, firing their new White
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: House press secretary after five days over her inability to
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: read out loud. Talk. Speak. It's tough, right? Canceling a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: live streamed execution, violating a judge's orders by cutting down
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a bunch of trees to renovate a public golf course.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Another wild corruption scandal involving two Trump advisors, the Kennedy Center,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a Turkish billionaire in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the fact that the president seems to have switched sides
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: again in the Russia-Ukraine war. But it's a new week,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and on Monday morning, Trump was at the White House
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: just hammering his affordability message.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: The prices are coming way down, I'm seeing. Down, down, down.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Big improvement from the previous administration.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And if I might.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: That stone is so beautiful. See the cushions, those beautiful
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: yellow cushions? They're supposed to be a half an inch high.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: I said, how about four inches? Don't they feel nice?
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: They don't make them in four inches. I had them
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: specially made four inches for everything.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: What do you think, four inches feels nice?
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of a nice, you know, just a
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: little bit of, just gives you a little bit of something,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: you know? Not more than you need. Certainly not as
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: much as you could use.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: It's akin to him salivating over the rock-hard asses of
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: other candidates he was seeing out on the road.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: We have rock-hard ass, you don't need the four inches.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: He's tried to show some of those asses his four inches.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Hey, here we go. You know? Look, if you think
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: that the ass thing is just something that us libs
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: make fun of here on our podcast, made the New
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: York Times, headline in the New York Times about Trump
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: just spending the last couple weeks just talking about men's
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: physical appearance. Finally made the gray lady. Our ass player president.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: He's an ass man.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: The gray lady.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: A term I haven't heard in a while.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: The hard copy thrown to my front door today. All right.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Let's start with Russia-Ukraine, where Trump now appears to be
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: caving to Vladimir Putin. On Friday night, he signed an
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: executive order pulling back the tariffs and sanctions placed on
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Russia as part of an overwhelmingly bipartisan law named after
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham. that Trump himself signed just weeks ago. You
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: may also remember that Trump recently lifted sanctions on Russian
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: diesel as well, which has done nothing so far to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: actually lower the price of diesel in the US. He
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: tried to explain all these moves in a Truth Social
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: post on Saturday, saying that he doesn't want to do
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: anything that would drive Russia away from the bargaining table,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: even though no one knew they were at the bargaining table.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: But it's pretty clear he's trying to blame the war
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine for the high gas prices, They're actually caused
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: by Trump's war in Iran. He then got asked about
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: this at the White House on Monday as he was
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: leaving for a rally in Kansas.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: Have you agreed.
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: To a trilateral meeting with President Xi to talk about Ukraine?
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: No, but I would do it. Not so much for Ukraine,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Zelensky says you're on the wrong side of history on
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: this one.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Zelensky said it? Zelensky doesn't know what he's talking about.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Zelensky is a man that... should have had this war
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: settled a long time ago. If he would have listened
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: to me, he would have made a much better deal
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: a long time ago and he'd have a million people
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: living from his side. And to be honest, I don't think,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: I think it's time for somebody else to negotiate on
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: behalf of Ukraine.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: We've given a lot to Ukraine. They've given nothing to us.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Tommy, can you walk us through what's actually happening here
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and our best guess right now about what Trump thinks?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: He's trying to achieve here.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Seems a little perturbed there.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: He's very sweaty, too.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: I have to say, a reporter just saying, hey, Zelensky
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: criticized you in this specific way is like a geopolitically
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: dangerous question to ask. It's nothing wrong to ask the question,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: but it's, man, it lets him go off in a
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: way that is just escalatory. Yes, I had the same reaction.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it wasn't from a straight news outlet. Poke
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the bear. Yeah.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So there's been this flurry of activity on Ukraine.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: I think it started with this diesel deal, which is
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: basically like four million American dollars to the Russians, got
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: no supply to the market. And at the same time,
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Trump announced an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine that
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: was news to everyone involved. The structure was like entirely
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: tilted to the Russians and then the Russians violated it
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: right away. So Zelensky didn't respond to any of that positively,
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: as you would expect. He kind of popped off, said
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: some things.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: That were a little bit overheated.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: And now there's a bunch of retaliation seemingly happening. So
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: there's a report today that Pete Hegsath is holding up
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: a shipment of Patriot missile interceptors. So that's the latest thing,
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: which are the only way that Ukraine can defend against
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: ballistic missiles. The administration was also messing with Ukraine's Starshield
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: internet access. That's like Starlink, but it's the government contract
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: side that goes through DoD. And what that did is
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: they throttled the speed at which you could use Starlink,
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: which means the interceptor drones that the Ukrainians used to
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: take out Russian drones could not operate at the sufficient
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: speeds they needed to to work. So these drones are
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: just raining down on Ukrainian cities. There's been questions about
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: intelligence maybe getting cut off around incoming ballistic missiles. I'm
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: not sure the veracity of that one. But then finally,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: there's the Lindsey Graham legislation piece, which it should surprise
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: no one that Trump kind of discarded with that because
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: no one thought he was going to use the authorities
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: he already has to get tougher on Russia, but he
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: did essentially just stomp on his friend's grave by signing
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: this waiver. So big picture, it's just the latest example
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: of Trump not putting any pressure on Putin to get
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: to the negotiating table. And what they were doing for
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: a while was saying, if you make a peace deal,
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: we'll give you all these incentives. And now it seems
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: like they're even front-loading the incentives to try to get
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: him to make a deal, like going to the Europeans
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: and saying, hey, what if you guys bought Russian natural
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: gas again?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be great?
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: And the Ukrainians are just getting hung out to dry.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: And like Trump is literally helping the Russians kill civilians
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: by cutting off intelligence.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're saying that doesn't make sense. You want to
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: pressure Russia into a deal, not remove the obstacles and
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: the pain that they experience for refusing to make the deal.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Well, he doesn't want to piss Putin off. As he
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: said in the truth, his truth post, he was like, well,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do anything to they haven't they
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: haven't done much to help Iran so far. So I
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: don't want to– basically I don't want to fuck with
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: them because I want to cozy up to the murderous
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: dictator that has killed thousands and thousands and thousands of Ukrainians, civilians, children,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: all that, because otherwise he will help Iran where we're
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: fighting against.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Which is– they're helping the Iranians.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I know. It doesn't make sense. It's crazy.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: It's also– it's very unclear what happened with this energy ceasefire,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: but– Wherever it came from, it seems to have come
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: from purely conversations between the US and Russia, right? Because
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: the Putin call to Trump. And so Zelensky, when he
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: was asked about it, was like, this is the first
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I'm hearing about it. And so then it seems to
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: have been a conversation just between Trump and Putin that
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: he then posts about, which Putin then immediately violates. And then,
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: of course, Zelensky violates. But then it's cast as this,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: the breakdown of an energy ceasefire, but really was just Putin's,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: whoever knows.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: There's no idea.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: There never was a ceasefire and they never agreed to.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: We have no idea what that conversation was and why
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Trump then goes on to post energy ceasefire.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Is it what? Is it encouragement?
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: Well, I think what happened was Putin pitched him on
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: this idea of an energy ceasefire, which is like neither
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: side can blow up refineries, but only the Russians have
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: refineries that are getting targeted. The Ukrainians had one and
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: the Russians bombed it. So he was like, yeah, it's
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: a great deal for me. The Russians, if you can't,
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: you know, it's just not reciprocal.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sure Putin looked at what's happening here in the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: United States domestically, politically, and just thought to himself, well,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want he wants lower fuel prices and And
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I could sell him on this this deal. And then
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: maybe like Putin's playing like a fucking fiddle like he
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: has forever.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: Putin also knew that the deadlines on this grand bill
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: were about to hit. So he probably called Trump to
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: get ahead of it, to offer all these fake incentives
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: to get Trump to issue the waiver that he actually did,
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: which basically got rid of all the mandatory new sanctions
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: that were part of the grand bill.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: We're saying also that when the grand bill was being debated,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: one of the objections was how much authority it gave
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: the president to waive sanctions.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: That is why most of the House Democrats and some
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Republicans in the Senate, too, voted against it. Yeah, because
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: there was basically like a trap door in the bill
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that would let Trump do exactly what he just did.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So that's where we are now. Going good. But it's
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: just like, I mean, it's trying to guess why Trump
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: is doing what he's doing on Russia. You know, like
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: you don't need any sort of conspiracy theories about like
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Trump being a fucking Russian puppet or all this. It's
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: just the guy has his own parochial personal interests, political interests.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: He's pissed that the price of gas is high. He
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: knows that he can't blame himself, which is where the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: responsibility lies because he started the Iran war. And Iran
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: is why the gas prices and the diesel prices are
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: so high. And so if something somewhere in the world
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: could be potentially making diesel prices higher, like the war
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine, then he's very, very willing to throw anyone
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: under the bus and have a bunch of civilians die
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: just because fuck it. If it helps me a little
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: bit politically at home, then that's great.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: Well, the amount of diesel we're talking about too, I mean,
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: like the full 1.8 million tons is like three and
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: a half days of supply. So it's just like a
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: de minimis amount. But meanwhile, I mean- That's over several months, right?
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: That was the amount that was like for November, December, October, November, December.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: The full, it was 300,000 and 500,000 and a million liters.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: So 1.8 total is three and a half days of
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: supply of the global supplies. It just does nothing. And
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: then the broader context is Trump is having these calls
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: with Putin and making these deals as the Russians have
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: really increased attacks on civilians. Like they blew up a
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: bus station for no reason. And a lot of experts
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: I've talked to think the plan is, well, it's been
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: reported everywhere too. The Russians want to cut off major
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: cities like Kiev from heat and electricity supplies. So there's
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: a humanitarian crisis through the winter, which will, you know,
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: obviously like freeze and the population at the submission. And
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: you could see a place where a lot of, civilians
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: have to flee Ukraine and they go into Europe ahead
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: of all these major elections and potentially destabilize, you know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: other countries and lead to the rise of right wing parties.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: So it's just like a very feels like Putin is
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: playing a very long game here. It's evil, but it's
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: a long game.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: It was like nine million people displaced so far in
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Ukraine and like, I think, three million within Ukraine and
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: six million in together, which is just horrifying. So we
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: haven't had the chance to discuss the pay for play
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Center scandal. Rather complicated story. I will do my
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: best to briefly summarize and then you guys can jump in.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So Trump's former lawyer, former U.S. attorney for New Jersey,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Alina Haba, claims that her billionaire Turkish husband arranged a
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: business deal that was supposed to include a nearly $ 6
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: million donation to the Kennedy Center that never got there
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and is accusing Trump's former Kennedy Center director, Rick Grinnell,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: of diverting the money. Somehow, this also involves a payment
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: from the government of Congo to a Texas defense company
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that he's connected to, that the billionaire Turkish husband is
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: connected to, which, of course, is often how people support
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the performing arts. Right. Sure. Then on Monday, Axios reported
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: on an alleged text from Grinnell promising Habba's billionaire husband
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: access to Trump, White House, SAFRs, and, quote, VIP events.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Grinnell is denying he sent the text. The White House
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: is apparently investigating the whole thing. And no one seems
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: to know where the millions of dollars actually went. When
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: asked about Habba and Grinnell's competing claims at the White
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: House on Monday, Trump said only, I know they're having
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a feud. Whatever it is, I
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: wish them luck. What does that mean? What'd I miss?
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Did I miss anything there, guys?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: This thing is so hard to disentangle. And by the way,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: it's unclear, like, okay, if Habba's right... then Grinnell stole
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: this money. But if Grinnell is right, there's still graph
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: that's going between the two. It's the whole thing is
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: all you can sort of, when you look at the
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: whole thing, like whatever the actual substance of what's going
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: on here, which we can't know because all of these
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: people are fucking liars.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Like it is, it.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Stinks to high fucking heaven. That's really as far as
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I could get with all this.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of weird sort of like scandalous tabloidy
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: stuff happening. We've got Gilfoyle's MX and all the other skins.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: This to me is like by far the weirdest one
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: of all, like, Just a couple of facts. Like Alina
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Haba's husband, this guy, Turhan Mildan, he's a 29-year-old Turkish billionaire,
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: but maybe he's 25.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: We don't really know his real age.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: He's like lying about his age.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: I think it comes from a family business in Turkey,
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: but he has ties to the Maduro regime in Venezuela,
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: including like close ties with a Maduro advisor who was
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: released from U.S. prison in a prisoner swap by the
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: Biden administration and was accused by DOJ of, quote, profiting
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: from starving of Venezuelans.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So that's who his buddies are.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: Mildon told Forbes he's in the cement business down in Venezuela.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: I'm sure that's up and up. Apparently he's also in
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: the shrimp business. His first marriage was to the daughter
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: of a guy close with President Erdogan in Turkey. That
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: relationship got him connected with the president of the Democratic
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: Republic of Congo to whom he eventually became an advisor
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: and now has like construction and mining interests in the Congo.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: Mining interests in the Congo. Like it's hard to think
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: of a dirtier business. After his first marriage fell apart,
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: he got engaged to a daughter of a top Venezuelan
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: military official. That didn't work out. Then he links up
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: with Habba at the Kennedy Center. So I have no
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: idea what's happening here. But everything about this fact pattern
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: screams these are not legitimate businesses. These are fronts for
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: something else.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: So what you're saying is he's going to be our
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: next ambassador to Turkey.
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: This guy. And Greece. Yeah, this guy rules. I was
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: going to say. This guy's lined up with some good jobs.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: Well, so this dude's just bouncing around the world like
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: linking up with– with women connected with powerful politicians.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Like it's very, very charming. Have you seen it?
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, yeah, I'm sure that's what it is.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: It's charming.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: He's got a great attitude.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: He's got a great energy.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: He's got a great energy.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Big cushion. Yeah. And Rick Grinnell is saying that he
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: didn't send this text that says it's from him because
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: he's claiming that the, uh, Kennedy center was spelled T
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: R E instead of T E R. And that's like,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: because it's the British way of spelling center. It couldn't
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: have been.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: So it's like, it's like the, it's like the three
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: fingers from, uh, From Inglourious Bastards, you know?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Like, you know, whatever it is. Even though
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: apparently the text shows, like, the picture of him. You
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: know how, like, you have a picture of yourself on
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the text sometimes? Like, it's got his picture on it, so.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Here, like, you sort of step back.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Also, like, what would Rick Grinnell do with the money?
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: What is he?
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Who knows?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I guess it's.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Not Rick's turn to get his beak wet.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Cash it.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: When's when's it going to be Rick's time? Look, I
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: have no it's really very confusing. These are all people
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: you can't trust. It's all very dirty, seeming and shady.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And all these people are liars. But you step back
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: and just this is what happens when corruption is tolerated,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: when the Supreme Court rules in such a way that
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the president views himself as above the law, when the
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: president is corrupt and making money off of his office,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: it invites all of this underneath and it is a cancer, right?
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Like corruption is one of those dangerous things that can
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: happen inside of a democracy. And like, we are starting
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: to see that all across the government. You see that
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: with Guilfoyle, you see that with what's happening in crypto,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: you see that in this case, and whatever the specifics
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: of this one event are, we are so far from normal.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: We are so far from the norms of good governance
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: and the fact that people don't profit off. Obviously, they
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: don't intermingle their personal relationships and the promise of meetings
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: and VIP receptions. It is very bad.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Folks are wondering, who is Rick Grinnell and what does
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: he have to do with this billionaire? Rick Grinnell was,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: in the first term, he was the acting director of DNI,
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: the National Intelligence Director of Then in the second term,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: for a while, he had this weird special envoy to
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Venezuela role. And he, I think, kind of battled it
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: out with Marco Rubio. Rubio wanted to go the hard line,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: let's ultimately depose Maduro path. And I think Grinnell was
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: more for rapprochement and talks. So it makes sense, actually.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: This Turkish guy with business interests in Venezuela would kind
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: of have a financial relationship with Grinnell because Grinnell is
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: the kind of guy who could grease the skids for
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: you down there back in the day before he got
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: kind of deposed and sent to the Kennedy Center and
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: ultimately fired from there.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: I would just be like, so we don't really know
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: if this money was ever exchanged, what the truth of
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: it is. As far as what's public, there really was
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: still just the $ 270, 000 or so that was actually granted
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: to the Kennedy Center, something to that effect.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's all the White House is investigating, which
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I also, I will say, like, these are both former
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: advisors now. And like some, like Alina Haba is no
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: longer the USA, the U.S. attorney from New Jersey. Rick
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Grinnell is nothing right now because he left the Kennedy Center.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And yet, somehow, both of them, they were, like, running
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: into the Oval Office to complain about this. To complain
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to daddy. Which is, and then, so Trump being like,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, I wish them luck. Like, I kind
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: of get it from Trump right now because he's like,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: He's probably like, what the fuck am I dealing with
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: this guy?
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: He told Will Sharf, the former staff secretary, to investigate.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: That guy's going to be like, how? With what authorities?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: But this is the thing, though, with the blending of
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the public and private, right? Because Jared Kushner is not
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: a government official. He has just as much legitimacy as
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: these guys, but he's in and out of real meetings.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: You have people on the outside promising all kinds of things.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: All of the kind of graft around the pardons are
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: people that are outside the administration making all kinds of promises, right?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Because there is no rule of law inside of this
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: White House, it is about relationships. It doesn't matter if
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: your badge works or not.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I just love the idea of being like, throw your
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Kennedy Center donation into the other check.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: I'll take care of it. Don't worry about it. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Listen, just send me one Venmo and I'll Venmo the
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Kennedy Center and I'll Venmo the restaurant.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: The new Kennedy Center brought to you by the DRC.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: I love that Alita Haba didn't know where the money
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: came from. She's like, oh, he's stealing from my husband.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: Then they look at the wire transfer.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: And it's like, this is finance minister of the Congo?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: What?
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the three of us also haven't had the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: chance to talk about Katie Zachariah's record-breaking tenure. She did great.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: As the shortest-serving White House press secretary, Politico reported on
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Friday night that the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: allegedly helped to set up the Sean Hannity interview that
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: brought Zachariah down. Two White House sources described it to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Politico as, quote, a sanctioned hit. But then there was
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: another report that actually Zachariah She booked the interview herself.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: What are your overall thoughts on those rumors or just
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: more broadly her meteoric rise and fall?
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: She was made of cotton candy, right? Like whether or
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: not somebody threw a bucket of water on her, it rained,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: you know, like she's going to get, you know, it's like,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: this was going to come apart.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Like, Oh wow.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It was a sanctioned hit. Like how diabolical a fourth question. Right.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Sean Hannity.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: The sanction hit was go out and talk. Yeah.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: What was that going to happen Monday?
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: More talking.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: It was a six minute, 45 second interview. It wasn't
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: like a hit job.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: The, I think it's a two things can be true situation.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: She was set up to fail and she was absolutely
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: terrible at the job to begin with. Like she, you
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: have to prepare for that job. You have to memorize
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: talking points and policy positions and do murder boards and practice.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Know how to read and know how to speak.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Know how to speak extemporaneously and while reading. You have
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: to spend time with the president. You have to spend
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: time with top advisors and like kind of understand the thinking.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: And so the minute you heard, okay.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: She got offered the job Friday and then was briefing
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: on Tuesday.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: You're like, you're done. You're screwed.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: And so that like the Hannity was a sanctioned hit.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: The first question was, how did you think the briefing went?
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit like it's a bit like Katie
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Couric's gotcha about any magazines you're reading lately.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Sarah Palin. Yeah.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: The other thing about this is all like like, oh,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: she's so unprofessional. Unlike unlike the incredible Caroline Levitt. who
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: could lie with aplomb, right? She knew how to stand
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: up there like a professional, right? She would prepare and
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: be ready to go up there and defend the indefensible conduct,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: the graft, and the corruption, and some of the most
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: despicable behavior we've ever seen in the history of this country.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Like a pro.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like a pro. That's why she didn't get fired.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's why Katie Sakurai is gone.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so my point being only, I'm sad she
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: got fired. I think this is the spokesperson Trump deserves.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: The best part of the Hannity thing is when he
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: played her off with music at the end.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Just that was amazing.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: It was a bad Oscar speech.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I've never heard that on Fox before. It's not like
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: they usually have to cut to something else. No. It's like, oh,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: we're going to miss the catheter commercial. Yes. Do we
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: think she's going to be replaced at all? I don't know. Eventually, probably.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: At least not until after the midterm.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: I don't think she's leaving the White House. I think
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: she's just getting transitioned to another job. I think that's
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: the plan.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: It's the first lot. Trump said specifically that she is
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: going to be taking another form. Uh, because, because I
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: think that because Katie Zachariah obeys the first law of thermodynamics,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: which cannot be destroyed nor created. It just has to
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: be transmuted into something else.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Wow. What a, that was just, just amazing. An amazing run.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Five whole days, one briefing, one briefing, five days, two interviews.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: She did Hannity. She did. I think Jack Popasek or whatever. Yeah,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: she also did Fox and Friends.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I think that went quite poorly, too.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, the Fox and Friends.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: I was going to say, I was told by someone
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: who spoke with her that when Trump went out to
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: the sticks and repeated the conversation he had with her
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: when he was like, I told her, are you sure.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: You want to do this?
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: You should think about something else. She didn't know that
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: meant she had been fired. Didn't read between the lines.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: She was in the middle of a Wall Street Journal interview.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: She was in an interview with some press.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Someone came in and was like, hey, J.D. needs to
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: see you, J.D.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Vance.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Which I I am. I'm my theory on that was
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: that that is an internal White House sentence they use
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: to get someone out of it.
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Because because, hey, because you can't walk it. Knock, knock, knock. Hey,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: you're being fired on television.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: You're being fired on television as we speak. We'd like
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: you to not find out about that while the Wall
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Street Journal reporters in the room.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: So J.D.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Vance needs to meet with you is like, you know,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: wasn't clear as if J.D.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Vance was was handed the dagger by Trump and was like,
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: finish it.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: That's the part I couldn't tell.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Wasn't he in Michigan doing the town hall?
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: This doesn't make sense.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Trupper Vance. Vance.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: That's why I thought it was a lot.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: That would have been even funnier if like J.D. Vance
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: needs to meet with you. He's not even here. And
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't have known because she's not familiar with the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: daily schedule.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Walks into an office, walks into that room like Joe
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Pesci thinking she's about to be made.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: That's what I just said.
• 25:24
  Speaker 7: Oh, did you just say that?
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I said end a good fight. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: He's like, wait, no.
• 25:28
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• 27:55
  Speaker 1: So Republicans are getting desperate for some kind of October surprise.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: It's getting a little late. But they're hoping for one
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: to lift their political prospects in these last few weeks.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: One news event they're hoping might have some legs are
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the chaotic riots in France, which, as a reminder, is
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: not part of the U.S. But the images have been
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: all over right-wing media. Republicans like J.D. Vance and Ted
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Cruz have been posting some version of if Democrats win,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: something similar will happen here. Trump's been posting clips of
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: the chaos or re-truthing them or whatever the fuck you
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: want to say. On Monday morning, he wrote the migrants
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: have taken over France. They must close the borders fast.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Seems like a stretch to me, but what do you
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: all think?
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Just, you know, first of all, these protests, they want
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: to make this about immigration, but it's just very clearly about,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: in part, fuel prices, right? Like if this is coming
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: from the Middle East, it's because of the price of fuel.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: It has more in common with that yellow vest protest
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: a few years ago than it does with them trying
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: to act like America's next if we don't elect Republicans. Um,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: the other part of it too, it's like, well, you know, uh, uh,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: the French are ripping up the cobblestones as an old joke. Uh,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: it would be helpful if they numbered them so they
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: could put them back before the next time they ripped
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: them out again. Like we don't, you know, the, the,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the French riot every once in a while, they had
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: their revolution. We had ours, we got a constitution, they
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: got Napoleon. Like we just do things differently. And that's okay.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Like I don't think we're going to lose our heads
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: every time the French go nuts. You know what I'm saying?
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I do actually.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I mean just– yeah.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: In terms of the facts, like this round of protests
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: started like high schools in the suburbs of Paris. These
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: kids went back to school and they had classrooms with
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: no furniture and sometimes no power. There were staffing shortages
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: and they were coming off this brutal heat wave summer
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: where none of the buildings had air conditioning. So they're
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: just– awful conditions. So they start protesting. Some of the
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: student led protests get out of control. They're like, you know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: smashing up or burning schools. Then I think the public
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: sector unions joined the protests. They started including grievances about
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: the 2027 budget. And then over the weekend, you have
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: like some say half a million, some say 800,000 people
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: hit the streets. And at some point the riot, it
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: became a riot in places and they started smashing shit and, um,
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: burning stuff and just destroying businesses for absolutely no reason.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: And so it's not clear why the, the protests got
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: out of control. Like some of the protesters blame the
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: cops for being very heavy handed. Like there was like
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: a kid who got his hand blown off by like
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: a cop stun grenade, for example, 15 year old. Um,
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Some of the Macron government blames the far left. The
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: far left blames the government for not delivering on any
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: of the concerns these kids have. The far right blames
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: immigrants and everybody else. And so it's a mess and
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: it's terrible because these kids have like totally legitimate grievances
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: about the schools, but also the government is dealing with
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: what is coming close to a debt crisis where their
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: borrowing costs are going up.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: They have all these budget constraints and they're in a
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: very bad place. And- Macron is kind of like out
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: to lunch.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: Like he cares more about like Ukraine and javelin missiles
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: or whatever, you know, like Patriot missile batteries and like
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: domestic stuff. Um, but it's a terrible setup because the
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: French have presidential elections in 2027 and the far right
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: is in the lead currently. And the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, uh,
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: is not, uh, you know, is also like, it could
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: be him and, and, uh, the far right in a runoff.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: And I feel like that's a scenario where you see
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: Marine Le Pen. And so I've like, to answer your question,
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: I have a hard time believing that voters in the U.S.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: care about this, because as you noted at the top,
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: America is not in France. But it is, like, you know,
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: it wasn't just far-right media. Like, I was seeing it
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: everywhere on my feeds over the weekend.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: It's scary. I was seeing it everywhere. It's just that
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the way they were showing it is very, you know,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: immigration-focused and also, like, you can tell Fox is just
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: doing the thing where they're like, we've got nothing else
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to say. The polls are down, so... Let's get some
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: more Abdul. Let's get some Hassan Piker if we can.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Is Mamdani doing anything? And then we got some fires
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in France. Let's do it. Let's do it. Fires in France.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: And they're pulling, right, they're pulling like pro-Palestinian images, right?
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: As if that is what is the undergirding, the undergirding,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: the protest across France when, again, like it has, what
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: is driving a lot of this? Like the cost of
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: diesel is way up in France. The cost of fuel
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: is way up. Like there is an, there is this, the,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: A version of the affordability crisis that is in the U.S.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: is hitting France very hard and they take to the
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: streets in a very different way than we do.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: And I just think like.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: Immigration is just less salient now in America because Trump
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: shut the border.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: It's like not the thing people are really worried about.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: They're worried about cost of living. I think like French riots.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Who am I? Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I think there's no way. I think they're just trying
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: to reach for anything at this point. Now, despite Fox
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: News showing tons of images from this, Trump is not
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: happy with the network. He's been going after individual Fox
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: hosts up until now, but on Monday, he posted a
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: plea to his supporters not to watch his event on Fox,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: but instead to watch it on RSBN, the Right Side
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Broadcasting Network.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: I didn't even know that existed. They stream all this stuff?
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: That's the only reason I know.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: He said that Fox is devoting too much time to
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the Democrats and, quote, trying to be politically correct, which
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: they're always trying to be politically correct over there.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Classic.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: We have Fox on in our office all day. Although,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: you know, we just got our office moved around, so
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: we haven't had a TV for two days. So maybe
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: we've missed it. Maybe they've gone full live. Maybe it's
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: like MS Now.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they got Rachel.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: They got Rachel.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: The Chiron's have pronouns. It's Hannity and Maddow now. Back
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: like the old days. Remember when it was Hannity and Combs?
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You guys think they're going too easy on Demick?
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: What is he seeing? What made him mad?
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Usually there's like an inciting incident. Like
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: he was mad at the Abdul interview.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Probably seeing a poll number. He's probably seeing polls that
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: they're putting out.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet that's right.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: But there were Fox News polls that were not great
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: for him that had been like the high 30s. I
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: think he was mad about Jesse Waters interviewing Abdul. I
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: think he gets mad at Jessica Tarlow all the time
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: just for like just existing.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she does a good job.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's really a kind of baffling one. Other than,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: you know, there have been these moments we've seen it.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: We've seen it with Waters and some others where like
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: they kind of can't keep up the act all the
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: way right now because the facts are so. But we'll
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: talk about Vance and his struggles. The facts are so bad.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: They are trying their damnedest. And unfortunately, even just trying
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: to defend Trump, you have to give a little. Otherwise,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: what you're saying makes no sense. So they acknowledge the problems.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: They have to acknowledge how bad things are. They have
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge that the war is ongoing before they get
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: to some kind of logic to support this whole operation.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: And Trump can't countenance that at all.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Well, and some of them are doing the, I got
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to give some advice to the administration through my broadcast
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: stuff now. And so I'm sure that really bothers him
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: And you've got to teach the controversy. Even some Republicans, right,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: have come out against the diesel rule, right? Like that's
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: going to be covered, right? It's not Thune, it's McConnell.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: You've got some warmongers there that are probably upset that
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: he's not going harder with Iran. Or they're probably upset
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: about the Ukraine-Russia stuff. The Russia stuff, yeah.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: Jesse Waters is like, would I have led with 20
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: minutes of commentary about John Husted's ass?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: No. But it was a good speech otherwise. Trump had
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: another interesting post today. He floated this once before, but
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: today it really became real. New Mexico should immediately change
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: its name to New America. We're doing that again. We
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: are not Mexico. We are the United States of America.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: The name would add great value and prestige to the state.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Home values and incomes would rise, and you would be
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: even prouder while saluting our beautiful American flag. Maybe even
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the crooked elections that New Mexico is known for would
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: become honest again. So that's what we're doing now.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Just exhausting.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: He's just 15 days out, 14 days out, and he
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: is just flying around. On his way to Kansas, and
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: he's just posting about New Mexico. Yeah. New America, sorry.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Does that play anywhere?
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Watch out, New England.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: You know, who knows what's going on with this?
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Does it play anywhere? It plays nowhere, I think.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Absolutely nowhere.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: He likes, what, drumming up the anger about it? I
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: don't know. We're sort of so past method to.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Madness at this point.
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: I have no idea.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: He was out there talking about fucking cushions that he
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: got made special in the beautiful stone this morning. So
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think his head is exactly in the right place.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: I just think he thinks it's funny.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: A lot of things have overlapping names. North Dakota, South Dakota.
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: We don't have to merge them.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: I would just say also, it's like, hey, you know,
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: it's called New Mexico and not Mexico because we won.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah. There's also North America.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: There's South America.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: It was also called that before it even became a state, so.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: This fucking guy. Okay, let's talk about the race for
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: control of the Senate starting with Michigan, which is closing
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: as ugly as I think most of us expected. Trump,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers, the extended MAGAverse are trying to tie Abdul
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: to the Muslim Brotherhood based on a 14-year-old tweet from
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Abdul's half-sister saying their mom was reminiscing about being active
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: with the Muslim Brotherhood as a college student in the
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: early 70s, a time when the group had renounced violence,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't designated as a terrorist organization. and more than a
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: decade before Abdul was born, who didn't grow up living
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: with his birth mother or half-sister. Other than that, bombshell. Unsurprisingly,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: CBS News chief Barry Weiss is now very interested in
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: this topic. According to Semaphore, she's been trying to get
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: her reporters to establish some kind of concrete link. She's
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: going everywhere trying to... Jan Crawford is the chief legal
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: correspondent for CBS News, was tweeting about this town hall
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: exchange that we're about to talk about as well. She
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: got in trouble for that. So CBS is really, under
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss, they're doing a great job.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: Barry Weiss seems like the kind of boomer relative that
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: would forward around chain emails in the early 2000s.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, according to Max Taney in the Semaphore
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: piece is basically like, yeah, they have staffers at CBS
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: being like, most of her ideas come from like right-wing
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: tweets and like random.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe, where is Tal Rico? Maybe he is at a
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: health facility.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she asked people to investigate that as well. All right,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: so Abdul got a question about all of this, the
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Muslim Brotherhood stuff, at a town hall on Saturday from
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: what seemed like— he just called himself Tommy, this guy. It
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: just seemed like a— For that, fuck him. Yeah, right.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Just seemed like a Michigan voter named Tommy. Turns out
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: he was a former Josh Hawley staffer turned Republican operative
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: posing as a normal person named Tommy. Here's how it went.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: I have one simple question. Will you disavow the Muslim world?
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 38:22
  Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely.
• 38:22
  Speaker 9: But I want to ask the question that you're asking.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: Why are you asking the question? Well, because they're a
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: terrorist group.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:30
  Speaker 9: No, no, but what are you implying? Do you assume
• 38:32
  Speaker 9: that I wouldn't?
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: Yes. Why not?
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Because I have not heard you disavow them yet.
• 38:37
  Speaker 9: Have you disavowed them? I haven't heard you disavow them yet.
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: Do you?
• 38:40
  Speaker 10: Great.
• 38:41
  Speaker 9: We have a constitution. And that constitution guarantees you the
• 38:45
  Speaker 9: right to live by your faith and guarantees me the
• 38:48
  Speaker 9: right to do the same. And the reality of it
• 38:50
  Speaker 9: is this. I'm never going to tell you what faith
• 38:53
  Speaker 9: you can or can't practice. I want to protect your
• 38:55
  Speaker 9: right to practice your faith as you choose as a
• 38:57
  Speaker 9: Christian man.
• 38:58
  Speaker 8: The connection though is that it seems like you don't
• 39:06
  Speaker 8: want to protect my right to practice.
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: As I choose. So I'm going to.
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: Ask you.
• 39:15
  Speaker 9: Do you disavow any attempt to read any religious doctrine
• 39:21
  Speaker 9: into the laws of our country? You don't disavow that.
• 39:26
  Speaker 9: So I think it's you who needs to understand the
• 39:28
  Speaker 9: Constitution now.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: And here's Mike Rogers responding when asked about it the
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: next morning on CNN. He didn't disavow it. he goes
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: on this word salad trying to get around the fact
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: that he can't do it.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: He said, sure, yeah.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: No, that's not true. Dana, listen, I don't know why
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the press is so eager to protect this guy.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Congressman, I just want to be factual.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: It's an ideology. My argument is, is that ideology something
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: we should worry about? I think it is. Just a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: fucking liar.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: Just so annoying that she's kind of hesitant there. It's like, no,
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: he specifically said it.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: It's on tape. We all heard it. I mean, they're
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: all just choosing to ignore it, all the right-wing people.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: So this is one of those where Abdul's campaign... clipped it,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: sent it around, and then also all the right-wing people
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: clipped it and sent it around. Both sides thought that
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: they got the better of the other one on this one.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: What did you guys think?
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: It's a political Rorschach test, I think. I mean, like,
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: the people don't like Abdul. First of all, like, they
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: love talking about whether he condemns the Muslim Brotherhood or not.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: They also think that maybe he looked a little arrogant,
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: a little obnoxious. I think Abdul's fans like it because
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: he looks like a fighter and he sounds smart. Um,
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: in practice, I think it was like probably the most
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: viral interaction for Abdul's campaign or maybe any of the
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: campaigns that we've seen. So we're judging by attention garnered, uh,
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: maybe it was a success just like kind of on
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: that metric. I think we also now know though that
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: the context, like this was clearly a Republican plant.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: It was a guy who worked for Josh Hawley.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: And I think the kid's father worked for Bobby Jindal, right.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: And maybe worked at a PAC associated with Jindal. Um,
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: Personally speaking, I think I watched that and like I
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: can understand Abdul's frustration at these like bigoted questions of
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: like do you denounce the Muslim Brotherhood because your mother
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: who didn't even raise you maybe was associated in the 70s?
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: Like it's an idiotic question. I think that the answer
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: is like smart and thoughtful and an important point about
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: the freedom of religion and not mixing it with politics
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: and also maybe a little condescending and heated at points,
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: maybe too sharp. Um, I think there's a dialed down
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: version that is like just a little less defensive. It
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: cuts out the power where he's like, do you know
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: who JFK is?
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Cause like, obviously this kid knows who JFK is. Um,
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: and it's sort of heralded as this learning moment, but
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: of course this is real life. This is not the
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: West wing. You know, it's like easy for us to
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: like fly spec them from here, but you don't know
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: what it's like to like deal with this shit all day,
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: every day. And essentially, you know, the implication is this
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: guy's suggesting that you're a terrorist and that this is
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: going to be the thing that press seizes on.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: I don't, I, Taking this in and responding immediately and
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: giving an answer, first of all, saying yes, of course, absolutely.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Clearly he has a, he does not want to have
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: to keep saying there's something about that I'm not going
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: to question about like a feeling of sapping of dignity.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: You have to continuously say, because I am a Muslim,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: I have to keep saying I'm not a fucking terrorist, right?
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Like that's like, I respect that completely. And I'm not
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: going to be critical of that. And he manages to
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: turn it into an answer that gets the crowd revved up, right?
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: But what I thought when I saw the answer, what
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: I saw the back and forth is, well, what's going
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: on underneath this? The Mike Rogers campaign, Republican operatives like
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: this guy, they want to make people afraid of Abdul.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: They have a strategy, right? And so what is the
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: divide between, right? In Abdul's answer, the divide is between
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: people who are afraid of Muslims, are bigoted against Muslims,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: are Islamophobic versus everybody else.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Fine.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: But there's also, another divide, which is Republicans trying to
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: exploit people's concerns and the people he needs to bring over.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: There's an op-ed today about people leaving it blank and
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: not supporting Abdul. There's clearly still lingering concerns and resentment
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: in the Jewish community in Michigan because of hurt people
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: hurt people, even though he has tried to address that.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: But that's clearly something that is like a deep wound
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: that has not closed, right? And what he doesn't say
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: in this answer, without feeling the need to say like, no, sir,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: thank you for your question. I am not a fucking terrorist,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: is basically that he will be somebody that represents everybody
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: in Michigan, that these are designed to make people afraid,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: to divide people, And to avoid facing, to avoid the
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: real issues at stake in this election, this is about
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: stirring up hate, right? And getting people to turn on
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: one another and that he's not going to participate in that, right?
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: To try to kind of cleave, not just Islamophobia from
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: everybody else, but Republican operatives try to stir this thing
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: up with everybody else, including a subset of people who
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: do still have concerns about Abdul that he does want
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: to bring back over. You know what I'm saying?
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. Like, sort of what we were
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: talking about the other week, which is, you know, the
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: way Trump does this is like, he's a jihadist, he's
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: a terrorist. And someone says that to you, you're like, no,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: fuck you. I'm not a jihadist. Like, what are you
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: talking about? When someone, you know, it's somewhat smarter for
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: them to throw out the Muslim Brotherhood thing, because it's like,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: this is a new piece of information that people might
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: have no idea what the Muslim Brotherhood is. Sounds pretty scary,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't it? Terrorist organization. Maybe you don't know the history
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: of the Muslim Brotherhood. Maybe it's got foreign ties to
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Egypt and He, you know, his family, his family's from Egypt.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: What's that about his mother? Right. So you throw it
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: out there. So to respond to that is bullshit as
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: it is. And of course, he like knocked it down.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: But you've got to forget about the asshole asking you
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: the question. You've got to give the answer as if
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: someone who might have a question about a Muslim Brotherhood
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: tie is not necessarily like. uh, totally Islamophobic and, and
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: like that kid or like Trump or like Mike Rogers,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: but like might have a question and you don't want to,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: and you don't want to condescend to that person or
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: be like, no, you're an asshole for asking. Right. And
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying he did. I thought he could have
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: used like 20% less condescension in the answer.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: Just a slightly more empathetic version of that answer.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Well, just stop fighting with that guy and speak to
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: the people that are not.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Yes. Now, again, you can say this from the cheap
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: seats because I am sure when you are Abdul and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: you're going around doing this and there are people who
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: are fucking just calling into question your loyalty to your
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: country that you love, it must fucking infuriate you. And
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: it's not fair that what he has to do in
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: response is to eat shit And just give a nice
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: answer with a smile. But like, we were there when
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama had to do it. And, you know, Zoran
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Mamdani had to do it. And like, unfortunately, there's a
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: double standard and it's unfair, but you still have to
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: do it to win an election anyway. And it fucking sucks.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Well, and the other thing, put this answer aside, right? Like,
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: if you look at that, there was this op-ed about
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: sort of the people saying, oh, we should leave it
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: blank because we can't support Abdul.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Fuck that, by the way. Of course.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: But there's, yes, fuck that. There's a line.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: It just made me so mad. I just.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: But there was a line in it, right?
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: And just, I don't, the argument is bad and everybody
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: should be supporting Abdul. And it's all just that, like,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: and I've said the version of this before, but like,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: it is a privilege to pretend the stakes aren't real.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: The stakes are real. They belong to us all. If
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: you want to look away and pretend otherwise and feel
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: pure and good about yourself, it is infuriating when someone
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: on the far left does that. It is furiating when
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: a centrist does it. Grow the fuck up. face the
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: stakes of what's happening in this country and accept that
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: you won't always agree and that you will have serious
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: disagreements and problems with people in your coalition. That is
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: what it is to be dealing with politics in this moment. Fine.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: But like inside of that op-ed, there was a line,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: there was something along the lines of, he speaks with
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: great precision about policy, but doesn't bring that same level
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: of specificity to addressing these kinds of concerns. And I
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: think there's just.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I know, it's just confusing.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I understood the point that was the point I
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: was taking from that, which is he has such moral
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: clarity when it comes to speaking about healthcare, right? He
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: has such moral clarity when it comes to speaking about
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: domestic policy. And there are clearly people that have heard
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: his responses to these questions around anti-Semitism, around Hassan, around
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: other questions where they don't feel that same moral clarity.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: And I've felt a version of that in the past
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: when I've heard Abdul answer these questions. I support Abdul.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: I'm desperately want Abdul to win this race. But there is,
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: and I think it is in part because he feels
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: this kind of resentment towards these questions and the frustration
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: of having to constantly be accused of having dual loyalties
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: and all that. And I understand that, but clearly this
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: is a political challenge that he has in speaking to
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: these issues.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Can I just say where I disagree on the moral clarity?
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: I think that if you want to talk about his
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: answers to Hassan, I would agree with you. I don't
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: really think there's moral clarity, whatever, like we're not going
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: to get into a Hassan Piker conversation, but I think
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: that's fair criticism. I think he has spoken with incredibly–
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: incredible moral clarity about his love of country and– like
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: we– I mean we've talked about clips from the primary
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: even where he gives this like rousing patriotic speech about
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: the country. And I also think the one place where
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: he clearly felt that he had not been like morally
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: strong enough on anti-Semitism, he goes back. He does an apology.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: He like just wrote a very long op-ed to Jewish–
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Michiganders in the paper as well doing that. So like,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I actually think he has been doing that. I think
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: that the Hassan Piker stuff, he's been a little like, oh,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: why did you campaign with them? Whatever.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: But that's what this is coming from, right? It's coming
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: a feeling that like he has not brought that same
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: specificity to that question. And maybe that I don't think
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: that should be dispositive. I don't think it's fair to
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: take that and decide that this person can't be trusted
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: or shouldn't be in the Senate. I find that ridiculous,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: especially when the stakes are so high. But I'm just
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to understand where this feeling is coming from.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: And it's clearly more than just a random Republican operative.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: There remains a real problem. Now, you can ascribe that
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: entirely to Islamophobia. Maybe a good portion of it is that,
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: but there's still something to that.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: I think it's because he has a lot of moral
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: clarity on his feelings about the US relationship towards Israel.
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: And he is unwilling to bend or give an inch
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: on that. And there's a lot of people who want
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: him There is a question about Jewish safety.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: That's one. But there's a question.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: He was pretty honest that he doesn't necessarily think that
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: Israel is an ally of the United States in this moment.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: And he's unwilling to change his mind to bring someone
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: along politically on that.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: But this is where I'm not asking him to change
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: his mind on that. But you look at that answer
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: that he gives on that question, right? And maybe this
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: is a slightly different part of this, but I do
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: think it feeds into this question, right? So when he
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: was talking to Jessica Tarloff and Scott Galloway about this, right?
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: And it was about people who are unwilling to call
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: it a genocide, right? Like in that answer, right? There
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: is a version of saying, look, I believe strongly that
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: what Israel is doing is a genocide. I understand that
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: there are people who may be appalled by Israel's conduct,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: but disagree, but we can all agree on the horror
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: of this war, the need for Israel to be held accountable,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: for it to change its behavior, for us to stop
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: funding the military, right? But there are moments that have
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: happened throughout this debate, throughout this debate, throughout the campaign,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: where he doesn't acknowledge that there might be sincere people
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: who disagree. And he kind of assumes that they are
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: either being dishonest or not acknowledging or have a kind of.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Is that what you said to them about that?
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I'm going from memory. There's been a bunch of different
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: moments like this. And again, there have been moments where
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: that he doesn't acknowledge that there are people with a
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: sincere disagreement that aren't disagreeing because they're captured by AIPAC
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: or sort of corporate or stooges or whatever. And all
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: that I think feeds into an idea that like, oh,
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: he's not someone that I can trust, right? And like
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: that remains, I think, a place where even if he
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: doesn't give an inch on his moral position, that clearly
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: there are people, and maybe that, maybe there's nothing that
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: can be done. Maybe that those are people that could
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: never be won over. But I just, I just, I
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: don't know, but like that is what I hear.
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, maybe, maybe there have been answers that have
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: been like that. I've, I've heard him do exactly what
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: you wanted. I think people just wanted to take a
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: different policy position. And I think he made a version
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: of the argument you kind of made at the top here,
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: which is look, we're not going to agree on Israel,
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: but we agree on all these other things. So let's
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: come together on those. And that's, you know, a tough
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: thing for people to hear sometimes, and maybe it'll be ineffective,
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: but I, you know, look, I, I, I think he
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: is far more in line with where the majority of
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: voters are when it comes to U.S. policy towards Israel
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: than a lot of his detractors. And I understand why
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: he's sort of sticking to his guns here.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I also think that there's this argument could be made
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: against him fairly in the primary and right after the primary.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I think he's done a lot of work since winning
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: the primary on this. And I think to the extent
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: that people are either there. You're right there. He's saying it,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: but they're still not hearing it. Um, and that's like,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you're going to do about that.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: And because he can be, you know, he still has
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: that sort of cocky attitude sometimes. I think that sort
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: of adds to it as well.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: It's also a frustration in politics. Like how many times
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: do you need me to say the same thing before
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: I've passed the test on the left? It's like, how
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: many times do I need to say genocide before I've
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: like sufficiently led you to believe that I agree that
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: what's happening is a genocide on the right? It's like,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: how many times do you have to mouth the same
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: exact words, uh, about, you know, sort of the U.S.-Israel
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: partnership or whatever it is to assuage those.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: It seems your job is to not get frustrated in
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: those moments, but you can tell, you know, it occasionally happens.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: Because you want to have, like, an actual conversation with
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: nuance about it, and you can't because, like you said,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: you have to say this word or this word.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: And by the way, like, this is not just on
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: this issue, right? Like, we had Katie Porter. Katie Porter,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: by the end of that campaign, she could not do
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: an interview without being asked about the time she yelled
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: at a staffer, right? How many different times did she
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: have to apologize? She has to answer for it every time. Like,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that there have been plenty of moments
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: where Abdul has had these kinds of heartfelt interactions. But
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: there have been also the plenty of moments where he
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: has been defiant or defined these issues in such a
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: way that would alienate people that might be willing to
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: support him. And I think that remains a challenge. It
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: is the moral questions, but also the feeling like he
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: is not welcoming people into his coalition.
• 53:49
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• 56:08
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the race in Maine, which,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: as we've discussed, is another blue state where it's given
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: us heartburn as we... get close to the end here.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Right now, a lot of the chatter in the national
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: media is about this moment from last Thursday's debate between
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Troy Jackson and Susan Collins and the candidate's responses.
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry, somebody's interrupting. We'll have our security deal with that.
• 56:32
  Speaker 9: AI data centers are destroying our climate.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: They are poisoning our water.
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: So this is obviously one of Troy's supporters.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, shut up.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that kid. I didn't even know that kid.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: So if you didn't quite hear that, Jackson said, oh,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: shut up. And now Collins is trying to make this
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: a big deal. Dana Bash asked Jackson if he'd apologize
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: for that. He said no, that Collins was talking down
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: to him. What do you guys make of this whole thing?
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: I find this selective media outrage so frustrating and so stupid.
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: Susan Collins said to Politico, I'm not going to bring
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: up the fact that the mother of his two children
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: is his second cousin. I don't know whether people know
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: that or not.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Dude, I was just, I was going to bring that
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: up because I, for some reason I was listening to
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: some podcast where someone played that exchange again. And I
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: was like, that was, she got, She got so little
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: shit for that.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: She got credit from the kind of, like, D.C. elites
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: being like, oh, what a clever way to say something
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: disgusting about another human being. And Dana Bass is asking if, like,
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: he's going to apologize for saying shut up.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: These are grown adults. Give me a break.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: We have more important things happening. Well, you're also trying
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: to gender it, too. Because, like, if he was running
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: against a guy who said that and he said shut up,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: everyone would have been like, oh, great. They're not children.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Shut up is not.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: It's also, like, he didn't even say it in that.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: He said it in a kind of like, ah, shut up.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: Come on, shut up. It's like, come on, guys.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: Abdul is getting called a terrorist by his opponent and
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: we're worried about shut up.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Also, like, she deserved it. She lied. Right. And she
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: tried to make everyone think that it was a fucking plant, right,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: in the debate to try to score some points. And
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: so she thinks she's just going to be able to
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: get away with that. And Troy Jackson's just supposed to
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: fucking sit there and take it because she's Susan fucking
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Collins who's been there six terms, five terms. Is it
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: the perfect answer in the moment?
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: No. But, like, is it a problem? Is it offensive?
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: Is it going to, like, turn off voters?
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is the president of the United States.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: What are we doing? What are we even talking about?
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: We're policing an offhanded, an offhanded, very chill shut up. Like,
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: what are we talking about? It's just, it is amazing
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: how little of our politics is about what's like, it's
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: just unserious. The next, the next, whoever could, there could
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: be two Supreme Court vacancies. What are we doing here?
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the good stuff. Whether Democrats
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: crush expectations on Tuesday or whether we fall short, We
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: know we have one thing to look forward to, J.D. Vance, 2028.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: And the Charm Offensive has already begun this weekend. Vance
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: did a CBS talent show. hall in Michigan where he
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: was laser focused on his most urgent campaign message, that
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: he is in fact a normal human being.
• 59:17
  Speaker 10: We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started.
• 59:19
  Speaker 10: Vice President Vance, thank you very much for being here.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: Good to see you.
• 59:21
  Speaker 11: Thank you for doing this and thanks to everybody for
• 59:23
  Speaker 11: being here. I will say, Tony, You did me a
• 59:25
  Speaker 11: huge disservice by reminding a crowd of Michiganders that I'm
• 59:27
  Speaker 11: from Ohio, but hopefully they will hold it against me.
• 59:31
  Speaker 10: Not only that, we've got a medallion back there for
• 59:33
  Speaker 10: the Ohio State Buckeyes.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. It might be stolen before the night is over.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: We just lost the crowd.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I know. I'm a law-abiding guy outside of speeding.
• 59:43
  Speaker 11: Which luckily, thanks to the Secret Service and the generosity
• 59:45
  Speaker 11: of the American people, I don't drive anymore. Probably good
• 59:48
  Speaker 11: for the insurance rates in southwestern Ohio.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: How old are your kids, can I ask?
• 59:52
  Speaker 10: Yeah, sure.
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: My youngest is three months, and my oldest is 21 months.
• 59:55
  Speaker 10: Oh, wow.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: What's the birthday of your youngest?
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: His birthday is July 11th.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Okay, so ours is July 19th.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: So that's when baby Alec was born. So we have
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: a baby eight days apart. That's amazing. Are you running
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: for president?
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 11: Not you.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: I guess you're not a Michigander. No, I live in
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: the state of New York. The Republic of Brooklyn. Vice
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: President J.D.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Vance, thank you very much.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: The Socialist Republic of Brooklyn. A couple of fucking comedians.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you all.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: That is absolutely brutal. Get those two a Netflix special.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Brutal banter right there. The laughing, I really, I, because
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: I've never, we talked.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Tony's ass.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: We talked about on our call this morning, we were like, oh,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about the J.D. Vance town hall.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: And so I just turned it on to watch the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: whole damn thing. And within seconds, it's like, oh, my God.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: Just from the first moments of it, that kind of
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: horrible feeling you get when you see J.D. Vance in
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: front of a group of people with that kind of,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: that laugh, that chuckle. He keeps calling people man. He's like, hey, man.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: There's a moment where he just goes like, look, it's
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: so outrageous to say, look, the bottom line is sometimes
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: it's just about character. And here's the thing about Mike Rogers.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: He's a good dude. And it's like you work for
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, the most despicable human being ever to sit
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: in that office. And first of all, Mike Rogers is
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: many things. He's not a dude. He's kind of a guy,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: but he's not a dude.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Kind of an old man.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: He's not an old man.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: Mike Rogers is a good dude. I don't think so.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know why.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: He's not a dude.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: Vance did try to tackle some of the tougher issues
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: he'll have to have answers for next year. It wasn't
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: necessarily more encouraging. Let's watch. I plan on voting for
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Al-Sayed in this upcoming election. And I want to know
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: why should I vote for Mike Rogers instead? Now, I
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: see what Abdul Al-Sayed says about the war in Iran.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 11: I see he criticizing decisions that the president has made,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 11: the military has made. But fundamentally, we are where we are.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 11: It's easy to criticize something that happened seven months ago.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: You were the first person I voted for, actually.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 8: Oh, wow.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Congratulations and welcome.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 7: After seeing ICE behave like military police and you recently
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 7: call H-1 visa workers foreign indentured servants, I think Americans
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 7: are anything but safe. So I'm just curious, why are
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: you scapegoating immigrants for the issues you're supposed to be
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 7: solving as a vice president?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 11: I think that our immigration system has to balance the
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 11: fact that obviously we have duties of charity to people,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 11: people who want to come to the United States of
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 11: America and build a better life.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 10: They're not talking about the system or the policy. They're
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 10: talking about the rhetoric, the language, what they see as
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 10: dehumanization of immigrants.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 11: And Tony, I will tell you that nobody's perfect. Certainly
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 11: not me.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 10: The issue that voters see and that gets on their
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 10: mind and that I hear when I'm out there is
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 10: the president is making a lot of money off of crypto.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 10: His own IRS has barred itself from looking into his
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 10: tax returns. You have this recent issue with the ambassador
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 10: to Greece seeming to sell access to the White House.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 10: That's why people are concerned.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 11: I've seen these media reports, and I have the same
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 11: reaction I imagine a lot of people in this room have,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 11: which it makes me uneasy when I read about my
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 11: public officials potentially getting wealthy off of my public trust.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: And I'm telling you that while, yes, D.C.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 11: Is a corrupt town, Tony, you know this as well
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 11: as anybody, Donald Trump, I have not seen a single
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 11: shred of evidence that he participates or sanctions in that corruption.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Follow up there.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Like Tony's just like, OK, next issue.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: It's like, how about the fucking selling the crypto business
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: to the Emiratis?
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: Was that an opportunity? It's just like that makes me crazy.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: The whole town hall made me realize I'm like, oh, J.D.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Vance's entire plan for 2028 is to pretend that the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Trump administration never really happened. And anything that did happen, J.D.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Vance had nothing to do with it.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 8: Like.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: It's easy for Abdul El-Sayed to criticize some decision that
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: was made seven months ago. Who made that decision to
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: attack Iran and send 50,000 troops to the Middle East
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: and jack up gas prices all over the world? Who
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: did that? Oh, easy to criticize us now. What are
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: you going to do about it? The mess that we
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: fucking created.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: I also, he's not exactly, I would say, the most
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: adroit political figure. But he's in an impossible position Donald
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: Trump is the most corrupt person to ever inhabit that office,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: probably the most corrupt Democratic leader in modern history to say, oh,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: I've never seen Donald Trump participate in corruption. Well, that's
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: absurd on its face. I mean, it should follow up,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: but we all know that. I don't know who's out there.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: Very narrow group of people aren't aware of the fact
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: that everything from the fucking jet. There's a lot of
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: people who are not aware.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: They're like your job at that moment. Do one last
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: topic and follow up a couple of times. Be like, hey,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: what about this example? What about that example? What about
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: the meme coins?
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: What about the crypto? It's like.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: It was a good town hall. They asked some good questions.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: Credit to CBS.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: And I thought he followed. I think you're right.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: The other one on the rhetoric thing, we're talking about
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: the scapegoating language. Hey, remember when you said the Haitians
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: were eating dogs and cats?
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: I know the most famous fucking dehumanizing comment of anyone
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: over the last however many years other than Donald Trump.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: He just tweeted today or yesterday about France. Western liberals
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: imported the third world into France and other countries in
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: the name of diversity and compassion. Is that part of his, like,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: imperfect language? He said America has a bit of a
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Somali problem a couple months ago. He said that Ilhan
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Omar should show a little appreciation or she'd be living
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: in a crap hole. He didn't say shit, so I
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: guess that's okay. Like, the guy has been dehumanizing language
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: the entire fucking administration and the 24 campaign.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, but then it's like, okay, so then what? So
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: in this one context, he's not going to be using
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: that language because he's referring– he's talking to somebody who
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: is an immigrant. And so he's not going to use
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: that language. But if he is going to be running
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: for president, he is going to be using that language
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: on the stump. So like– He does all the time.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: So it's like I don't really– like, OK.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: I agree. I don't think it's going to– I don't
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: think this is going to work.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: Well, this is what I just mean. It's just like, OK,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: like these things should be– like in that moment, it
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: would have been very good for J.D. Vance to be
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: confronted with his rhetoric. But he is clearly aware of
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: the problem it creates. And then he is going to
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: go out and create more of that problem again, right?
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: Because most of the Republican base wants to hear the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: fire and brimstone. Most of the country wants him to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: sound more like this. So that was my takeaway from
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: this thing, which is he's clearly trying something out. He
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: does some a few times. He says, look, I don't
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: agree with Democrats and everything. I don't agree with Republicans
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: and everything. He's trying out this idea that he's an
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: outsider who's always been kind of running against the system.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: But then he's confronted with the reality of his participation
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: in what this administration has done. And he either pretends
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: it doesn't exist, pretends Donald Trump doesn't exist, or lies
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: about it. There's a bunch of.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Moments like that.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: They gave him a softball to tee off on tech CEOs.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: He's like, oh, yes, they have too much power. How
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: about a follow-up about how they're all in the White
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: House all the time, buying access, paying for the ballroom,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: paying off your boss, donating to the super PACs. Elon
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: Musk was the deputy president for a while. It was
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: just like there were some real opportunities there to press
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: him on stuff in a way that just had not
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: happened in a while and they just took a pass.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: It really annoyed me.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: He thinks that he's... There's a new media environment where
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: he can basically shield himself from most mainstream outlets. He
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: probably thought this was going to be friendlier than it
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: was because it was CBS. And he's probably thinking that
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: if he runs, he's not going to have to answer
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: tough questions with follow-ups from many people. He's going to
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: have to bite the bullet and do it once or twice.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: You know, every now and then. Scold the press.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's going to scold the press, say the press
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: is unfair. And then he's just going to assume that
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: people will forget all the shit that he said. And
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: even when he's on the stump and doing the fire
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: and brimstone shit with his crowds, he's probably going to
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: try to figure out a way to sand down the
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: edges here and there. So whatever, though. Like, people... you know,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: every Democratic researcher or every person is going to be
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: able to, like, have all the video of all the
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: things he's ever said and just play it nonstop. Right.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: Like, these things are going to be made side by side.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: We're going to see them in perpetuity. The reality is,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: you're right. Like, first of all, again, like, I don't know. Like,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Tony DeCoppo is following up with Harder follow up. The
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: questions from the crowd, even from Trump supporters, were pretty
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: hostile in the way in which they were kind of
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: generous to him, but being honest about the facts, right?
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: Like, There was a nun that asked him about immigration too.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: It was brutal.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: And he comes under with follow-ups about crypto and all
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: the rest. But the whole thing is J.D. Vance saying
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: crazy and indefensible things or defending the– that's what this
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: event was.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was– I thought it was brutal. Like as
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: much as he– lied and tried to get through it
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: and didn't get the follow-ups that really got him, it
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: was brutal for him.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as it should be.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, the administration's approval rating is like 36%. Nothing
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: is going well. The tenor of the question should be
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: a little negative.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Which is also why his own personal approval ratings are
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: fucking horrible.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: Trump without the charisma.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: The one moment that went really viral was J.D. Vance
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: getting asked by a man whose wife was killed in
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: the Iran war. And I just wanted to talk about
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: it because you know, he tries to kind of empathize
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: and connect with the guy. But I think the thing
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: that everyone needs to know about that exchange is he's
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: lying to his face. He's lying to this man because
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: he's like, oh, you know, I don't know about the
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: failures at the base that you're mentioning that might have
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: led to the death of your wife.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: So I want to follow up with you after.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: This stuff has been widely reported, widely reported. So Nicole
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: Armour was one of six soldiers killed at a base
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: in Kuwait on March 1st. There were a ton of
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: failures leading up to her death. The army ignored warnings
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: about moving the base to another site that was more secured.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: There were no air defenses at the base against drones.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: They were working out of a trailer with a thin
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: metal roof. There was not enough medical support for the wounded.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: Iran reportedly tracked them to this small base, and there
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: has been no accountability publicly about an investigation by DOD
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: or anyone else into what happened here. And so when
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: Vance is like, oh, I don't know about these failures.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: I'd like to follow up after. He's like, this is
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: the first time I'm hearing about this.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: He's fucking lying because.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: Either he didn't read the press or we also know
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: there have been all these reports that his staff is
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: leaking about how J.D. Vance is calling around to the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: combatant commanders to get his own battle assessments of, you know,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: the impact.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Of the war on our bases in the region.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: He would know about this. He should know about this.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: He's lying and he's covering up for Pete Hegseth. and
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: their failures, and it's disgusting what he did in that moment.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: He was trying to show empathy. There's no good answer.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: In his weird way. But you're right, he could have
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: been like, oh yeah, I've heard those reports, and blah, blah, blah.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: This is the first I've heard of whatever.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing about that moment when he's trying to demonstrate,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: I want to talk to you on the side. He's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: kind of performing... a version of like, I'm, I'm a
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: relatable figure and I'm going to come talk to you
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: and I want to have a private conversation, get to
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: the bottom of this.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: But that's what comes across throughout the entire thing, which
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: is like when he does that joke about, oh, like
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: the sports teams or when he does a thing like, oh,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: you have a kid, I have a kid. Wow. It's it.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 8: Wow.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Eight days. Wow.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: That you don't, this isn't real. That's not important to you.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: You don't think about people in this way. That's not
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: how you relate to people. that's just not who you are.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: Like you're just, it's not real. None of it feels real.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: Good luck to him.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: Good luck to us. We're going to have to deal
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: with it for the next two years. All right. When
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: we come back, Pennsylvania house candidate, Paige Cognetti. Pod Save
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  Speaker 1: Joining us now is Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, who's running
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: for Congress in Pennsylvania's 8th District against Republican incumbent Rob Bresnahan.
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  Speaker 1: Mayor Cognetti, welcome to Positive America. Thanks.
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  Speaker 5: You don't have to remember his name for very much longer.
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  Speaker 1: Good. I hope I don't. So you first got elected
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  Speaker 1: mayor of Scranton running as an independent, and you ran
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  Speaker 1: against the local Democratic machine, I think, after the previous
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  Speaker 1: mayor had pled guilty to corruption. Your slogan was Page
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  Speaker 1: Against the Machine, a very memorable slogan. What made you
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  Speaker 1: decide to take on your own party in that race,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: and what did you learn from that experience?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 6: So back to 2017, actually, I started reading in the
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 6: Scranton Times what was happening here.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 5: My husband is from Scranton. I live here.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 6: We're choosing to live here and raise our family here. 2017,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 6: I started realizing that there was a lot of corruption,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 6: very specifically in the Scranton School District, even criminal activity happening.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 5: So the Auditor General put out this report. Somebody resigned.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 6: I stood for an appointment and got to work.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 5: Brought in the attorney general, then Josh Shapiro. There were prosecutions.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: Really, this CFO, this grand school district, was writing false
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 6: checks to his buddy down the street, this mechanic, like
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 6: hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars that was supposed
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 6: to go to kids going to his buddy. So we
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 6: started looking at corruption throughout the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 6: I worked for the auditor general in 2019 trying to
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 6: push out the graft and the corruption throughout school districts here. when,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 6: lo and behold, June of July 2019, the mayor of
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 6: Scranton gets indicted for extortion and bribery, a fund scheme
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 6: where he would not give developers their permits unless they
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 6: gave him bags full of $ 5, 000. He put that stuff
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 6: in his ceiling, as one does, and finally caught up
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 6: to him in July of 2019. And I was pregnant
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 6: with our first daughter. It was not a convenient time.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: I was really enjoying doing the anti-corruption work at the
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: Auditor General. but the local Democratic Party went behind closed doors.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: In the wake of this scandal, they go behind closed doors.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: They pick some guy. He's kind of their next person.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 6: The local newspaper essentially writes a story that says, meet
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 6: your next mayor, because it's a special election. We have
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: a two and a half to one Democratic to Republican
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 6: vote count. So I said, I'm not going to do this.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to raise our kids in a place
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 6: where this is okay. I switched to independent We had
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 6: a scenario in September of 2019 where the Lackawanna County.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: Democrats were on one side of the courtroom.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: Myself, a few other people that had switched to independence
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: in the Republican Party were on the other. The local
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 6: Democrats were trying to push us off the ballot. So
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 6: we stood. We had standing and stayed on the ballot.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 6: I won with 37% of the vote. Had our daughter
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 6: Sloan just two weeks before I became mayor in January 2020.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 6: Since then, reelected in 2021, reelected in 2025. When we
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: came in, and you can imagine with a mayor that
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 6: was extorting contractors, we were almost bankrupt. We had $ 184
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 6: million of legal liability hanging over us.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 5: We got to work. Since then, we've put in financial controls.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 6: We have put together the accounts that we need to
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 6: for the legacy benefits that we have to pay. We've
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 6: been upgraded three times by the S & P. We
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 6: went from junk credit to A-minus, and we have cut
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 6: our debt in half. So we were on a really
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 6: strong financial path, which is a lot to say for
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 6: a legacy city. In a place like Scranton, it's hard.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 6: We have a lot of pension benefits that we have
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 6: to do. We have a lot of legacy infrastructure. We've
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 6: been able to invest in stormwater, invest in our traffic safety,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 6: invest in our police, over $ 5 million in police technology.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 6: We've added five officers to the force. So it's been
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 6: a really awesome experience to be the mayor of Scranton
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 6: these seven years. And, you know, really, you don't run
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 6: a city in a partisan way, right? You just, you
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 6: run it for the people. And we have a great
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: track record. And unfortunately, the guy that won in 2024
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 6: to represent us in the United States House of Representatives
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 6: does not have a great track record.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 5: So here we are.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: Now, you've been mayor for seven years, and you obviously
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: changed a lot about Scranton. You've cleaned up a lot
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: of corruption. Who knew Scranton hotbeded corruption when you started?
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: What is something... that you've changed about the way your
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: city runs and the way government runs in Scranton that
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: you would try to bring to Washington? Understanding, of course,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: that it's a different job, very different place. But like,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: what are some things you learned that you think, OK,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: we could use this in Congress?
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 5: Obviously, it's a it's a different scale.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 6: But when I came in in the wake of the scandal,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 6: I knew I had to do things differently because So
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 6: I didn't take the car for the mayor. There was
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 6: a mayor car. I gave that to PD. The detectives
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 6: have it. I have no gas card. I won't take
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 6: any of those types of perks. That was really important
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 6: to show people that I was here to lead them.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 6: I don't take any campaign money from any city vendors
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 6: or any city employees.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 5: So that was so important to me.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 6: I remember when I was looking at running, I saw
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 6: some of these county commissioners. Most of their campaign report
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 6: was county employees.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 5: It was just ridiculous, right?
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 6: You're literally taking money from your employees for your campaign.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 6: That was the kind of stuff that was happening. It's
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 6: so important to lead in that way. When I think
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 6: of D.C., I think about our anti-corruption plan. We don't
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 6: take corporate PAC money. Obviously, we need a stock trading ban.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 6: You can't be trading stocks on information the American people
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 6: don't have.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 5: We'll get to that with my opponent. But we have
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 5: to show people that we.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 6: Care and we're there for them. No one forces you
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 6: to run for Congress. No one forces you to run
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 6: for mayor.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: It's a choice.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 6: It is not a choice that is going to get
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 6: you a beach house. And you make that choice. So
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 6: you have to show people that. And I've been really
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 6: proud of what we've done. I could have gotten a
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 6: pay raise this year. I turned the pay raise down.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 6: We have to show people that you can run a government.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: And right now we.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 6: Have such a lack of respect even and definitely a
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 6: deficit of trust in government. We have to act very,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 6: very quickly in the next United States Congress. I'm not
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 6: the only one with an anti-corruption agenda. We've been running
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 6: against the machine forever. And in this race, we started
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 6: off against corruption. And I'm really glad to see that
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 6: it's starting to really hit. We're seeing that even some polls,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 6: corruption is the number one thing that people are worried about.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 5: They should be. We are broken.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 6: We've got to fix the system. And it starts with
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 6: the new Congress in January.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: You mentioned your opponent. Bresnahan reported nearly 650 stock trades
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: last year, including sales of Medicaid-related stocks before he voted
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: for Trump's bill that cuts Medicaid. He claims a financial
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: advisor made the trades. Heard that one before. He has
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: also supported legislation to ban congressional stock trading. What's your
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: argument about why this is still a problem? And what
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: would you do to stop this sort of thing happening
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: in Congress that is different than what Bresnahan has proposed?
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 6: So this guy talking about choices. In October of 2024,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 6: he puts out an op-ed. He's running, challenging Matt Cartwright,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: 12-year incumbent. Puts out an op-ed His word, sickening. It's
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 6: sickening to make money in Congress on information that the
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 6: American people don't have. You shouldn't make money on your votes.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 6: So he puts that out there, gets elected, and he
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 6: slides in on the wave of 24, and.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 5: Then gets right to work, literally day trading in Congress.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 6: He was on the radio with the conservative radio here,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 6: which actually— The talk show is a convicted county commissioner.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 6: He was stealing money from the Lackawanna County taxpayers. Served
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 6: eight years and now for some reason gets 10 hours
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 6: of prime time on the radio every week.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 5: But he's on this radio show.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 6: Says last year, he says, I talked to my financial
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 6: advisor about upcoming positions. He said it on the radio.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 6: We have the audio.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 5: It's out there.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 6: So when you talk about this guy says one thing
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 6: and doesn't know that he's like, oh, it's sickening to
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 6: make money on your votes.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 5: He does. He says he doesn't trade himself. He obviously does.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 6: And then you mentioned seven days before he voted for
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 6: a trillion-dollar cut in Medicaid, he sold almost $ 400, 000 worth
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 6: of Medicaid-related stocks and bonds. And seven days before Trump
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 6: went into Iran the first time, he was buying up
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 6: missile stocks, buying Lockheed. It's just remarkable when you put
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 6: his voting record next to his stock trading record.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: He tries to weasel out of it.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 6: But the flimsy piece of paper that the Republicans pushed
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 6: through at the end of the summer to try to
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 6: run on It is full of holes. We need an
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 6: actual stock ban. Again, there's no reason for a member
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 6: of Congress to be trading individual stocks. Both parties are
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 6: guilty of this. We know that the top stock trader
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 6: in Congress is a Democrat. We need to do real reforms,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 6: and we cannot do it just on stocks. It's got
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 6: to be corporate PAC money. I've already had folks that
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 6: have gotten to me from the D.C. lobbying world, like, well,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 6: you don't really mean it. You're going to get here,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 6: and you're going to take corporate money. I'm like, no,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 6: we're not. You have to talk to people. People are
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 6: so fed up. It is one of those things that
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 6: people really understand. They also really want term limits. I
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 6: can't tell you the applause line when you are in
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 6: a union hall or at a canvas launch or at
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 6: a backyard barbecue when you talk about real term limits.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 6: Our proposal is 18 years for the Senate, 18 years
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 6: for Congress, 18 years for the Supreme Court.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 5: People really want to see change.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 6: They want to see that you're there for them and
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 6: you're not there to build your career and pad your pockets.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: If Democrats win the House— And you're one of them.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: You know, it will be difficult to pass any legislation
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: in the next two years, even if you get Republicans
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: to do it. You've got Donald Trump as president still.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: But Democrats will have the power to investigate potential corruption
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: and abuses of power from the Trump administration. How big
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: of a priority should that be? because obviously you have
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: to balance, you know, a lot of people care most
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: about cost of living issues. And I'm sure that's what
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: you've been campaigning on and Democrats across the country. Obviously,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: like I said, it's going to be tough to pass
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: stuff on that. But how do you balance the need
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: to focus on that with this, you know, the potential
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: issue where if you do too much investigation and oversight,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: then voters are like, well, why are they just going
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: after the Trump administration or these companies and why aren't
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: they doing anything for me. Right.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 6: I think people are really putting corruption and the costs together.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 6: So I think about like that first week in Congress,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 6: we have to do everything we can to try to
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 6: end the war in Iran and to try to end
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 6: the tariffs and have an immediate impact on costs. Also,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 6: day one, I have signed on to a letter with
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 6: other candidates. We do an anti-corruption agenda. We actually show
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 6: the American people that we are serious about this. And
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 6: we challenge those that are there now, Republicans and Democrats,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 6: to come on board with us. We cannot keep going
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 6: this way. The investigations are extraordinarily important. I think about,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 6: you know, being on the school board, being at the
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 6: editor general's office, digging into those numbers, digging into those contracts.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 6: And who knows what we'll find. We will, you know,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 6: we'll find a lot. But we have to make sure
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 6: that we're doing it, that we're clear about it, and
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 6: that it's not really painted as some sort of witch hunt.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 6: That's a fear I have is getting into office and
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 6: having it be all about the president.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: The president is on his way out. He will be
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 5: in his final two years.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 6: We need to hold him, his agency heads, and the
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 6: members of Congress accountable for sure. That happens for any
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 6: agency under any president in any White House, no matter
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 6: what party. We need to do that. But we need
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 6: to show that we're doing that in the name of
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 6: busting corruption and getting our feet back under us, not
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 6: really targeting one particular person. That is, to me, a
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 6: recipe for a failed presidential bid for a Democrat in 2028.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 6: So we need to be really, really diligent on what
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 6: are the facts, what are the problems that we're seeing.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 6: If there is pay to play, let's lay it out
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 6: for the American people in a way that is clear
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 6: to them. I think with this current administration, there's a
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 6: lot of pretty clear storylines that are going to come out.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 6: We need to be sure that we're making that case.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 6: We also, I think about it as a mayor, what
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 6: are the crosswalks we can paint? What are the immediate
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 6: things that people can feel? We need to make sure
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 6: that in those two years, we're doing real things that
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 6: people understand. And that even though those bills and those programs,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 6: a lot of them will be left at either the
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 6: foot of the Senate or the foot of 1600 Pennsylvania,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 6: at least we'll have to be able to show what
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 6: we can do and how we can make things better
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 6: when we have more power. I really don't want to
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 6: see us dwindle a U.S. Congress where we have the
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 6: power to do things and have it just go to
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 6: what the American people think is wasteful.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: For an anti-corruption agenda, you've mentioned, obviously, banning stock trading,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: corporate PAC money, term limits. Is there anything else beyond
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: those provisions that you would want in an anti-corruption agenda?
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, we talk about the revolving door, the lobbying, right?
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 6: We don't want people that are planning their run for
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 6: Congress so that they can get in and become a
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 6: lobbyist and just get in there and make money for themselves.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 5: So that's a big piece of it.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 6: And generally auditing the government, I know it sounds kind
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 6: of silly, but we were, I was at the Obama
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 6: Treasury Department, I was putting together the international affairs budget.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 5: It is office by office, line by line.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 6: If you dig into the budget, you can find meaningful
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 6: savings there. You can also find, you know, maybe some
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 6: of the problems that might be happening there, the procurement
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 6: that isn't right. You have to go line by line.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 6: You have to truly audit it. We know that there
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 6: could be so much more digging. We need folks that
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 6: are willing to do the hard work. You know, when
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 6: I think about this work, I think about it like
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 6: we've done as mayor. You go in and you do
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 6: the stuff that is not sexy, but it over time
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 6: really impacts how people feel about themselves and their government.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 5: You can do that at the local level.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 6: I have faith that we can do that at the
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 6: federal level if we really, really tackle corruption and have
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 6: folks in office that are serious about it and serious
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 6: about being held accountable. When you're a mayor, you cannot
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 6: walk out of your house without being accountable. I think
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 6: part of what you see, for example, in my opponent
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 6: is a person who thinks that this is cool.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 5: You just get to wear a pin and kind of
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 5: walk around on BNTV.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: No.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 6: You are accountable every single day for the promises you make.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 6: The sky has been promising one thing and doing another.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 6: I think we need more mayors and county commissioners in
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 6: Congress that have had that feeling every single day of
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 6: walking down the street, going to the grocery store, stopping
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 6: at the coffee shop, and knowing that they're going to
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 6: have a conversation where somebody is going to ask them
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 6: a question.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: I know Bresnahan voted for the Medicaid cuts. He also
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: joined a bipartisan effort to extend Obamacare subsidies. He's gone
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: back and forth on these health care issues. What's the
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: difference between his health care record and what you would
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: do in Congress and what you want to do going
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: forward on health care?
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 6: I mean, we know that the ACA was never perfect.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 6: We absolutely have a lot of reforms. There are, you know,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 6: the insurance companies have too much power in this conversation.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 6: For-profit health care has too much power. And we see
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 6: in places like Scranton where, you know, 30 years of
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 6: the privatization and the mergers in health.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 5: Care have caused real problems.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 6: We have to make reforms, but we can't do it
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 6: with a trillion dollars gutted from the system. So I
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 6: think in those first days, we need to put the
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 6: floor back under the Medicaid program.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 5: Not that there isn't fraud there.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 6: I'm sure there's a little fraud here and there, but
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 6: we already have 9,000 people in these five counties in
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 6: northeastern Pennsylvania who no longer have healthcare. I've had a
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 6: bursting ER in the city of Scranton for years. It
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 6: is getting worse and worse and worse. I hear those
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 6: reports from our police officers and our firefighters. We cannot
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 6: do this work with the system gutted. So We have
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 6: to do that first and then work to reform. But again,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 6: we can't do it if the corporations are in charge.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: Data centers, speaking of corporations, have been another big issue
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: in this campaign. You've said that if these tech companies
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: want to build in your community, they're going to have
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: to pay their own way, follow the rules. Are there
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: circumstances where you'd welcome new data centers? And what would
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: the companies have to agree to?
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 6: So Lackawanna County and all of northeastern Pennsylvania, we have
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 6: a lot of energy here.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 5: There's the Marcellus Shale here.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 6: And Rob Bresnahan actually invited these companies last year. There
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 6: was a big rah-rah last summer where the president was
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 6: talking about Senator McCormick, Rob Bresnahan. We're all saying northeastern
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 6: Pennsylvania should be a center of the AI build-out and
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 6: data centers should come here. And there is a $ 25
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 6: billion investment from Blackstone here. that Rob Bresnahan was only
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 6: too eager to announce, still listed on his official press
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 6: release page on his website. You can go, he can
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 6: see how excited he was to invite these data centers here.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 6: And now we have dozens and dozens of projects and
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 6: a bunch of speculative developers that are really terrorizing these communities.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 6: I've sat in so many township buildings, so many different
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 6: community meetings, hearing these developers that say they have nondisclosure agreements.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 6: They can't tell you who they are, But please give
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 6: us the zoning privilege of being able to put this 51,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 6: basically the size of 51 Walmarts in your town. There's
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 6: a place called Archibald, Pennsylvania. 14% of the land in Archibald,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 6: Pennsylvania would be covered with data centers if all of
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 6: those projects went through.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 5: So you can have some of these. And this is
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 5: where you hear a lot.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 6: I think there was a knee jerk, especially last spring, like, okay, moratorium,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 6: we're going to stop them all. That's not the right
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 6: public policy either, right? You can have situations. There's a
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 6: decommissioned coal plant in southwest Pennsylvania. There's a nuclear site
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 6: in Berwick, Pennsylvania, where Amazon's putting one.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 5: You can do that.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 6: If the table is set with transparency, you've got the
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 6: end-user tech company, you've got the developer, you've got the municipalities,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 6: you've got labor, you can do it. And I've had
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 6: mayors tell me that they're proud of the work that
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 6: they've been doing when that table is set right.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 5: We haven't seen any of that in northeastern Pennsylvania. We've
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 5: seen some pretty crass stuff.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 6: We've seen one of the center companies offering $ 10, 000 per
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 6: household if they'll support the zoning overlay. So they're pretty
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 6: desperate to be here, but it's just been so upsetting
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 6: for people. People are scared for their health. They're scared
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 6: for their children's health. This is the kind of place,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 6: you know, this is old coal country, right? Big industry
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 6: has come before and literally left us with huge piles,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 6: you know, buildings of size of coal and dumps that
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 6: have been all over, scattered through our region. We had
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 6: to clean those up as taxpayers. People understand that. They
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 6: remember that. They don't want that to happen again. So
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 6: it's a real fight. And I'm really proud, though, of
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 6: my community and seeing people coming out in a totally
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 6: nonpartisan way. They are leaving their political stripes at home,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 6: just coming in and supporting each other, supporting their way
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 6: of life, supporting their health. And it's a thing actually
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 6: in this moment that is giving me hope that we
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 6: can sew the quilt back together in America, that we
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 6: can get through what has been such a horrific decade
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 6: here and get back to supporting each other.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 5: I think it's possible.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 6: And if it has to be data centers that gets
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 6: us there, then I guess that's what we got.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: Last question and I'll let you go. So Trump won
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: your district by more than eight points in 2024. You've
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: got an ad running now featuring a guy who voted
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: for Trump three times. It says he's voting for you.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: What's a conversation you've had with a Trump voter that
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: has stuck with you? Like what are people who supported
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: him but are supporting you now sort of telling you
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: about why they're changing their vote.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 6: So Bill, in that ad, actually drove me in an
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 6: Uber about five years ago. And he showed up at
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 6: my campaign office opening.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 5: And he said, hey, remember me? And I said, oh,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 5: you're familiar. I think we chatted.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 6: He said, well, I drove you in an Uber. And
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 6: I didn't know who you were. And you said, after
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 6: I asked you what you did, you were the mayor.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 6: And you were just so down to earth and so great.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 6: And you've done such a good job in Scranton. And
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 6: Trump has disappointed me. And I'm supporting you. Love that. Then, yeah,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 6: he went on then to talk about the Epstein files.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 6: That is the number one reason that we learn when
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 6: we talk to folks that people are shifting away from
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 6: the decision that they made in 2024. There was a
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 6: promise there to get justice for these survivors, and that
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 6: promise has been broken. And it is even more so
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 6: than the war, which was also a broken promise and
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 6: also weighs heavily on people's minds. Breaking the promise on
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 6: the Epstein files and protecting the perpetrators instead of helping
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 6: the survivors really weighs on folks. And I think it's
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 6: really important that we hold the folks like Rob Bresnahan accountable,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 6: who voted three times to block those files. I met
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 6: with survivors here in Scranton just a couple of weeks ago.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 6: They know that they are not going to get justice
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 6: with this current Congress, certainly not with the current Attorney General.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 6: Attorney General Blanche was actually here in this district just
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 6: a couple of hours ago, standing alongside our congressman talking
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 6: about fentanyl. I don't imagine that Congressman Bresnahan was holding
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 6: his feet to the fire about getting justice for those survivors.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 6: That remains the number one thing that voters tell us
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 6: gives them regret about their vote in 2024.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: Mayor Paige Cognetti, good luck in the final two weeks.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining Pod Save America, and we'll be
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: rooting for you.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 6: And if you want to support us, page4pa. com. Really appreciate
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 6: you having me on.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: There you go. Take care. That's our show for today.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Paige Cognetti for coming on. Dan and I
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: will be back with a new show on Friday. Pod
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: produced by Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farrah Safari,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: with Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, David Tolles,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Single. Our staff is
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.