Latest / Pod Save America / Did Trump Blow It on the Epstein Files?

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Did Trump Blow It on the Epstein Files? · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
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  Speaker 2: Tommy Vitor.
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  Speaker 1: On today's show, guess what? Trump actually wants to release
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  Speaker 1: the Epstein files. Always has. We'll talk about why the
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  Speaker 1: change of heart and what happens next. We also love
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  Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene now. Always have.
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  Speaker 3: Sure.
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  Speaker 1: We'll get into why she's apologizing for things she said
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  Speaker 1: in the past and the lane she's opening for herself
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: as the leader who can bring this divided country together.
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  Speaker 1: Not a joke, folks. Not a joke. Also, Trump wades
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  Speaker 1: into the Tucker Carlson-Nick Fuentes platforming debate. His affordability pivot
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  Speaker 1: may involve destroying Obamacare. And finally, we'll unpack the most
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: viral Epstein email yet and why Lovett should find it funny.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. That's the frame?
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  Speaker 1: That's great.
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  Speaker 3: Can't wait to find out.
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  Speaker 1: Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with Representative Ro Khanna about
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  Speaker 1: his effort to fight for the release of the Epstein files.
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  Speaker 1: But let's start with this week's big vote on a
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  Speaker 1: bill to force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.
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  Speaker 1: which won a surprise endorsement Sunday night from the dog
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  Speaker 1: that didn't bark himself, Donald Trump. It was one of
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  Speaker 1: the more abrupt and dramatic flip-flops, even for Trump. It
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  Speaker 1: was just a few days ago that he demanded, quote,
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  Speaker 1: no Republican defections and sat Lauren Boebert down in the
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  Speaker 1: sit room with Pam Bondi and Kash Patel in an
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  Speaker 1: unsuccessful attempt to convince her to oppose the release of
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  Speaker 1: the Epstein files. As you all know, the discharge petition succeeded.
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  Speaker 1: And the House is scheduled to vote on the underlying
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  Speaker 1: bill on Tuesday, maybe as you're listening to this, potentially
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  Speaker 1: with a lot of Republican support, if not unanimous Republican
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  Speaker 1: support at this point. Which is probably why on Sunday
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  Speaker 1: night Trump posted that House Republicans should vote to release
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  Speaker 1: the Epstein files and that, quote, the House Oversight Committee
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  Speaker 1: can have whatever they're legally entitled to, all caps, I
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  Speaker 1: don't care. Trump also mentioned in that post his new
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  Speaker 1: order directing the Justice Department to investigate Epstein's ties to
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  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton and other Democrats. He then took this messaging
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  Speaker 1: out for a spin in the Oval on Monday when
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  Speaker 1: asked whether he would sign the Epstein Files bill when
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  Speaker 1: and if it comes to his desk. Let's take a listen.
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  Speaker 4: Do you want to see that pass the Senate? Would
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  Speaker 4: you sign that bill if it gets to your desk?
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  Speaker 5: I do want to. Here's what I want. We have
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  Speaker 5: nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of
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  Speaker 5: his friends were Democrats. You look at this Reid Hoffman,
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  Speaker 5: you look at Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, they went to
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  Speaker 5: his island all the time, and many others.
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  Speaker 4: They're all Democrats.
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  Speaker 5: All I want is I want for people to recognize
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  Speaker 5: the great job that I've done on pricing, on affordability,
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  Speaker 5: because we brought prices way down, but they're going way lower.
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  Speaker 5: I believe that many of the people that we, some
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  Speaker 5: of the people that we mentioned are being looked at
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  Speaker 5: very seriously for their relationship to Jeffrey Epstein, but they
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  Speaker 5: were with him all the time. I wasn't. I wasn't
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  Speaker 5: at all.
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  Speaker 4: And we'll see what happens.
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  Speaker 5: What I just don't want Epstein to do is detract
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  Speaker 5: from the great success of the Republican Party.
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  Speaker 2: Got a frog in his throat. Maybe a bill.
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  Speaker 6: Oh.
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  Speaker 3: I wonder if that'll come up later.
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  Speaker 1: Someone asked him why he had a frog in his
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  Speaker 1: throat and why he lost his voice, and he said
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  Speaker 1: because he blew his stack at someone. over a trade deal.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very much John Edwards trying too hard, caring
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  Speaker 3: too much.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, just care too much. It's my biggest weakness.
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  Speaker 3: I was yelling too much about America first.
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  Speaker 2: That's really funny.
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  Speaker 1: So what happened there, guys? You know, I know that
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  Speaker 1: Republicans were, more Republicans were saying they were going to
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  Speaker 1: vote no when the discharge petition passed, but he knew
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  Speaker 1: the math for the last several days. What do you
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  Speaker 1: think happened?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this parade was going to happen. He
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  Speaker 3: can either be in front of the horses or under them.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, yep. Train's coming. You hit run over, you get
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  Speaker 2: in front of it, and you call it a parade, right?
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 4: And the other.
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  Speaker 3: The thing that... There's a contradiction at the heart of this,
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  Speaker 3: which is this is a bill to force him to
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  Speaker 3: do something. So it doesn't really make sense to be.
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  Speaker 1: In favor of this bill.
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  Speaker 3: None of it makes sense. And so he's in... He
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  Speaker 3: now says he's fine with Congress approving a bill to
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  Speaker 3: force him to do something he could do today if
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  Speaker 3: he wants to.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, right now.
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  Speaker 1: And not do on the other side of it.
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  Speaker 2: That's the problem.
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  Speaker 1: Seriously, like, I don't... I mean... What do you think
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  Speaker 1: happens from here? Like now that he's ostensibly in favor
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  Speaker 1: of this, you know, again, it could there's like Troy Nels,
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  Speaker 1: who was one of the House Republicans who just the
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  Speaker 1: other day was like absolutely not tweeting like whatever you need,
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Now he's like, oh, I mean, yes. And
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  Speaker 1: I think we're and then some other one was predicting
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  Speaker 1: like 100 percent of Republicans now vote for it.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I talked to Ro Khanna about this. You'll
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  Speaker 2: hear it later in the show. I mean, it sounds
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  Speaker 2: like Ro thought that he had like 40 or 50 votes.
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  Speaker 2: Now it seems like everyone has a free pass to
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  Speaker 2: be for this bill. And now we actually might see
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  Speaker 2: a vote on it in the Senate, which initially John
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  Speaker 2: Thune had said he wouldn't do. And then I guess
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump could veto it. That would make it spicy.
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  Speaker 2: But the problem is, I mean, like we're hearing this
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  Speaker 2: kind of curious and half-hearted rhetorical support for a thing
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  Speaker 2: he could just do tomorrow, as you mentioned there. But
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  Speaker 2: I think we all need to worry about the many
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  Speaker 2: ways that his goons could prevent the actual release of
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  Speaker 2: relevant documents Including especially anything that implicates Trump's since we
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  Speaker 2: know the FBI did like a control F for Trump
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  Speaker 2: with all these documents and to seemingly suppress those.
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  Speaker 3: It's confusing a Trump is not a rational actor. He's
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  Speaker 3: not behaving in a rational way and how he's been
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  Speaker 3: handling this and be like we don't really know the
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  Speaker 3: value of what he's trying to hide and what parts
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  Speaker 3: of it he's trying to prevent the release of so
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  Speaker 3: one one way this goes is is sometime in the
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  Speaker 3: next few days, either before the House can vote or after,
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  Speaker 3: is they promise some kind of release to make the
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  Speaker 3: vote moot so that it could die in the Senate.
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  Speaker 3: And he's able to claim he's fulfilling whatever the brief
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  Speaker 3: is of this law without actually doing it. The other
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  Speaker 3: part of this is he's talking about opening up investigations.
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  Speaker 3: The law is very short, but it has two parts
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  Speaker 3: to it. One is You have to release the information
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  Speaker 3: to the public except for private personal information about victims
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  Speaker 3: and anything pertaining to an ongoing investigation. They could use
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  Speaker 3: this to use an ongoing investigation to stop a bunch
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  Speaker 3: of this from being released. But the other part of
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  Speaker 3: the law would release information to Congress and doesn't have
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  Speaker 3: that caveat, including a list of names of people involved.
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  Speaker 3: But I do think we're at the point where we've
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  Speaker 3: gotten a lot of the names. And so now it's
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  Speaker 3: about whatever other details and information and materials are part
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  Speaker 3: of whatever we're calling the Epstein files, whatever that may be.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the smarter move here would have been to,
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  Speaker 1: before this all along, and then just stonewall the release
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  Speaker 1: or withhold whatever they wanted to withhold. I mean, the
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  Speaker 1: core problem in getting the Justice Department to release the
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  Speaker 1: Epstein files was never necessarily a vote in Congress. It's
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  Speaker 1: the fact that the Justice Department under Donald Trump is
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  Speaker 1: deeply corrupt, and so is Donald Trump. So who are
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  Speaker 1: we to think that just because there is a vote
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  Speaker 1: in Congress to force the administration to do something that
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  Speaker 1: they would just honor their word and release the Epstein
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  Speaker 1: files as they are charging people with all kinds of
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  Speaker 1: crimes that are just fucking made up.
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  Speaker 2: Thomas Massey, the Republican who sponsored this original bill with
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  Speaker 2: Ro Khanna, said this could be a smokescreen announcing Trump
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  Speaker 2: got on True Social. He told Pam Bondi to start
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  Speaker 2: investigations into Bill Clinton and all these other Democrats. And
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  Speaker 2: that could be the pretext to withhold a bunch of documents.
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  Speaker 2: We just don't know.
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  Speaker 1: One more thing on the counter investigation that he ordered
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  Speaker 1: into Democrats. What the hell is that? Like, what do
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: they really want us to believe that? So Pam Bondi
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  Speaker 1: originally remember with the binders that she made for the kooks,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: she gave them the binders and she said, oh, I'm
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  Speaker 1: the whatever. And then when everyone found out that there
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  Speaker 1: was nothing in there and then she decided there was
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  Speaker 1: not going to be an investigation, what she really said
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  Speaker 1: was we've done an investigation into all the Epstein files.
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  Speaker 1: There's no reason for charging anyone. It's all over. It's
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  Speaker 1: in the past. We're all done. Now they expect us
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  Speaker 1: to believe that there's something new to look at between
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  Speaker 1: his ties on his ties to Democrats that like they
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  Speaker 1: didn't know before. So now they're just going to redo
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  Speaker 1: the old investigation.
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  Speaker 2: And ironically, one of the things that came out in
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  Speaker 2: this House Oversight Committee tranche of emails was Jeffrey Epstein
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  Speaker 2: saying that Bill Clinton had never been to the island,
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  Speaker 2: which undercut Donald Trump's suggestion here.
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  Speaker 3: Also, Trump is under the impression that Democrats think about
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  Speaker 3: Democrats the way Republicans think about Trump. Like we've go after,
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  Speaker 3: you know, investigating Democrats as part of this would be fine.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Go for it.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Go for it.
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  Speaker 1: It would be, but it's not that back to the
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  Speaker 1: corrupt point.
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  Speaker 3: No, no, I'm not. Of course that that's not what
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  Speaker 3: this is. So the idea that like, oh no, Bill
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  Speaker 3: Clinton's involved is going to stop Democrats from caring. This
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  Speaker 3: has never been true.
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  Speaker 6: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: They're going to use this to go after and smear people. Uh, uh,
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  Speaker 3: especially because you've seen some like Reid Hoffman said, like
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  Speaker 3: release them, release the information.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I mean the range of what we could get from
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  Speaker 1: the justice department, uh, with regard to this investigation is
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  Speaker 1: anything from like, made up charges and investigations into made
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  Speaker 1: up charges for Democrats involved somehow. Or but like the
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  Speaker 1: idea that Donald Trump is ever going to allow his
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Justice Department to release anything that is incriminating or even
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: in the least embarrassing to him in the Epstein files
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  Speaker 1: strikes me as a bit fanciful.
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  Speaker 3: But that's what that's what I mean about him not
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  Speaker 3: being a rational actor. Then why are you going to
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: all this trouble?
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think I think his original position
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: was stupid.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And he's finally belatedly come around to the smarter position.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: But I'm buttonholing Lauren Boebert in the, in the white house,
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  Speaker 3: alienating her, losing more Republicans along the way. Like it
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  Speaker 3: doesn't really make sense.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it also speaks to the fact that like, you know,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: is he covering up something real or isn't he, and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: just sort of flailing about because he doesn't like to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: be embarrassed and he doesn't like any kind of negative
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: attention sort of, you know, one for that category because, um,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: like it's possible he was trying to strong arm Boebert
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and MTG and all the other ones because he just
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: didn't want to lose a vote and he just didn't
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: want to be embarrassed and he just doesn't want any
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: pressure on this and he doesn't want the bad headlines.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Who knows? One argument on the other side of this
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: as to why he's right to be afraid of what
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: happens when it gets to the Justice Department, according to
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: this law, even though it is now controlled by stooges
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: and goons, we are seeing leaks about what's happening with
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Kash Patel. There is information coming out that is not
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: helpful to the regime. It's not a fully controlled Department
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: of Justice or FBI.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: People can go to court. And then I guess another
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: good scenario for Trump is maybe bad things do come out,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: but like it drags on a court process and lawsuits
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: for a long time and they don't have to worry
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: about it for a while. But we'll see. Latest Epstein
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: drama has also led to Trump's biggest MAGA breakup since Elon.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene not getting an invite to any of
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the White House holiday parties this year or maybe, maybe ever.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: On Friday night, Trump announced that he was withdrawing his
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: support of MTG and will potentially back a primary challenge
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: to the Georgia representative because, as he wrote, quote, all
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I see wacky Marjorie do is complain, complain, complain. Trump
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: claimed MTG was pissed he told her not to run
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: for Senate and angry he wouldn't return her calls anymore,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: writing that with so many politicians and world leaders to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: talk to every day, quote, and an otherwise normal life
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to lead, I can't take a ranting lunatics call every day.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: An otherwise normal life to lead is very funny.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: It's very personal.
• 13:40
  Speaker 9: I love it.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Marge countered by posting that it was actually the Epstein
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: files that caused the break with Trump and shared texts
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: she sent him on Friday, urging the president to support
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the release of the files. She later posted that a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: result of Trump attacking her, she's been getting death threats
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and also wrote about how, quote, the political industrial complex
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: tells us to hate each other, fundraises off why we
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: have to hate each other and pits Americans against each
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: other to the point of violence and nearing civil war.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: This is also wrong. I believe in the American people
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: more than I believe in any leader or political party.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: And the American people deserve so much better than how
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: they've been treated by both sides of the aisle. That
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: is from one Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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  Speaker 2: The battle helm of the republic behind that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Even though she had.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: A slogan in there that was America first, America only,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: which I actually thought was just like a smart way
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: to summarize what she's doing. Like I was like, this
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: is just it's just so interesting.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Anyway, go on.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: So Marge went on CNN State of the Union on
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning to elaborate on all this, where she did
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: something almost no one does in politics anymore. Let's listen.
• 14:38
  Speaker 8: We have seen these kinds of attacks or criticism from
• 14:42
  Speaker 8: the president at other people.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: It's not new.
• 14:46
  Speaker 8: And with respect, I haven't heard you speak out about
• 14:48
  Speaker 8: it until it was directed at you.
• 14:51
  Speaker 10: Dana, I think that's fair criticism. And I would like
• 14:54
  Speaker 10: to say humbly, I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic, uh, politics.
• 15:01
  Speaker 10: It's very bad for our country. I am committed, and
• 15:06
  Speaker 10: I've been working on this a lot lately, to put
• 15:09
  Speaker 10: down the knives in politics. I really just want to
• 15:13
  Speaker 10: see people be kind to one another, and we need
• 15:16
  Speaker 10: to figure out a new path forward.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think about Marjorie Taylor Greene's decision
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: to join the resistance?
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think I believe her when she says
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: she met with Epstein's victims. It moved her. She was
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: moved by those conversations. I mean, she was someone who
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: dabbled famously in QAnon, which was a crazy conspiracy theory.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: But at its root, it was supposed to be about
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: disclosing a powerful cabal of people that set up a
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: pedophile ring. It turns out that's exactly what Jeffrey Epstein did.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: I also think that she she is frustrated by Trump,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: like not living up to the MAGA that she thought
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: she was voting for. And that is, you know, it's
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: sort of what you were just the summary, like America
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: only She wants the more isolationist version of MAGA. She's
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: been mad about U.S. support for Ukraine. She's mad about U.S.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: military aid to Israel. She's angry about H-1B visas, Trump's
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Argentina bank bailout. She's been talking about that. She's talked about,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: she's one of the many conservatives mad about Chinese students
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: being allowed to attend schools in the U.S., regime change
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: wars with Venezuela. She's been pretty consistent there. And at
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: the same time, I also buy Trump's claim that Marjorie
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Taylor Greene is mad that she didn't get his endorsement.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And governor's primary or Senate primary or whatever she wants
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: to run for. Like she feels like she was all
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: in for Trump at his lowest moment and maybe he
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: slighted her. But I mean like bigger picture, I tend
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: to think she is sincere. Like I think she's a
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: random lady in Georgia who found her way into Congress
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: and along the way has mostly said what she thinks
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: usually for worse for herself. Um, and often that is like,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: why are we bombing the Houthis? No one in my
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: district knows what a Houthi is, you know, shit like that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: But I do think, um, you know, the, the, the
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: place in that interview where she, I think fell short
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: was when Dana started pushing her on her relationship with
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Nick Fuentes. Um, and she didn't, the, the apology tour
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: didn't really extend to that, which I thought was notable.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: So I take like the America first America only to
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: be about being in favor of America first, but not
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: a party that is beholden to Trump, which is, I
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: think what makes it interesting to me, like America only, not,
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: not Trump, just America. Um, So Yair Rosenberg in The
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Atlantic wrote up some open questions for MTG, and I
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: found it useful both because they're good questions, but also
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: it was sort of a bracing bit of cold water
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: about all the different ways in which she's embraced some
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: of the most vile and fringe ideas in politics. MTG
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: posted this about JFK, and I quote, there was once
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: a great president that the American people loved. He opposed
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Israel's nuclear program, and then he was assassinated. That is
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: from June of this year. That is five months ago.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: So I am like- That's the.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Thing you'll hear from the Tucker corners of the world too.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: So she does like- Anyone look into it?
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: No, so listen, hey, just asking questions. So yeah, did
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Israel kill JFK? Honestly, I just learned about this conspiracy
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: theory from MTG, but apparently it's floating around.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: So like I was- If you're watching this on YouTube,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the algorithm will now feed you some interesting stuff.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's two doors before you. But so- Like we
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: had talked about this a bit last week. So Marjorie
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Taylor Greene just starts showing up different. She hadn't yet
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: really done the work of acknowledging.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Some of the ways- So is it really her?
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the other one thing, right? Could this be
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: a Dave situation?
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: For sure, we don't know.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: But I do think that like, okay, we just can't
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: be cheap dates. Like we can be open to this,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: but she has a lot of, there's a lot of
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: ways in which we need to understand how she came
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: to this. Like all politicians are a mix of conviction
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: and calculus. Clearly some of this is ego and sort
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: of ambition- I do view this as someone who is
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: a sincere creation of her self-selecting media diet from both
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: before she was in Congress and after. But she has
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: been in the public eye and a well-known figure with
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: access to a great deal of not just public information,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: but private information as a member of Congress. And she
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: has held pretty heinous and despicable views into the last
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: few weeks. We don't know what views have changed. So
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: I feel like there's still, I want us to just be,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: avoid what we used to be called strange new respect,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: which is whenever a Republican would start to move towards
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: the middle, suddenly the media would sort of embrace them
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: in their growth. And like, I want us to be
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: able to see someone like this change, especially because I
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: agree with you, Tommy, that like, I do think she's
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: a sincere actor, but sort of like, there's still more
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: work to do.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: There's a lot there. Remember when she chased David Hogg around,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: like called him a crisis actor, I think it was
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: part of that conspiracy too.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's, there's two parts of, uh,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: every political leader's persona. There's the policies that you believe,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: like the political beliefs that you hold. And then there's
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: like your style and your rhetoric and how you interact
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and go on TV and talk about other opponents and
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: other politicians. And, and I think that on the substance
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and on the policy, I mean, she says at the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: beginning of that interview with Dana that like, I still
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: support the Trump administration and his agenda, right? Like she's
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: very honest about that. And so she is someone who
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: has held all these views that we're talking about. And
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think she's changed on many of those, like
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you said. So I think she is consistent on that.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I think it is clear that we were all exposed
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: to her for the first however many years of her
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: political career as like a bomb thrower and someone who
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: has matched her policy views, which are extreme, with some
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: pretty extreme and nasty rhetoric. And on that, she's trying
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to make a change, or at least that's what she's
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: claiming right now in these interviews. And I think if
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: you take the cynical view that you don't really trust
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: her sudden conversion, I think that's totally understandable and it
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: may be correct. I'm choosing to hope it's sincere and
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: that she's open. Because if it's sincere... then I think
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: perhaps she's open to hearing the case for supporting other
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: democratic policies and maybe changing her views on some of
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: her more extreme policies. Or maybe not, but it's nice
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: to hear someone apologize for their rhetoric, and that doesn't
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: change her views that I think are, some of them
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: are abhorrent, but I'd rather have someone with abhorrent views
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: who's not out there chasing David Hogg around, being really nasty,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: having rhetoric that potentially incites violence, like good for her
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: for stepping back from the brink if it holds, you know?
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Even from like a maximally cynical point of view, like
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: if attention is everything in politics, she is doing it
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: a smarter way now because it used to be that
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: you could just be a bomb thrower and you say
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: offensive things and you lob crazy accusations. Now everybody's doing that.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Now Randy Fine's out there saying nuke Gaza. So for
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: a pure like attention economy perspective, the smartest thing she
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: can do now is buck her party and go against
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Trump a bit. Now I still tend to think she's
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: sort of just out of fucks to give. And she's
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: saying what she thinks and like, I don't know, she's
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: not going to ever lose, I don't think she's going
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: to lose that primary in her district no matter what.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I was thinking like what you said, she's just like
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: a random person who kind of fell into politics. Like,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: she fell into politics and then fell down a rabbit
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: hole with QAnon and is like that is the archetype
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: for the kind of person who suddenly one day is like,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: what is all this? This is a lot, you know?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And who knows, maybe she's still at the beginning of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: her journey out of the rabbit hole, but like, or
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: maybe not. Maybe she dives right back in and maybe
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: it's all cynical. Maybe, you know, who knows?
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I also, I do think to your point, John,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: like the relationship between style, form and function is actually
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: more complicated. And we've seen this, by the way, like
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: you've seen this with people who, Republicans who turned on
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Trump suddenly have more moderate or even slightly to the
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: left views on policy. Like we're not very, we're not
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: like complete logical beings. And I do think something happens
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: when someone like sheds a kind of vitriolic style and
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: suddenly sees their opponents as human beings. They start to
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: perhaps hear what they have to say. I think that's
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: a long way from here. But like, and by the way,
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: also like Marjorie Taylor Greene she was not a, like
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: we're back to like, ah, you know, these kids, like
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: she was in her forties when she's espousing these views.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: All that's a way of saying like, okay, like these
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: are views she held shallowly perhaps, but it wasn't just
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: that she was in an information environment. She was choosing
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: to be inside of it and sinking inside of it.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: All that's a way of saying like, I like want
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: us to, it's like you have to kind of balance
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: the need for this person to on this journey kind
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: of take accountability because otherwise it won't be sincere. It
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: can't be unless she's acknowledging the ways in which she
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: was not a part of the problem she describes.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm, I guess the only thing I'm getting
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: at is like, there's this tendency to try to figure
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: out whether we should like, you are absolved, you are
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: not absolved. Right. And it's like, as opposed to that
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: being like, well, now she's, maybe she's persuadable. Maybe we
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: can bring her over. Like that to me is more
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: important than whether it's like sincere, not sincere. She did enough.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: She didn't do enough.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, she's also been on this journey for
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: a while. I mean, she gave a speech in 2021, uh, uh,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: apologizing for QAnon, apologizing for some of the things she's done.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: She talked about the David Hogg thing. So this has
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: been like a bit of a journey she's been on.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: I think she's really, like she was a random lady
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: who was in a weird place on the internet and
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: then she got elected to Congress and she was like,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: holy shit, I was wrong about a lot of stuff.
• 24:27
  Speaker 11: Maybe she's kind of.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Happy, too.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Any word on that?
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Those pictures make her look like the boyfriend. I don't
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: know what's happened with his career now.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's weird. Suddenly a new opening in the White
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: House press pool, probably.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for those who don't know, he is a White
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: House correspondent for One America News. No idea. One of
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: those ones that's just right-wing and crazy. But he posted
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: a bunch of photos of them together, and he had
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: his shirt off in a lot of them.
• 24:47
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of his nips in those photos. They
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: seem happy. They seem happy. You know?
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Showed up in Brad Sherman's For You feed, probably. Now
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: we're going off in another direction.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: By the way, I was watching Megyn Kelly talk about this,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: and she said the real sin for Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: was doing it on CNN. Because the one thing you
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: never do is talk about Donald Trump on CNN.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: That's the kind of shit.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: That's tribalism.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: That's the kind of shit I'm talking about, right? Like,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: that is the okay. So anyway, all this gets at
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: a much bigger issue, which is the deepening realization among
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: some Republicans that Trump is, in fact— a lame duck,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and fairly unpopular on top of that. Congressman Thomas Massie,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the one Republican who's consistently been willing to buck Trump
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: and who co-sponsored the Epstein Files discharge petition with Roe,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: laid things out for his colleagues in an appearance on
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: ABC on Sunday morning.
• 25:39
  Speaker 12: I would remind my Republican colleagues who are deciding how
• 25:42
  Speaker 12: to vote, Donald Trump can protect you in red districts
• 25:45
  Speaker 12: right now by giving you an endorsement, but in 2030,
• 25:49
  Speaker 12: He's not going to be the president and you will
• 25:51
  Speaker 12: have voted to protect pedophiles if you don't vote to
• 25:54
  Speaker 12: release these files and the president can't protect you then.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: So I think we all probably want Republicans to believe
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: what Massey said is true, that he's a lame duck
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and you should not have to fear him anymore. To
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: what extent do you guys think they'll listen?
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: I talk about this with Roe too. I mean, Massey
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: is sort of nodding at this bigger problem you mentioned there,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: which is that Trump's iron grip on Republicans has clearly slipped.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: We have evidence of that in so far as the
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Republicans willing to sign this discharge petition before Trump had
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: his change of heart. Let's call it that. And, you know,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: I think Massey's just pointing out the obvious fact that
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Trump won't be around forever. I still don't think we
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: know how long he's going to be around for. You know,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: the guy could decide to like sit in Mar-a-Lago and
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: be kingmaker on the Internet for a decade and endorse
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: in every primary and, you know, attack people for perceived
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: slights and pick sides on issues and still just be
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: real problem. But I think what Tom Massey realizes and
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Marjorie Taylor Greene realizes is there's strength in numbers. And
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: the more people that, you know, defections from Trump will
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: beget more defections and, you know, we'll see more courage.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: So hopefully he's right there and people take it to heart. Like,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: will there be primaries run on whether or not you
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: voted to release the Epstein files? I'm a little more
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: skeptical of that, but it's a bigger point.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I tend to think these guys aren't long-term thinkers.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: I think this is a little bit of wishful thinking.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: And more than that, I actually think when he says
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: Trump will be gone, but you will have voted to
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: conceal information and protect pedophiles, it's less about saying what
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: the future will be and more reminding them what the
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: politics of this vote were. But for Trump, that the
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: politics of this vote, obviously they all want to vote
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: fucking yes on this. And the only reason they wouldn't
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: is because Trump would pose a threat. And so I
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: think it boils down to they'd rather be 30 duck-sized
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Trumps facing one Trump-sized duck. You know what I mean?
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: And that it's much less... This is a way of...
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: That is a signal about strength in numbers than it
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: is about some Trump-less future.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, the one thing that's been true in the
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Trump era is that when he is on the ballot
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: with other Republicans, he brings a lot of them over
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the line and his voters come out and it helps
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans who are otherwise unpopular. And when
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: he's not on the ballot, they're sort of on their
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: own and the Republicans have actually been doing quite poorly
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: in the last 10 years when Donald Trump's not on
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the ballot. And When you think about this, he's never
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: going to be on the ballot with Republicans again. I
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: think they're starting to finally realize this. It was probably
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: like an understated point when he admitted that he cannot
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: run for a third term. Now we know why he
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: was trying to. One reason he might have been trying
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: to keep that out there because it did sort of
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: save him from lame duck status. I think his last
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: hurrah here is trying to endorse primary opponents in the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: upcoming midterms to the extent that that works. And I
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: don't even know if it will.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Not so good in 2022.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Not so good in 2022. And we even have talked
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: about the Indiana Republicans because he is like, you know,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: threatening them that they better gerrymander their map mid-district in
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: advance of the midterms. And they've basically held strong and
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: told them to fuck off. And, you know, he's like
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: tweeting all these kinds of primary threats at them. And
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: so far, it's not moving them at all. One of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the guys who's a Republican leader in the state legislature
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: was swatted, which is the... It's funny because if... if
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: it was a normal president that didn't, hasn't acted like
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: an authoritarian and used like implicit threats of, uh, either
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: losing your job or worse or violence, then we'd be like,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: it's like George W. Bush in the second term of his, uh,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: of his presidency when it was just like all the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Republicans were just jumping ship and they didn't want anything
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to do with George W.
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: Bush.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: And that was it. I do think one of the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: things that keeps people afraid of Trump is that he
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: has this like large apparatus in the state, the power
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: of the state where he like goes after people. And
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: it's kind of scary, but like, I don't know how
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: long that lasts.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: Well, it also, it's, um, it's a much more potent
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: threat because once you've used it, it's really more about
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: the next fight, right? Once Trump has called you out
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: and swatted you and done all of this, you faced it.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: You're on the other side of it. Now that is
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: meant to what control and convince the next state over
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: to do the redistricting, lest you fall prey to the
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: same attacks. But you know, he posted something awful about,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: so Thomas Massey's wife had passed away. And he remarried.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: And Trump posts something just so awful about like that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Passed away last year.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: And he met and married someone.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Which is fine. I'm just saying like to attack him
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: for his wife dying last year.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Well, he's attacking him for getting married too quickly as
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: if there's something shady or despicable about that without knowing
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: the man's life. And a bunch of people.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Someone attacking him, someone who reverts the institution of marriage.
• 30:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: And so a bunch of people came to Massey's defense,
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: in part because I think people view Massey as a
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: sincere operator as well. And also because, first of all,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: we've done this before. Trump has done this for so long.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: It just doesn't pack the same punch. And so you
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: go after the guy in Indiana. He's now been gone after.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: He's on the other side of it. Where's your power?
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: What happens?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Well, just imagine a scenario where we do well in
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the midterms. Democrats do well in the midterms. And the
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Republicans who are left in Congress who've kept their jobs
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: now see what just happened to a bunch of other Republicans.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: And Donald Trump is now really a lame duck president.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: We're heading into the presidential election in 2028. Then I
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: think you start seeing people jump ship.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I hope so. I mean, what he did to Thomas
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: Massey was just so unbelievably cruel. This man's wife of
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: 35 years, they have four kids together, passes away, and
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: you attack him on Twitter because he disagrees. Do you
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: want to vote to protect pedophiles? Like, I think that
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: was probably like scales off moment for a lot of people.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Just what a vicious, cruel person he was. I mean,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: I think like I hope there's more defections. I do
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: think there's a history in the Republican Party of politicians
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: clinging to the last guy way longer than they should.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Like Reagan did it with Nixon. Nixon did it with Goldwater,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: all because the next person to run for president knows
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: that the base is going to like Trump for a
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: very long time and they're going to want to reach
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: those voters. So we'll see. But, you know, it would
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: be nice if they all were just a little bit
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: less afraid of him.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is why J.D. Vance is
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: not going to have the easiest time getting the nomination.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: He still might. But like he he's stuck because he
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: can't be critical of Donald Trump because he's the vice president.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: And so he's going to have to do the He's
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: going to be on The View someday, and they're going
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: to say, is there anything you would have done differently?
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: No, nothing.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: He's going to say, nothing comes to mind.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Nothing comes to mind.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: That's going to be his thing. So, you know, there
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: very well could be a challenger of the populist right style,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson or someone like that to J.D. Vance's right.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: It's also just.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I'm getting ahead of myself, I know.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: I know. There's a funny... A week and a half ago,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: two weeks ago, Trump is threatening a third term. We're
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: kind of in this authoritarian dissent. And it is amazing
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: how normal, a version of normal politics kind of manages
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: to intercede. It is sort of part of the weakness,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: the inherent weakness in any sort of effort to like
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: accumulate so much power, which is like, these are all
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: human beings and their actual differences start to break through.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Like democracy has self-defense mechanisms built into it. And it
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: has been heartening to see, it doesn't mean things aren't
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: dangerous and democracy isn't at risk, but We have some
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: we have some wind in our backs here.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I know. But, you know, it's funny. I had that
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: same thought and I've had it since because the elections
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: went well. Then we then he's clearly on his heels
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: in this Epstein stuff and affordability. And then over the
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: weekend when I saw like ice arrive in Charlotte and
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: just the brutality and then, you know, more investigations into
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: more Democrats he doesn't like and all this kind of stuff.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, as he becomes more unpopular and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: and as his people, Stephen Miller, Jada Vance, all the
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: rest of them feel it slipping away. like they will
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: get more dangerous and they do have a lot of power.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: And so I do worry about like the next turn
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of this where they're feeling cornered and then start just,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: you know, clamping down even harder.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Blowing up boats in the Caribbean, potential war with Venezuela,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: immigration crackdown, the efforts to go after political enemies. And
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: then on the other hand of it, you have the
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Comey investigation potentially falling apart. It's going to be a
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: fucking messy slog, but it's not foretold is all.
• 33:47
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 33:56
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• 35:01
  Speaker 1: slash crooked. Speaking of Republican defections, we also have a
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: new development in the Intramaga fight over whether or not
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Hitler fans are good. We've talked about how this got
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: kicked up after Tucker Carlson invited white nationalist lunatic Nick
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Fuentes on his show for a softball interview where none
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: of his most vile comments were challenged. Trump got asked
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: about this on Sunday night. Here's what he said.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: We've had some.
• 35:26
  Speaker 11: Great interviews with Tucker Carlson, but you can't tell him
• 35:29
  Speaker 11: who to interview. I mean, if he wants to interview
• 35:31
  Speaker 11: Nick Fuentes, I don't know much about him, but if
• 35:34
  Speaker 11: he wants to do it, get the word out. Let him,
• 35:36
  Speaker 11: you know, people have to decide. Ultimately, people have to decide.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: You yourself had dinner with Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago a
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: few years ago.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: What role should he play in the conservative movement?
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Well, I didn't know he.
• 35:46
  Speaker 11: Was coming, and he was with, as you know, somebody, Kanye.
• 35:50
  Speaker 11: Meeting people, talking to people, like, for somebody like Tucker Carlson,
• 35:54
  Speaker 11: That's what they do.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: You know, people are controversial.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Some are, some aren't.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: I'm not controversial, so I like it that way.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: That was funny. That last line was just funny.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Get the word out was confusing. What did get the
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: word out mean? get the word out about Tucker interviewing someone?
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: I can't tell if it was just like, it's more
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: of like a let people decide.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: You know, you decide.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Because he's very big on just the interview going out
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: as is and not complaining about it, you know?
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Most of that was, yeah, most of that was the
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: defense of Tucker Carlson.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Paging 60 Minutes.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Most of that was the defense of Tucker Carlson. And
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I think just an instinctive sense that anything that like
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: touches the stove of cancel culture against a conservative is
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: going to be very unpopular among Republicans. Of course, we're
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: always good with canceling Democrats and we always will be.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: That's the pox here.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was weird. I mean, he was never,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Trump was also never willing to admit he made a mistake,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: especially not to a reporter at a gaggle. So he
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: wasn't gonna be like, yeah, I probably shouldn't have dined
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: with that neo-Nazi. I do think the way he's telling
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: the story there is sort of how it's been told
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: by Fuentes and others, which is like Kanye West had
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: a dinner with Trump scheduled and then like Nick Fuentes
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: came and maybe Trump didn't know who he was or
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: maybe he did and he just didn't do anything about it.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: But it's all just very weird. But the funny thing
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: about that is like, Fuentes is shitting on Trump right now.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: He's saying MAGA is dead. He's attacking him over Epstein.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: He's attacking him on Iran, on Gaza. The list goes
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: on and on. Either Trump doesn't know that or like J.D. Vance,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: he's too much of a wimp to punch back to
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: anyone to his right.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: And Fuentes, in addition to just being vile and horrible,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: is quite a troll. And of course, posted, thank you, Mr. President,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: in response to that, even though he's been shitting all
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: over him.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: 2017, there's the Unite the Right rally. Heather Heyer is killed.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: He goes out there and he says, many sides, very
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: fine people on both sides. In between the two statements
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: in which he made those kinds of moral equivocations, he
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: went out to the podium and he said, racism is evil.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: And those who cause violence in its name are criminals
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: dear as Americans. He did that in part because there
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: was a massive backlash to what he had said at first,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: and he was facing, which feels like from another era,
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: threats of resignation from inside the White House, because he
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: was so equivocated so much.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: The Committee to Save America was up in arms.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: And a year later, Bob Wood reports that Trump considered
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: this to be the biggest fucking mistake I've made, the
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: worst speech I've ever given, because he was conceding. So
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: then he goes out the next day. That's actually when
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: he makes the most famous version of the comment, which
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: is very fine people on both sides. And from that moment,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: he has really taken this to heart that you, uh,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: that you kind of, when you were pressed by the
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: media on these far right figures, you don't give an inch.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: You say, you don't know, you.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Say you're confused.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: You say it's you, that you, you hedge, uh, you're
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: not familiar, uh, but you don't concede and you don't punch, uh, uh,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: these alt-right figures. You don't punch to the right if
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: you want to call it that. And so I think
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: that's what he's, uh, That's what he's just doing here again,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: the same way he didn't hear the question about David Duke,
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: stand back and stand by. This is what he does, right?
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: He's sending a signal to these kinds of people that
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: he's not going to take a swipe at them while
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: talking to mainstream reporters.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I do think the more interesting question here is the
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: staying power of this rift beyond Trump. I know, Tommy,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you follow this closely. The impact on J.D. Vance, on Tucker,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: where this goes from here, what do you think?
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I think this debate is about the future of the
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: MAGA movement This is the whole thing. And at least
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: that's how Nick Fuentes is framing it. And he's saying
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: MAGA is dead, America first is the future, and America
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: first is how I define it, which is far more
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: right-wing and reactionary and anti-Semitic. And basically, Fuentes is calling
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: out um, some real Republican hypocrisy, which is that, uh,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: he could, he says I could walk out on stage
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: or I'll turn on my show tomorrow and say, Islam
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: is a disgrace. We should kill all Muslims. We should
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: banish them from our country and no one, the Republican
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: party would bat an eye, or I could log in
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: and say something really, really racist. And I would face
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: no blowback from the Republican party. But if I say
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: something that's anti-Semitic, I face all this blowback. Um, and
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: so he is observing something that is true about MAGA
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: and what they say about cancel culture, but he's doing
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: it in service of making the entire movement anti-Semitic even
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: more vile, which speaks to how dangerous he is.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah. His point is there shouldn't be an exception.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: He wants the Islamophobia applied to the Jews.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Because he's like, look at Laura Loomer. She's Trump's friend.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: She's in the White House, right? Like she said all
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: these vile things. If you find and replace Islam for Judaism,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: why does that make me outside the pale? And like,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: I think that argument has a lot of purchase on
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: the far right. And it's a scary thing. It's also
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: wild to me that J.D. Vance has still not... So, like,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: in 2024, in the summer of 2024, J.D. Vance was
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: interviewed by Margaret Brennan, asked about Nick Fuentes. It was
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: the only time he's been asked about Nick Fuentes because
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: he had just said something horrible about Usha. And he said, oh,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: he's a total loser. And that was that. But in
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: this latest, Dust Up has said nothing. And then over
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: the weekend, someone on Twitter, I didn't recognize... said something
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: about how Tucker Carlson's son, Buckley, I believe, works for J.D. Vance,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: is like a top staffer for J.D.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Vance. And it's like, well, J.D. like somehow said, well,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: because of Tucker and it's Tucker's son and tried to
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: like attack J.D. Vance via Tucker's son and whatever. And J.D.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Vance like flipped out, did one of his like, I'm
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: going to start doing a whole tweet thread to someone
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: random on Twitter. And it's just wild that he like,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I understand that he came to the defense of his
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: staffer who he likes. But he does all this and
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: still says nothing about Fuentes, nothing about Tucker. He's just
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: completely just skipped this debate.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: He went looking for a place inside of the story
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: where he could be aggrieved without commenting on the main
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: story itself. Pete Buttigieg was asked about Vance in an
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: interview and said, do you think J.D. Vance is a fascist?
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: And Pete's answer was awesome. It was something like, I
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: think J.D. Vance will be a fascist if it's useful
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: to be a fascist. If it's useful for him to
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: be something else, he'll be something else. He'll be a
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: Silicon Valley fascist. Democrat again if he needs to be.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: And I do think that just captures the man so perfectly.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Pete and I talked about this when I interviewed him.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: And I'm not sure I agree. I feel like there's
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: a chance that J.D. Vance has been, I don't know
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: if he genuinely believes at all, but I think he
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: is now in a place where he justifies to himself
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: that all of these views aren't really as bad as
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: he used to think they are. Oh, I don't think
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: he's going back anytime soon.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know what going back looks like. I don't
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: I you know, I part of being such a political
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: animal is knowing that he can't you can't change back.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: But so he's a bit stuck and he can like
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: a great politician. He'll be for what he needs to
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: be for. But I do think that that speaks to
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: a lot of how he got to where he is.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I'm sure he has talked himself into it
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: and how he didn't understand the deep the deep intellectual
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: rigor that sits just beneath the surface of MAGA. Like,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: I know he seems to have convinced himself of that.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I think he's also seen that being a class traitor
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: has worked really well for Trump. And in a way, J.D.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Vance is sort of a class traitor in terms of like,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: you know, he was in these elite circles in Silicon
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Valley and did all this stuff. And it's trying to
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: say like, oh, I've seen the elite in the establishment.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: And let me tell you, they're really bad. Do you
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: see the Axios story on Ted Cruz, how he's been
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: he's been very critical of Tucker and Fuentes. And there's
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Framing this as him sort of laying the groundwork for
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a 2028 primary run against the J.D. Vance of the
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: world because he's going to be the pro-Israel calling out
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: anti-Semitism candidates in the Republican Party.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: I would love to see Republican parties defeat the Groypers.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Ted Cruz cannot be your fighter. Please choose a better fighter.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: He was the last, I agree, but he was the
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: last man standing in 2016. And he actually, up until
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: the moment he said one brave thing at the convention
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: and then gave up on it five seconds later, he
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: held up.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: He held on.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: He still takes personality and whole vibe.
• 44:12
  Speaker 13: I know.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: Strong.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: But he was the last one.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: He made it all the way to the, he, he
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: made it further than anybody else.
• 44:17
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that, I think those days, I think
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: it was a different time and a different, different, different
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: moment for the Republican party.
• 44:21
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: If I had to bet on where the energy is
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: in the Republican primary, it's a, it would be not
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz for sure.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 44:27
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Honestly, unfortunately, as much as I detest Ted Cruz, I
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: would rather that side win for America here, but I
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: worry much more about the Tucker, Nick Fuentes, uh, segment
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: of this party. Believe it or not, this is supposed
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: to be affordability week at the White House, which seems
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: like one reason they're trying to push Epstein out of
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the news. Trump's also speaking after we record this on
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Monday night at a conference on affordability hosted by McDonald's.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I should do the trick. Perhaps he'll talk there about
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: his latest attempt to take credit for solving a problem
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: that he caused. The White House announced late last week
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: that Trump's eliminating tariffs on around 200 food items, including
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: staples like beef, coffee, bananas, and orange juice. The problem
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: for Trump's economic advisors is that they're still not allowed
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge either mistakes or reality, especially when it comes
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: to the economy. Here's top White House economist Kevin Hassett
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: really struggling through interviews with ABC's John Carl on Sunday
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: morning and CNBC's Joe Kernan on Monday.
• 45:25
  Speaker 14: The president claims that Thanksgiving costs are down 25%. I mean,
• 45:29
  Speaker 14: does he know that's not true?
• 45:31
  Speaker 9: Well, if you look at Walmart and the few places
• 45:34
  Speaker 9: that put out their prices.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute.
• 45:37
  Speaker 14: I got to stop because the Walmart comparisons like not.
• 45:40
  Speaker 14: I mean, Walmart had a Thanksgiving package last year. They've
• 45:44
  Speaker 14: got a Thanksgiving package this year.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: The one this year.
• 45:48
  Speaker 14: Contains much less than what the one last year took.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: So that's why the price is less.
• 45:51
  Speaker 14: If you're going to the store to buy groceries for Thanksgiving,
• 45:54
  Speaker 14: it's going to be more expensive.
• 45:56
  Speaker 9: I really don't understand where you're going in the sense
• 45:59
  Speaker 9: that Joe Biden gave us, Joe.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: Biden gave us 20% inflation. He's not president. Donald Trump's president.
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: When you keep saying prices are falling, that's not true.
• 46:08
  Speaker 7: And I think you should admit that.
• 46:10
  Speaker 9: A more precise way to say it, though, Joe, is
• 46:13
  Speaker 9: that purchasing power has gone up. So real wages, that's
• 46:16
  Speaker 9: W divided by P for our technical people in the audience.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Put him out everywhere. They're economic. They have a crack
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: economic team. We got the soybean farmer, Scott Besson, out
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: there crushing it. Kevin Hassett. It's wild.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: If you had to choose between, I was thinking about this.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: If you had to choose one person to go out
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: to defend the administration, would you choose Besson or would
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: you choose Hassett?
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, best in all day. I think Hassett's got like
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: this hapless chipmunk vibe. He's like always kind of like
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: trying to laugh his way through being an idiot.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: I do think it really kind of just highlights your
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: out of touch. Give me the corpse all day every year. No, no.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: And it was really, really good.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 46:52
  Speaker 8: Sorry.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: It was like he was in the room, right?
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: But you see that Hassett in that interview was asking
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: about the labor market being soft and he said that
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: he thought the labor market was in a bit of
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: quiet time. He said that it was in a quiet
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: time because of AI. And he's like quiet, like Be
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: very quiet. The economy is sleeping.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: I hate that I'm about to say this, but a
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: more effective messenger would be even fucking Stephen Miller than
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: these guys because he would just scream and bowl the
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: interviewer over.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: I'll kill your family.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Like you need at least a fucking America first messenger
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: out there to just like do the other side. But
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: like these two fucking. I want them out there all
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: In their defense, it is tough to walk out there
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: and be like, isn't it great? We got rid of
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: all these tariffs we put in place. How awesome is this, everybody?
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: I was banging my head against the wall. It feels
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: so good when I stop.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: That's literally the only option is to scream over the interviewer,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: which neither of these two are going to do. So obviously,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I think we all agree that they're not crushing the
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: messaging just yet. But the best case scenario for Trump
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: and Republicans is that they alleviate some of the tariff pain,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: potentially figure out a way to send out some kind
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: of tariff dividend check to people before the midterms, which
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Trump again floated in the Oval on Monday, and do
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: something on healthcare, which we'll get to in a second.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And then I guess hope that people's economic reality eventually
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: catches up with their messaging that everything's great. But I
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: don't know. I'm just trying to give them their best
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: case here. But what do you guys think?
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: The best case is no one sees that interview, first
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: of all. And then people feel some sort of slight
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: decrease in prices. But I mean, I think inflation is
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: down from the worst... kind of like 9% peak of
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: the Biden era, but it's still at around 3%, which
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: is above the Fed's target of 2%.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: And it's quiet time in the labor market.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: And it's quiet time in the labor market.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: But also like.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Well, we make room for the robots. Oh, God.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: But like the real prices of goods are not going
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: to come down in real terms. So people are not
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: going to feel like there is relief. There's no silver
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: bullet for Trump when it comes to housing, for example,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: even a 50-year mortgage or a 500-year mortgage is never
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: going to flow. I guess like he could like pull
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: together OPEC and be like, engineer some dip in gas prices.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: But I don't even think that's real. So at the
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: same time, though, he's demanding a Fed rate cut. He's
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: going for this tariff dividend idea, both of which would
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: exacerbate inflation. So I guess the best option is better
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: messaging that shows you care, you hear people, you're fighting
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: for them. But instead, the message coming out of Donald
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Trump's mouth is like, this is all bullshit. Things are fine.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Stop talking about it. Yeah.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: So- first of all, you have to get a tariff
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: dividend check through Congress, or at least one would think
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: you'd have to get it through Congress and they could
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: try to come up with some way around that. And
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: so that's some deficit. The only way it makes sense
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: is if it's deficit spending. It's not putting more money
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: in people's pockets. If you're not putting money in people's pockets,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: if you're just returning the tariffs back to people, you're
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: not lowering the cost of living.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Also, you'd have to do it through a reconciliation bill
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: next year, which, again, has to be revenue neutral. It
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: has to be deficit neutral on that. So, like, that's
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: not going to work.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Or you just do it like the East Wing, you know?
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right. But I don't know how you do it
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: through a Republican house.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Scott, you run the machines. Just print the money.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Turn it on.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know how you get this through a house
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: that already feels like they were bullied into getting behind
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: the last spending bill. They put all their money into
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: tax cuts. for the wealthy. There's just, there's no way
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: to make it work.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: We're not even talking about the fact that if the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court rules against him, there's not going to be
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of revenue to give out from the tariff.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Though politically, that might save him or might help him.
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: Maybe.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: Maybe it stops some of the pain. But even, let's
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: say you even follow this to its logical end and
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: he sends some $ 200 to $ 500 tariff check to half
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: the country. Does that resolve the fact that people feel
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: like their cost of living has gone up, that they've
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: not been made better off by this? People understand that
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: a one-time check doesn't undo what their daily experience is.
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:53
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• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk healthcare just for a minute. On January 1st,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: premiums will go up for 20 million people when the
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act subsidies expire. A few weeks before that,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: as part of the shutdown deal, Democrats are supposed to
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: get a vote in the Senate on whether or not
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: to extend the ACA subsidies. But instead of just coming
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: out in support or opposition to that extension... Trump and
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Republicans are reportedly trying to once again come up with
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: an Obamacare replacement, at least for the subsidies. The Washington
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Post has a good rundown of the various options they're considering,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: but much of the discussion has focused on some version
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: of paying the subsidies directly to people instead of the
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: insurance companies. Right now, the subsidies go to the insurance
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: companies and the insurance companies are required to pass the
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: savings on to the consumer. This, I guess, would give
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: them to the people, even though it would be in
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: a health savings account And you'd only be able to
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: use the money for out-of-pocket costs like glasses or dental
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: work and not actual insurance premiums. This is the general idea.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Of course, different legislation could change, but this is sort
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: of the Bill Cassidy, the doctor in the Senate from Louisiana,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: has sort of floated this idea. The problem here, one
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: of the many problems, is it could cause younger, healthier
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: people to just go without health insurance, just take their
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: health savings account money and just walk away. And at
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: that point, that would then cause insurance companies to raise
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: premiums on all the older, sicker people who are left
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: buying Affordable Care Act plans and who tend to need
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: care the most.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: And by the way, a lot of those younger people
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: forego insurance and they become the unlucky subset of the
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: young people that have catastrophic health insurance costs that they
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: can no longer afford. They have to either declare bankruptcy
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: or in some way those costs get shifted back onto
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: other insurance payers.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: It's a.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Last week, there was a report that House Republicans were
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: going to start doing whiteboard sessions where they're going to
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: start doing some brainstorming about what to do to fix Obamacare.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: This is November. The premiums ostensibly go up on January 1st.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: This is the most fucking college term paper all night
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: or bullshit. No, you're not going to fundamentally fix the
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: healthcare system by rushing through something in in six weeks. Like, oh,
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: you want to do health savings accounts? Like, what's your
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: plan for catastrophic? Like, all this is fucking crazy. Like,
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: the plan, like, 2008, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: basically a year-long debate about the exact details of their
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: healthcare plan. Mandates, no mandates, how to do insurance, catastrophic care,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: all of it. But pre-existing conditions, that culminates in a
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: year-long process to pass a bill. Like, they're trying to
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: fucking jam some dumb thing they can think of to
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: get around the fact that People are about to be fucked?
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, seems like a bad idea. It's crazy. It is
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: very funny that, it's not funny in any way, it
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: is amazing that their solution to a very real policy
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: and political problem is to do something that would create
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: the worst case scenario. Basically to send the insurance market
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: into a death spiral that could lead to 10 to
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: 20 million more people uninsured, especially crushing older people, working
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: class people, people in rural areas who would have no
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: providers anymore. You would see a wave of bankruptcies. And
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: they're doing this in the face of a policy. If
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: they just simply extended the ACA tax credits, it would
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: get about 75% approval.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: And I'm still not sure why they're doing or what
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: they hope to achieve here, because this is not going
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: to pass. Because I don't think it's sort of far
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: right enough for House Republicans, whatever it is. And so
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know that it's actually going to I don't
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: know if it's going to pass. I guess they want
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: an alternative to be able to say, this is why
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: we didn't vote for the Democratic extension of the ACA subsidies.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: But that also then leaves them, again, holding the bag
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: when premiums go up and everyone's going to blame them, rightly.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: So I don't really know what they're trying to do here.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: They've painted themselves into the stupidest politics possible, which is
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: they've now... So if they do nothing, the whole bunch
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: of people lose their health insurance subsidies. But in order
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: to fix that problem, they have to start from the
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: baseline we're at now, which is they have to create
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: some kind of new replacement subsidy.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: The debate we've been having for literally 10 years.
• 56:27
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: So had they just left the subsidies in place, they
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: could actually have a debate that's, I think, better politics
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: for Republicans, which is how to reform the subsidies in
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: a way that is conservative, which is actually, just to
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: be needlessly generous to these people, they have sincere objections
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: on policy grounds to some of the ways in which
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Obamacare operates. Like when they talk about health savings accounts,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: they would prefer a system in which you have health
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: savings accounts for routine care and something more like catastrophic
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: care in other forms, whether insurance, risk pools, whatever it
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: would look like. They have a different idea of what
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: it should look like. Fine. But they have never been
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: able to actually put together a plan that they could
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: all collectively get behind to actually replace Obamacare. So now
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: they're in the worst possible situation, which they have to
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: try to what? Get Republicans to vote for some kind
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: of middle ground between nothing and Obamacare when all of
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: them would, when the freaks would rather just do nothing,
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: let the whole system burn.
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: No way.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: No way.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All right. Last thing to cover here. There's so
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: much in the Epstein files that have already been released
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: and we haven't had time to cover all the salacious
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: and outrageous emails, including one from Epstein's brother, Mark, that
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: has really taken the internet by storm. Luckily for all
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: of us, the Saturday Night Live cold open made an
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: oblique reference to this. Here's James Austin Johnson playing Trump
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: in the White House briefing room.
• 57:40
  Speaker 7: I said I kicked Jeffrey out because he was a pedophile,
• 57:43
  Speaker 7: but then I also said I didn't know he did
• 57:46
  Speaker 7: anything wrong. So it's kind of hard to square that
• 57:48
  Speaker 7: circle until you realize that Trump exists across many timelines.
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: It's the Trump multiverse theory.
• 57:57
  Speaker 7: We just happen to be living in the worst possible one. Now,
• 58:01
  Speaker 7: if you'll excuse me, I'm going to release all of
• 58:04
  Speaker 7: the Epstein files.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: This is great.
• 58:06
  Speaker 7: Each file will be on sale for the low.
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: Low price of $ 800. You know, this is.
• 58:11
  Speaker 7: A beautiful one-of-a-kind printed-out screenshot in very low res of
• 58:17
  Speaker 7: one of the many files mentioning President Trump. I just
• 58:20
  Speaker 7: ordered the one that says, does Putin have the photo
• 58:22
  Speaker 7: of Trump blowing Bubba?
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: We love that. Whatever the hell that means.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: So two things to note here. One is that Mark
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Epstein has given a statement saying that the Bubba in
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: question is not Bill Clinton, but in fact, a private
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: citizen who remains nameless. We don't know who that is.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: And two, we spent 10 minutes of our production meeting
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: this morning trying to explain this to love it, that
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: you have somehow missed that this has taken the internet
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: by storm. This is one of the most viral things
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: that I've seen out of it. He was like, what
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: do you mean the big, beautiful bill?
• 58:59
  Speaker 10: Nice.
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: So I had seen all these jokes about blowjobs and
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: I tried, like, it was actually very difficult. I Googled,
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: you know, Trump, Bill Clinton, blowjob.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Oh boy.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: You found some good stuff, right?
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: I tried to search around. I couldn't find the underlying
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: Epstein email that led to all of this because I
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: somehow had missed it. And then the news had moved
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: beyond me. I was a low information voter when it
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: came to the fact that everybody was joking about Donald
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Trump blowing Bill Clinton.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: You didn't see the photo that was Trump in the
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: I drained the swamp shirt and then Bill Clinton shirt
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: just said swamp.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: You didn't see everyone calling him throatus.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: I saw that. I didn't understand why everybody was doing this.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: And then everybody was texting me these jokes. And I
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: was like, ha, ha, ha, ha.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: I am part of it. New throat coat.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Candidates who blew Bill Clinton received 94.3% of the vote
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: in the 2016 election. The highest for any American election.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: One of the many.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: I hadn't seen that one.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Also, here's a tweet. PolitiFact actually had to put this out. PolitiFact,
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: a video showing President Donald Trump patting former President Bill
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: Clinton's crotch was generated with artificial intelligence using a 2000
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: still photo taken at the U.S. Open where it just
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: appears that his hand is near his crotch. The photographer
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: said Trump didn't grope Clinton.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: As far as he knows. More like U.S.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: Open relationship.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Huh?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: How about that? That was good.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 11: How about that?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: There is one media soothsayer out there. who basically predicted
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: this whole controversy. I asked the team to pull a
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: clip for you guys that John and John have not
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: seen yet.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: So let's watch that.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 13: There's no video of President Trump sucking a ding-dong.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: And so what if there was? That's a lot better
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: than World War III, Owen.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 13: I never sucked any ding-dongs. But I'll tell you, if
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 13: they were going to blackmail me to start World War
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 13: III about one, I'd say, hey, I sucked a golf
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 13: ball through a freaking garden hose.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Didn't you already tell Der Spiegel that?
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: There we have it. Didn't you already tell Der Spiegel that?
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: What a funny quote.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: Didn't you already tell Der Spiegel that?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: Of course.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: I guess what he's saying is, in fairness, Alex Jones,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: he's saying there that had I been, had I performed
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: a blowjob and it had been secretly recorded as a
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: means of blackmail, I would put the country first.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the context was like bombing Syria or something.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: But you know.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: This one really just sort of just. broke out of
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: the like political junkie container.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: Everyone I know.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Like everyone, like it really, it was, it's like one
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: of the bigger things. Okay. One of the more, one
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: of the more viral stories.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: One of the more extra medium things to, to burst
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: out of the news cycle as it were.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: And then, and then Trump today says, I lost my
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: voice because I blew my stack. Just do you think something,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: do you think they had to explain it to him?
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: I bet they took a pass on this one.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: You think so?
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: I think the reason Trump is not.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: It's going to be hard to avoid.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: I think the reason Trump is not posting about South
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: Park is everybody goes like this.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: Everyone decides like, you know what? He doesn't need to
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: know that this ever happened.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Who's doing the Hawk Tua briefing? Not me.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 8: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of Hawk Tua memes as well.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Trump is Hawk. Yeah. Trump is the face.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Hawk Tua. What a time that was.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: The TikToks have been out of control.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: AI. It's poof.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: Some good music too. There's a.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: There's a. very weird Hamilton remix.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: What? I haven't seen that.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Go check that out. Take your shot.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: Is that what it's about?
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: Did I get it?
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: No, it's not the shot. It's the one where he's
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: cheating on his, it's that whole, it's that song.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: Ah, yes.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Remixed, yeah. Beautiful. Anyway, good stuff. I feel like it was,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I was like paying attention to it all weekend.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I think that the internet needed this, right? Like,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: it is obviously the underlying story here is horrific. All
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: of the stories of the Trump administration are horrific. There's
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: some funny jokes here that everyone can kind of get behind.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: We deserve to make fun of the man who is
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: suppressing these files.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. For sure. For sure.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: Hey, absolutely.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 13: All right.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: When we come back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: conversation with Ro Khanna about the big win on the
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein vote and what the fuck is happening with our
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: military pressure on Venezuela. See, another story. That's not great.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: But a few quick announcements before we get to that.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I know everyone's still celebrating our wins in the off-year
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: election two weeks ago, but We've actually got another one
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: to try to win. We are two weeks out from
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: a special election in Tennessee's 7th District, which includes parts
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: of Nashville and lots of areas to the west of it,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: to replace Republican Mark Green, who stepped down. This is
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: a Trump plus 22 district. But we have a chance here.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: And Republicans seem to be getting a little nervous, despite
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: the fact that it is a Trump plus 22 district.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: The Democratic nominee is State Representative Afton Bain.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: And she's great.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: You can go to votesaveamerica.com to find out how to
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: get involved, whether you live in the district. And if
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: you don't, Votes Save America will help you figure out
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: what to tell the people in your life who might
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: live in the district. It would be a huge pickup
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: if we could make it happen, needless to say.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: And the freak out that would follow.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, it would be incredible.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: Look, it's going to be hard, but man, what a
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: beautiful thing that would be.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Also, Strict Scrutiny is headed west for live shows in
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: San Francisco on March 6th at the Herbst Theater and
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: in L.A. on March 7th at the Palace Theater. Get
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: your tickets now at cricket.com slash events before they sell out. Finally,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: holiday merch. It's up in the Crooked store right now.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Some fan favorites are back in new colors and we
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: have new items as well. Go get started on your
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: shopping now at crooked.com slash store. When we come back,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Ro Khanna. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. This November,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: BetterHelp is encouraging everyone to reach out, check in on friends,
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• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: My guest today represents California's 17th Congressional District, Congressman Khanna.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: Ro Khanna, welcome back to Patsy of America.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 6: Congrats on the Crooked Con Conference.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: I'm hoping that becomes a yearly tradition.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: Me too. And thank you for being there. And thank
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: you for kicking it off with me and Ben Rhodes
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: and Yasmeen Ansari. Talking about foreign policy, it warmed my
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: nerdy little heart to get the geek out with you guys.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: But we want to talk domestic politics today. So you
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: and Republican Congressman Thomas Massey have spent the last few
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: months gathering signatures on something called a discharge petition, which
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: for listeners unfamiliar with kind of procedural tools in the House,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: basically is just a way for members like yourself to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: force a vote on a specific bill or issue. You
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: recently got 218 signatures on a petition that that would
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: force a vote on the release of the Epstein files,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: this despite Donald Trump reportedly whipping Republicans very hard against it.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: He had meetings in the Situation Room with members of Congress.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: He was calling them, haranguing them. Then on Sunday night,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: Trump did a total 180, and he said Republicans should
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: support the release of the Epstein files. What did you
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: make of this flip-flop? And then what happens next with
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: your bill?
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: Well, he could do math.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: Thomas Massey and I had over 50 Republicans ready to
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 6: vote for my underlying bill. I mean, it's a Democratic
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 6: bill against Donald Trump. And that would have been a
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 6: colossal embarrassment for him. So instead, he caved and he surrendered.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: And the real heroes, of course, are the survivors. I mean,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 6: they've been denied justice for over a decade. I mean,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: what happened here is just horrific, right? I mean, you
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 6: had Epstein with basically a rape violent.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: And.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: rich and powerful men who had given all this money
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 6: to politicians and cavorted with bankers, thinking the rules didn't
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: apply to them. And these women were raped as girls
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: or sex trafficked and over a thousand victims.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: And for over a decade, nothing has happened.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 6: So he realized that we had a coalition that was outraged,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: standing with these survivors.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: And he saw the writing on the wall. I saw it.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: So what happens next procedurally? I mean, will there be
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: a vote? There's some reports that it might be Tuesday.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: But I mean, is there a chance leadership might decide, OK,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: now that Trump is for this, we'll put forward our
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: own our own kind of Republican vehicle? Like, how does
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: this work?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I mean, they've folded. They're doing the vote
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 6: at 315 tomorrow. We have a press conference where the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 6: survivors are coming in at 10 in.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: The morning in front of the Capitol.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 6: And, you know, to break a little bit of news,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: I've been in touch with Merkley and Murkowski's office in
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: the Senate. They expect actually now that this will quickly
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 6: go through the Senate, which would be enormous. I mean,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 6: just last week, if you had asked me, I would
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 6: have said uphill battle, both in the House and the Senate.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: And now it looks like it's going to pass both
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 6: the House and the Senate, which is a testament to
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: why organizing matters, why survivors speaking out. matter, and really
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 6: why the grassroots mobilization has worked.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I should say we're recording this Monday at
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: about noon Pacific time, so when Congressman Connors says vote tomorrow,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: that means Tuesday. I, too, was surprised by the change
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: in tone coming out of the Senate. I mean, initially,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: John Thune, the leader, was saying he didn't think we
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: needed a vote. Now it sounds like there will be one.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think Donald Trump would still have to
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: sign this bill into law, right? Is there any chance
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: he might veto it?
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: Oh, Donald Trump, nothing is predictable.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: I mean, two days ago, he was unendorsing Marjorie Taylor
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 6: Greene and threatening every person who voted for our bill
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: to be unendorsed. And Matthew and I were in a
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 6: panic wondering whether we would have defections and then Of course,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 6: people held, and so Trump saw the numbers. I'd be
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 6: surprised if he vetoes it. I do think he would
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 6: sign it. That in itself is going to be an
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: enormous deal of the Congress and the president basically assuming
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: accountability for these survivors. I hope, and I'm going to
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 6: ask tomorrow at our press conference for him to meet
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 6: the survivors. I think that's important for them. I know
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: it's important for them, and it's important for the country,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 6: for them.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: To be uplifted. But the challenge after that is to
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: actually get the release of the files.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 6: You know, there's some concern that he's initiated these quote
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: unquote investigations and he may use that as an excuse to.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: Delay the release of these files.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: There's a concern about him being selective about the prosecutions.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: And both Massey and I have said from day one,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 6: we don't care if they're Democrats or Republicans implicated, but
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 6: we want it to be fair and we want to
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 6: make sure that it's not done through a political partisan lens.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's this belief in kind of the right-wing circles
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: that Democrats don't want the Epstein files released because all
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: of us are trying to cover up for Bill Clinton
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: or something. It's like, absolutely not. If Bill Clinton is
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: in these files, release all of them. I want to
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: see all of it. But you're making the point that Trump,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: he recently posted this message on Truth Social calling on
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: the Attorney General and Pam Bondi to investigate Bill Clinton,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, a bunch of other Democrats. Over
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: the weekend, Congressman Massey said these new investigations could be
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: a smokescreen in a way to avoid having to release
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: more documents. Can you explain that a little bit? Like
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: how could a new investigation impede the release that you're
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: calling for?
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 6: The Justice Department could say it's currently being investigated and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 6: so it would compromise our investigation if we made these
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 6: documents public. I mean, that would be a smokescreen, as
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 6: Massey pointed out, but I don't put anything past the
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 6: Justice Department. And the reality is that at this point,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 6: we need the information to be public. The ability to
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 6: prosecute people for what happened is very, unlikely. I mean,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 6: we should do it if it really leads to that.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 6: But justice has been sitting on this for years. What
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 6: the survivors want is a public accountability. They don't want
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 6: people sitting on the boards of companies, having buildings named
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 6: after them, having scholarships being named after them, being given
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: awards when they engage either in the rape of underage
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 6: girls or in sex trafficking or in the cover up
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 6: of this. And they want a public accountability. That's what
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 6: the survivors are asking for. And so we are going
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 6: to continue to push for the full release of these
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: files and not let some partisan investigation be an excuse
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: to prevent that.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: Over the weekend, I saw that Trump, he posted this
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: bizarre message on Truth Social where he went after Congressman
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: Massey for getting remarried. He suggested it was like he
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: got remarried too quickly. And then he said, quote, his
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: wife will soon find out that she's stuck with a loser,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: end quote. So it's my understanding that Congressman Massey got
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: remarried after his wife passed away last year. This was his,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: I think, high school sweetheart who he was married to
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: for 30 years. They had four kids together. What did
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: you make of that message? And have you talked to
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: Congressman Massey about getting attacked on such like vicious personal
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: terms like that?
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: I have.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: Look, Thomas Massey has become a friend. I've met his
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: new wife. She's a In fact, I don't think he'll
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: mind my sharing this.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 6: We were doing Caitlin Collins together and she comes up
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: to him and gives him floss and says, Massey, get
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 6: that stuff out of your teeth. And I said, you know,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 6: his style has gotten better. He's dressing well. He was
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 6: devastated after his wife's loss. I know what a difficult
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 6: time that was for him. I know the conversations he
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 6: had with his kids. And, you know, it's just disgusting
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 6: to go after him like that. There used to be
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 6: a time in Washington where the type of genuine friendship
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 6: that Massey and I have was more common, where you
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 6: have vigorous disagreements like we do on gun policy, like
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 6: we do on tax policy, like we do on national
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 6: health insurance, but you respect people's families and humanity. And
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 6: Trump obviously has no regard for that. And it just
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 6: was sad. And it's sad because they're going to be
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 6: going for their honeymoon soon. And I just found the
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: whole thing disgusting.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I'm used to Donald Trump being
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: harsh and just a mean person, but that really, it
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: crossed a line in a way that I just hadn't
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: seen before. The innuendo there, the suggestion that Thomas Massey
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: did something, I mean, it was just disgusting. And frankly,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: like terrible politics. Like you're trying to earn this man's vote.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: You're trying to get him on your side and you're
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: going after his family?
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with it?
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 6: And the thing with Massey, and if you look at
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: how we built this coalition from day one, we never
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 6: made this about Donald Trump. In fact, Thomas Massey would
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 6: go out of his way to say, I don't know
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 6: if there's Trump in the files or not. The point is,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 6: this is about getting justice for the survivors. And I
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 6: go out of my way and say, look, if Donald
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 6: Trump wants to meet the survivors and release the files,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 6: I'll be the first to praise him.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: So we actually did not make this thing about Trump.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 6: It's one of the reasons we were able to get
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 6: Marjorie Taylor Greene initially and Lauren Boebert and and Nancy
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 6: Mace and get MAGA influencers supporting us. And so for
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 6: him to take it so personally just shows his pettiness.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: But I do think it's a.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 6: Broader theme about how Democrats can approach this, which is
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 6: when we identify with MAGA's concerns about a corrupt system
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 6: and say, look, we hear you on some of that
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 6: and here's how we're going to work forward.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: On that.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: I think we can build trust and effectiveness without making
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: every single thing about Donald Trump. That doesn't mean we
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 6: don't oppose him where he's wrong, but it means that
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 6: we can earn the trust of the MAGA base by
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 6: focusing on the attacks on the system rather than just
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 6: the attacks on Trump.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the interesting partner that you and Congressman
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: Massey have identified in this effort is Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: She has had this sort of slow rolling fallout with
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump over the last week or two. Trump is
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: mad at her for siding with you guys for calling
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: for the release of the Epstein files. He's mad at
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: her for suggesting Trump should focus more on cost of
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: living issues. And then Trump, you know, his counterpoint is
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: he says Marjorie Taylor Greene is just mad that Trump
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: wouldn't endorse her campaign or candidacy for governor of Georgia.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: What do you make of all this? Is this an
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: intrapersonal spat or is there a chance that Trump could
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: be kind of losing his iron grip on elected Republicans
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: in Washington?
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 6: There's not a chance he is losing his grip on
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 6: elected leaders in Washington.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: Look, Tommy, I mean, you work for President Obama.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 6: The idea that you would have had 40 Democrats vote
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 6: for a discharge petition against President Obama on something that
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 6: he was actively opposing would have been unthinkable. And President
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 6: Obama didn't use the kind of authoritarian strong-arm tactics of
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 6: Donald Trump.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: So this is a huge blow to him.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 6: That you had people willing to sign a discharge petition
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 6: against his wishes, that you had probably near 100 Republicans
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 6: ready to vote against him for a Democratic bill from
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 6: a progressive Bay Area Democrat against his wishes. And that's
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 6: really what has gotten him infuriated. That's why he unendorsed
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 6: Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene until recently, would
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 6: keep saying that she just realized that Trump was out
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 6: of touch with his base and she was trying to
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 6: get him to release these files because she understood that
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 6: this was hurting him. She's trying to get him to
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 6: focus on affordability because she understands that he's deviated from
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 6: his message.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 4: And she's a smart politician.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 6: She sees that he is disconnected from a MAGA base.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 6: I think this has elevated her among some of those voters.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 6: But it was not personal. Like, do I think she
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 6: may be upset about Trump in the Georgia race?
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: Maybe.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 6: But no one makes a decision that big on risking
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 6: a president's wrath because of some endorsement in a race.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 6: This was a much bigger issue about her feeling that
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 6: Trump was no longer connected to the base that she
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 6: felt gave him his rise.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the other area that really is standing
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: out to me of where Trump seems disconnected from his
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: base is on foreign policy. Again, he ran on America First,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: not necessarily fully isolationist, but certainly anti-regime change wars. But
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: that is exactly what it seems like his administration is
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: setting up in Venezuela right now. So for folks who
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: haven't followed this, we have seen over the last few
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: weeks this massive U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean. There
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: was a report by CSIS recently that said between 10%
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: and 15% of all deployed U.S. Navy assets are in
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: the South Com area of responsibility, so Central and South America.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: Those military assets are being used to blow up boats
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: that are alleged to be part of drug trafficking, efforts
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: uh in the caribbean and in the pacific and the
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: administration is also doing all this saber rattling about a
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: regime change operation in venezuela proper i mean to depose
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: venezuelan president nicholas maduro who was a bad guy who
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: stole the last election but still i mean this is
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: the kind of thing trump ran against um Let's just
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: start there. I mean, how concerned are you, Congressman, about
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: the U.S. launching some sort of invasion or attack on Venezuela?
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: And what do you think that Congress could or should
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: be doing to prevent it?
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: I'm very concerned.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 6: I mean, Marco Rubio is itching for a regime change
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 6: war in Venezuela, either through covert means or by actually
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 6: a kinetic conflict.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: And he makes no secret about it.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 6: The reality is that would entangle the United States in
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 6: another conflict like we got entangled in Iraq or for
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 6: 20 years in Afghanistan or in Libya. This is exactly
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 6: what the American public has been voting against. They've been
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 6: voting against this from Howard Dean to Barack Obama to
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 6: Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: They don't want these wars. And it's not.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 6: Just a sense that we rather focus on our country
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 6: than bad wars overseas. I think that's actually not giving
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 6: some of Trump's voters enough credit. When you talk to them,
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 6: they actually say, yeah, we don't want to be killing
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 6: people unnecessarily. We don't like it that boat people are
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 6: being killed off of Venezuela.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: We're the good guys. We don't want that blood on
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: our hands.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 6: And there is a kind of moral simplicity to people
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 6: who are not part of the Beltway. And they're horrified
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 6: by it. Some of them were horrified with what was
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 6: going on in Gaza. And that's why Donald Trump, when
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 6: he ran, kept saying, I'll be for peace and I'm
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 6: going to bring peace.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: Just to follow up on that, Congressman, I mean, so
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal reported that there was a classified
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: Justice Department briefing authorizing these strikes on the drug smuggling boats,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: alleged drug smuggling boats that described fentanyl as a chemical
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: weapons threat. This was reportedly part of a longer briefing
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: to justify these strikes that have now killed more than
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: 80 people. That number might be even higher. It strikes
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: me as crazy for a few reasons. I mean, first
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: of all, fentanyl is not coming from Venezuela, as we've
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: said many times. Fentanyl is chemicals from China or shipped
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: to Mexico, and there fentanyl is produced and smuggled into
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: the US. But also, second, I mean, under international law,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: under the Chemical Weapons Convention, that usually is focused on
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: chemical weapons like mustard gas or nerve agents or VX
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: gas or Nova Chalk, like chemicals that you would use
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: to kill someone, not one an addict might voluntarily ingest
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: or someone who needed pain relief might ingest in a
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: hospital setting. What did you make of that report and
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: just sort of the broader, you know, legal justification in
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: air quotes for these strikes on boats off the coast
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: of Venezuela?
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: There is no legal justification. That's why Admiral Mosley resigned.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 6: That's why the Colombian president is saying you've killed fishermen
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: and we don't have a clear response. You have Republicans
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 6: who have said that The fentanyl excuse is totally ridiculous.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 6: They know it's narcotics that are actually being credited. And
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 6: you've had Republicans who said that in this country, we
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 6: don't have the capital punishment for narcotics. Whatever else you
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 6: may think, we don't just have a capital punishment. You
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 6: have due process. And right now you have an American
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 6: government in our names, Tommy, and you're in my names,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 6: killing people.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: Based on narcotics. who they think is a criminal.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 6: I mean, and there was a Republican senator who said
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 6: to me that he was with the vice president and
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 6: with the secretary of defense, and it's like a video
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 6: game for them.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: They view these people as animals.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 6: It should send chills down the spine of any American
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 6: of what they're doing in our name. Because at the
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 6: end of the day, they're not going to say, well,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 6: you know, Donald Trump was a president, Ro Khanna didn't support.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 6: They're going to say the Americans are killing our families.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 6: And it is It is outrageous. And I'm telling you,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 6: there are Republicans on armed services where I serve who
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 6: are horrified with what's going on and are starting to
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 6: push back.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: I'm glad they're pushing back. I mean, it does just
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: seem like, as you said, extrajudicial murder with no legal authorization,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: with no clarity that the people that we are bombing
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: are even involved in the drug trade or in any
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: way connected with cartels. They're certainly not high level cartel members, right?
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, the senior boss of a cartel is not
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: jumping on a boat in driving thousands of miles to
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: traffic drugs to the United States. And it seems like
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: the people that are involved in this could have some
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: real legal problems going forward when there is a new administration.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 6: I mean, I do think they will have a legal
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 6: challenge when there is a new administration.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 4: And I think the heartening thing to me is seeing.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 6: Some Republicans starting to speak out is that You know,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 6: there's this sense that America should care about human rights
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 6: and should care about not killing people overseas. It's not
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 6: just a left thing. It turns out there are a
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 6: lot of decent Americans who don't like that. There are
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 6: a lot of decent Americans who have been upset with
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 6: the direction of our foreign policy. And it's been surprising
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 6: to me when I've spoken out on Venezuela, when I've
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 6: spoken out on Epstein, you know, I've had People on
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 6: the right, like Rasmussen or others, say, you know, that
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 6: I'm speaking in a way that the MAGA base agrees
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 6: with on these issues. And that should give us hope
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 6: that we could actually have a moral call to foreign policy.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 6: You're not going to win everyone, but that you can
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 6: build a governing majority in this country around some of
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 6: these principles.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. And I also think there
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: is a real growing anger Donald Trump for not living
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: up to the ideals that he campaigned on. You saw
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: it around the Iran strikes. You're seeing it with Venezuela.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: If there is this regime change operation, I think there's
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: going to be a lot of people in MAGA who said,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: I did not vote for this. We got to make
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: a big change here. Final question for you. So Saudi
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is at the White House
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: this week. He, luckily, we could go through all his
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: various human rights challenges, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, all
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: the reasons that I would prefer this man not be
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: in the White House. But bigger picture, I mean, the
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: Trump administration is reportedly considering offering the Saudis like a NATO-like,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: Article 5-like security guarantee. There's also all these reports that
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: the U.S. might sell the Saudis F-35 fighter jets, even
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: though the U.S. intelligence community is concerned that the Saudis
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: could pass that technology along to the Chinese. My question
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: on both is just why? Why is either of those
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: steps in the U.S. interest at all, in your opinion,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: or if you disagree?
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 4: Well, it's not. It's not. But Kushner has all this
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: monetary deal in Saudi Arabia.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 6: I mean, he raised almost $ 2 billion there. The Trump
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 6: family is connected there. Look, my first, as a young
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 6: member of Congress, my first real impact was working with
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 6: Bernie Sanders to pass the War Powers Resolution to stop
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 6: the refueling of Saudi planes, which were bombing Yemen. That
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 6: was one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 6: It was of the order of what happened in Gaza.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 4: It was horrific.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 6: And you still have NBS, who not only presided over
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 6: the killing of Khashoggi, but who presided over Yemen's mass
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 6: bombing in charge. Why we would want to give a
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 6: government like that weapons, and there's even talk of giving
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 6: them nuclear technology, is.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 4: Makes no strategic sense.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 6: And by the way, the last thing you would want
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 6: in the Middle East is to be arming Saudi Arabia
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 6: and having an arms race with Iran. That is not
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 6: in any nation's interest in the Middle East or our interest.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 6: So I happen to think it's just financial and cultural
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 6: ties that the Trump family has with Saudi Arabia. And
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 6: it's not in America's interest.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. It's just stunning to me. I lied. This
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: is my actual last question, just because I know you
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: actually deeply care about these issues. Speaking of humanitarian disasters,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, there is a massacre happening now in Sudan
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: in the Darfur region that is being compared to the
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: early days of the Rwandan genocide. It is this group
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: called the RSF, which is one half of a civil
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: war that's been fought in Sudan over the last two
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: and a half years. There's a lot of reporting about
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: how the United Arab Emirates has been feeding arms into
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: this conflict, specifically to the RSF, that's making it worse.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: And it's culminated the last couple of weeks in the
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: takeover by the RSF of this city called El Fasher, where,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: you know, at the time, like 250,000 civilians were seeking shelter, basically,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: and after being under siege for 18 months, it's hard
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: for me to like, read about this stuff every week
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: and just see the total kind of lack of action,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: either through the international community or by the US. Is
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: there anything happening in Congress? Are you hearing anything from
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: the administration, that they might do something to try to
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: stop this conflict? I mean, Donald Trump wants the Nobel Prize,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: he wants all this I mean, this seems like a
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: very live war that he could step in and end
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: with one phone call to the Emiratis if he wanted to.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: He really could.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 6: I mean, Sarah Jacobs has been very strong on this issue.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 6: She has introduced resolutions to stop. the UAE, from arming
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 6: that group. And it's not taking sides and who's right
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 6: in a civil war. It's simply saying we can't have
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 6: external countries escalated. Obviously, the conflict there is a legacy
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 6: of colonialism. that created these divisions. But what the United
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 6: States can do now is to say to the UAE, stop,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 6: don't escalate the situation. And Sarah Jacobs' resolution calls for that.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 6: It should get a vote in the Congress. but we
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 6: also should continue to put pressure on Trump.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: This is something he could stop, especially given.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 6: His relationship with UAE, where he has put data centers
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 6: and where he has enmeshed with cryptocurrency.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely right. Well, Congressman Khanna, thanks for your
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: work on getting this discharge petition passed, getting the release
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: of these Epstein files and everything else. Really appreciate your time.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Ro Khanna for
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: coming on. We'll be back on Wednesday with more from
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: Crooked Con, my panel on the story Democrats should be
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: telling voters right now with our friend Jen Psaki and
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: Democratic strategist Faz Shakir, Liz Smith, Rebecca Katz, and Adam Jentleson.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: You'll also hear Lovett's conversation with Senator Ruben Gallego. Be
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: sure to check it out. And Dan and I will
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: be back with another episode on Friday. If you want
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• 1:29:50
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• 1:30:00
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• 1:30:26
  Speaker 7: Thank you.