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"The Herschel Walker Abortion Fund." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Herschel Walker gets caught paying for a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: girlfriend's abortion, control of the Senate hangs in the balance,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman joins to talk about being Donald Trump's psychiatrist,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and And Elijah's got some piping hot takes ready for
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: another round of Take Appreciator. But first, check out Crooked
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Radio every weekend in October on SiriusXM Progress and on
• 0:44
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• 0:47
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• 0:51
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• 0:55
  Speaker 1: each weekend as we break down all the issues that
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: matter this November and offer the only 100% correct answer.
• 1:03
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• 1:07
  Speaker 2: All correct opinions, no predictions.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. You can listen on channel 127
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: or subscribe now and get up to four months free
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: of SiriusXM. See offer details at SiriusXM.com slash crooked. Also,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: if you haven't caught up on this season of The Wilderness,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: take a listen this weekend. I am talking to voters
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: who aren't hooked on Twitter or cable news to find
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: out how they think about politics and what it will
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: take to actually reach them. To help save democracy in
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: 2022 and beyond. You can now catch up on the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: first four episodes of The Wilderness. And then I got
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: two more episodes coming out every Monday, wherever you get
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: your podcasts. So we got, I did a group in
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Vegas that's coming out this Monday of working class Latinos
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: in Las Vegas.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Question. What day of the week did you do the group?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I did it on a Friday.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Was that the only day?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Friday night.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: The only people who were available or it was just
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: a Friday. Like you would have done Monday, obviously, but
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: just happened to be the Friday.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Look, a couple of my friends happened to also be
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: there that night.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: That night.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: What a coincidence. Your dedication to our democracy is all inspiring.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I am just trying to find out what's on people's minds, Dan.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: And then the last group is younger black voters in
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Atlanta and Did that after our last PSA live show
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta in August, and that's coming out a week
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: from Monday. But listen to all the episodes. Fantastic stuff.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Hearing from these voters and some stuff that will make
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you really mad. But it's important to know. It's important
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: to know. All right. Let's get to the news. In
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: one of the great news breaks right after we recorded
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: moments in Pod Save America history, the Daily Beast reported
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: on Monday night that Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: in Georgia, urged a woman he was dating in 2009
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: to get an abortion and reimbursed her for the procedure,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and then sent her a get-well card. And we know
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: this because the woman provided a copy of the check,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the receipt, and the get-well card. But wait, Dan, there's more.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: The news gods are at least temporarily smiling here on
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the Thursday Pod because last night, the Daily Beast also
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: revealed that the woman in question isn't so anonymous after all.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: She's actually the mother of one of Walker's children. whom
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: he has already publicly acknowledged as his own. Walker, of course,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: is in favor of a federal abortion ban with no
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: exceptions for anyone but apparently himself. And he has responded
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: by threatening to sue the Daily Beast for defamation, which
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: he has not done all week, and conducting unintelligible interviews
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: with right-wing pundits. Here he is Thursday morning with Hugh Hewitt.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: And if that had happened, I would have said there's
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: nothing to be ashamed of there.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: People have done that, but I know nothing about it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I know nothing about it, but if I had done it,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: it is not something to be ashamed of. But I
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: have not heard of it.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Right. But also, I've been forgiven for it, which he
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: says in the next clip.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been forgiven for it, but I haven't done it.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But I've been forgiven for not doing what I have
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: said I have not done.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: But if I had done it, it would be fine.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Which is very clear. Yes. All right. This egregious example
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: of lying and hypocrisy on one of the most important
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: issues of the campaign... should of course end Walker's candidacy.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: But also, we live here in the year 2022. So
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: what do you think?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Are you asking me whether a candidate running on a
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: platform of an abortion ban with no exceptions in the
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: year in which Roe v. Wade was overturned is revealed
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: to have paid for an abortion? Could be harmful to him? Yes,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I think it could be harmful to him.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Problematic, perhaps?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: It's not great. I remember once working... in politics 100
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: years ago, and a candidate we worked for did something
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: completely insane. And Ron Klain, who was involved in it,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: sent me an email saying, this would be an A-plus
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: answer to how to lose a campaign. So that's what
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: this would be. But we also like to live in
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: a world where maybe there was a time in politics
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: in the not-too-distant past where this would literally be it.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: The money would dry up. Republican leaders would distance themselves.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: The NRSC or McConnell would walk away from them. You know,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: religious leaders or Republicans in Georgia would walk away. No
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: one would be seen on the stump with him. But
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: we don't live in that world anymore. That's not how
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: it works. And there is a, you know, there's this
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: interesting polling number that's been going around from the Public
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Religion Research Institute, which does some really interesting polling. In 2011,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: they asked Republican voters, do you think a candidate who
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: committed an immoral act in private could be ethical and
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: public and fulfill their duties. And only 36% of Republicans
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: in 2011 thought that. In 2021, that number is 70%.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And that is not a crazy thing. I mean, it's
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: not that long ago that a lot of Democrats supported
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Bill Clinton because they thought he could be a ethical,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: good leader in the White House, even if his personal
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: conduct was abhorrent, as we dealt with in the late 90s.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: But that is sort of what has changed here, is twofold. One,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Republican leaders will stick with him. Trump has proven there
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: is no price for, that the actual danger is to
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: walk away too early and then stick around too late
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: when the candidate did something wrong. And so could this
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: affect the race? It absolutely will affect the race. Is
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: this the end of Hershel Walker's campaign? Absolutely not.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Do you think the difference here is it's not just
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: conduct in his private life that is the issue? It
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: is the fact that he is running on an abortion
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: ban with no exceptions. But, you know, the exception is,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of course, for him. And so basically the message is
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Republican politicians want to ban abortion for everyone except Republican politicians.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. This is look, this is not good. I mean,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: he is someone who says abortion is murder. And then
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: turns out he paid for an abortion and sent someone
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: a good get well card for it, which is showing
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: that there is a tremendous conflict between his public statements
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: and his personal conduct or even maybe his personal beliefs,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: if he has any beliefs at all.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, I know you wrote a message box
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: about this and noted that when this first broke that
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Tommy was saying, oh, it could be like an Access
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Hollywood tape moment. And we all know what happened there.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about that. I mean, I think that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the damage to Trump after Access Hollywood tape was real,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: but the problem was it was so early where there
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: was so much time left after Access Hollywood that then
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: we had Jim Comey step in and change the news cycle.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I always wonder if the election was a week after
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Access Hollywood, if it would have gone the same way.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think it would have.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or if Jim Comey had not intervened, or if
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: the Russians had not the very next day dumped out
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: all of the emails on WikiLeaks. All of those things
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: happen that are not necessarily at play here, but- The
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: original point that brought Tommy into this conversation is pointing
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: out that the gap between the Revelation election is almost
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: exactly the same here as it was in 2016. So
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of turns of the wheel here.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Another important difference is this is on the most important
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: issue in the race for Democrats. You guys just had
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: a discussion, which we'll revisit shortly. About how the conversation
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: has moved away from abortion, an issue that has been
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: very– given Democrats political momentum to issues like crime and
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: immigration that do it for Republicans. And here the scandal
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: is on that issue, right? It's like Mitt Romney discovering
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: in 2012 that Mitt Romney had evaded taxes by using
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: a Swiss bank account. Oh, wait, that happened. Sorry. But
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: for an example, it's on the court.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Who knew that a Mitt Romney hit was going to
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: find its way into a conversation about Herschel Walker and
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: his abortion story?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: We're always one turn of the wheel from that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: So believe it or not, things got even worse for
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Walker right after the Beast story came out. His son Christian,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: who is a right-wing TikTok influencer... denounced his father in
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: a series of videos that went viral. Here's a clip.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Family values people.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: He has four kids, four different women, wasn't in the
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: house raising one of them.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: He was out having sex with other women. Do you
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: care about family values? I was silent lie after lie
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: after lie. The abortion card drops yesterday.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: It's literally his handwriting in the car. They say they
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: have receipts, whatever. He gets on Twitter. He lies about it. Okay,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: I'm done.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Done.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Everything has been a lie.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So... Walker's conservative son tells us the abortion story is true.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: He also says in another video that his father threatened
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: to kill him and his mother. Might that make a difference?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, we have seen ads in this race with
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: testimony from his ex-wife about Walker putting a gun to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: her head. It was a Republican Accountability Project ad that
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: is truly one of the most devastating political ads I've
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: ever seen. Yeah. I think this is a huge, the
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Christian Walker videos is incredibly significant. Because I think the
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: two questions that probably passive consumers of political news in
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Georgia have right now are one, Hershel Walker did what?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: And two, what the fuck is the Daily Beast? I mean,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: it's just, I mean, we know Republicans are very good
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: at taking news stories from the mainstream media and discrediting
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: them right away, right? That is the core trick of Trumpism.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: And the Daily Beast, which has done lots of great
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: reporting over the years, but it is not something that
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: has a lot of brand equity with voters out in
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: the world. They don't know what it means. It has
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: a very strange name that's going to be very confusing.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: A lot of people are hearing it for the first time.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And so having Herschel Walker's own son, who also is
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: a right-wing DeSantis lover, say the story is true and
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: his dad is a liar and should not be elected,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: it will be very powerful with the exact set of
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: voters that are sort of on the fence about Walker,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: whether to vote for him or whether to vote at all.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I have some insight into how Herschel Walker stories have
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: been landing with voters in Georgia when I was there
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: in August to conduct the focus group that I did. Again,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: this was with younger black voters who described themselves as
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: moderate and who had not made up their mind. They
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: were all Biden voters, but they had not made up
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: their mind on whether to vote or who to vote
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: for in some cases. And we got to the Senate race.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: And it's funny because they didn't know specific stories about Walker.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: They didn't cite the ad. about his ex-wife saying that
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: he held a gun to her head or anything very specific.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: It was just like, oh, I heard that he's crazy.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Like I have been hearing so many crazy stories about
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: him and it seems like we can't vote for him.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: He's crazy. And I just think there's a general feeling
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: that over the campaign, Herschel Walker has not conducted himself
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: too well and that he is lying. So to the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: extent that this reinforces impressions about Herschel Walker that are
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: already out there, even if those impressions aren't fully formed
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: right now from passive news consumers, they do have a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: sense that he has been lying about some stuff and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: is a little bit crazy. And I'm sure this will
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: only reinforce that. And again, we're not talking here about like,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: will base voters, base Republican voters stay with Herschel Walker?
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I imagine that most of them will for all the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: reasons we talked about earlier. This is about... the vast
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: group of voters who have not quite decided either who
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: they're going to vote for or whether they're going to
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: vote in the midterm election who don't follow the news
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: that closely. So Republican politicians, of course, have already decided
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: they don't care about any of this. Not a single
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: elected official has retracted their endorsement. Most of them haven't
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: even criticized Walker, though. I guess the lieutenant governor of Georgia,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: was on CNN last night and said that he's wondering,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: we all knew that there was baggage, but we're wondering
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: if the baggage has been maybe a little too much now,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: which I thought was an interesting semi-break. But of course,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: most Republicans are still on board with him. Former NRA
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: grifter Dana Loesch summed up the MAGA World response when
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: she said this the other day.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: I don't care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: baby eagles. I want control of the Senate. If the
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: Daily Beast story is true... You're telling me Walker used
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: his money to reportedly pay some skank for an abortion,
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: and Warnock wants to use all of our monies to
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: pay a whole bunch of skanks for abortions?
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I want control of the Senate. I actually found the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: honesty there refreshing and clarifying. What about you?
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I mean, other than the overly vivid
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: imagery about baby birds.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which seems unnecessary.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And the very unnecessary... And misogynistic use of the term
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: skank in this situation to refer to the woman and
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: not the man. It's exactly how the Republicans feel where
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: political power is in and of itself. And it is
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: highly unlikely that they lose this race and take the Senate.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: It's possible, but it gets a lot harder if this
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: is the case. And so if they want to be
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: able to stop Joe Biden from ever appointing another judge
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: or passing another law or confirming another cabinet member doing
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: those things, they have to win this race and they
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: don't care. They knew that they knew, whether they knew
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: the specifics of this story, they knew. You and I
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: have watched about like six interviews with Herschel Walker and
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: we know he is deeply unfit for this office, but
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: they did not give a shit because they thought he
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: gave them a great chance. And now he's their only chance.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: There's not a world where they're taking him off the ballot.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Ballots are printed, voting is starting. And so they're going
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to ride this one all the way to the end,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: just like they did with Trump in 2016.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: It's just another piece of evidence also that they They
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: have no more issues anymore. There's no issues animating the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Republican Party but power. And I do think that should
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: be part of the Democratic message about the party, right? Like,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Republican politicians want power so they can control your life
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and get to play by different rules than you do, right? Like,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that's it. They want power, they get to do whatever
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: they want, and then they get to tell you to
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: do whatever they say. That's basically where Republican politicians are
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: right now. That's what they want. So here's how Raphael
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Warnock responded when asked about the story. He said, I'll
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: let the pundits decide how they think it will impact
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the race. But I've been consistent in my view that
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a patient's room is too narrow and cramped a space
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: for a woman in the government. What do you think
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: about that response? And how do you think Warnock and
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Democrats should handle this story? Can they make it matter?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: I think that answer is fine. He's definitely right not
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: to take the bait on how it affects the race.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: And I assume he's answering a question about whether he
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: thinks this is going to affect the race. And the
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: person who reported that should stop covering, who asked that question,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: stop covering politics, because I don't know why we use
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: politicians to, a rare time to ask them questions, to
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: have them make political predictions, which obviously no one gets right.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So what a stupid use of time. So congratulations, Raphael Warnock,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: for not answering that stupid question. I think the core
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: of the answer is right, which is what Or at
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: least it is the first part of a two-step here, right?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: The first part is– well, there's actually a pretext to
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: the first part. The pretext is we should not assume
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: people are going to know about this, right? The voters
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: you talk to are barely surfing the news. And so
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: if you want people to know it, someone is going
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: to have to pay to tell them. You're going to
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: have to put it on television. You're going to have
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: to put it on digital. And so this isn't necessarily
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: the Warnock campaign, but some democratic group should probably take
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: some of those Christian Walker videos. slap his name in
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: relation to his father on the bottom of the page
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: and just run them. No spin on the ball, just
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: here's what Herschel Walker's son says about him. Maybe you
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: throw some headlines in there, but that's it. So that's one. Two,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the most politically important part of this is that it
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: ensures that abortion is going to be a top issue
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: in this election, both his personal conduct and his public position.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: And I think that what Walker's answer there is exactly that.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Maybe be a little more explicit. Then he wants to
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: just say every time anyone asks you a question that
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: whatever Hershel Walker did in his personal life, here's what
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: he wants to do to your personal life. A ban
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: with no exceptions. Do that. And then the third part is,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I think it's the one you just went to, which
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: is using this to make a case about Walker being
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: another example of wealthy elites who think there's one set
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: of rules for them and one set of rules for you.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: And he can get an abortion because he's a rich guy.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: You can't, right? He's a rich, politically connected insider. You
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: are not. Therefore, you have a different set of rules.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: I think those are the elements of what the response
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: looks like. Warnock definitely nails the first part. I imagine
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: the second part is coming when they have a debate
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: in the very, very near future.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, politicians playing by a different set of
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: rules is a very powerful political argument. And also, like
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: you said, I think everything is about reminding people of
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the consequences of what will happen if Herschel Walker is
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: elected or any Republican is elected. People care less about process.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: People care less about what politicians do in their own
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: private lives. They care about what is the consequences for me.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: And the consequences for people of Herschel Walker in the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Senate is that there could be a national abortion ban
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and that also this man believes in abortion with no
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: exceptions except for himself. So as you mentioned, we talked
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: about the rest of the Senate map on Tuesday's pod.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Wanted to get your take on where things stand. Why
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: do you think Republican candidates seem to be polling better
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: over these last few weeks?
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Well, as I do every Tuesday morning between 5 and 5.30,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I listen to the Tuesday pod on 2x speed while
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: I drink coffee.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: 2x speed, not even one and a half.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so in the words that I understood in that
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: suboptimal environment, I.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Agreed with- How do you even hear love it at
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that point?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're the fast talker of the three.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I am a fast talker.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And I talk faster than you. So no one has
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: ever listened to the spot at 2x.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: No one listens to us on 2x. No, that makes sense. Yeah,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: that'd be bad.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And I agree with all the points you guys made
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: about inflation, gas prices, issue salience, all of that. But
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: I would add two other points to that list. One is,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: and I think is we have not paid enough attention to,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: which is Democrats outspent Republicans in these Senate races by
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: pretty massive amounts from Memorial Day to Labor Day. But
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: from Labor Day to now, Republicans have been pretty massively
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: outspending Democrats. And that's in part because Democratic candidates raise
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: more money directly into their campaigns through large grassroots fundraising
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: bases than every Republican other than Trump. So like Mark
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Kelly's raking money in $ 5 and $ 10 at a time,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Blake Masters is scrimping by, right? Same thing with Warnock
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: and Walker, Mandela Barnes and Ron Johnson, all of that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: But in the fall, all the Republican outside money comes
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: in and it comes in big. And that's where their
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: advantage is. And they do have a strategic belief that
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Democrats are wasting their money over the summer. I don't
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: think that's necessarily right, but that's why all the Republican
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: money is coming now. And they have focused on crime.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: It's been crime ads everywhere, and Democrats have suffered from that.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: But the other point that I think is worth noting,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: and I think that's why we sort of overread these things,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: is All of these races and all of these Senate
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: races and all of these states were always going to
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: be incredibly close. Yeah. I mean, these are states that
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in most cases by less
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: than one half of 1%.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: In a better political environment than this one. So what
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: we're seeing also is a reversion to the inevitable mean. Dr.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Oz was never going to get 38% of the vote.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: He's going to get somewhere between 46% and 48% no
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: matter what happens. Same thing with Hershel Walker. These are
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: 51-49 races in every case, or 49-48 in some cases.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: And so we're right back to where we were, which
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: is a coin flip. And that was going to happen.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Republican voters were going to come home in all these cases.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: And in some cases, like you look at Arizona, the
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: gap is narrowed a lot. But Kelly has stayed above 50.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: And Blake Masters has come up to like 47-48. And that's,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: you know, that may be his ceiling. It's going to
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: be different in other states. And so this is sort
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: of like if we ever thought this was going to
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: be easy, we diluted ourselves over some of these. We're
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: always going to be incredibly, incredibly close. And that's where
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: they are. And that's where they're going to stay till
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: the very, very end.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And look, and you mentioned 2020. It's basically been
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: like this since 2016. The shifts between in the most
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: competitive states and districts between 2016, 2018 and 2020 have
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: not been large, even, you know, depending, even though the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: winter has changed. And so I think that's that's worth
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: keeping in mind. I kind of always have been looking
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: at the Democratic candidate number in these polls. Like you
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: just said, if it's if it's like 48, 49, 50, 51,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling like that's pretty good. But especially in a
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: year where Republicans are the party out of power, which
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: tends to give you a little boost, I think. Worry
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that undecideds end up breaking heavily towards the Republican candidates.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: So some of these Republican candidates who are down at 42, 43, 44,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: like you said, are going to end up at 48, 49,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: even if they lose. And so if a Democratic candidate
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: is polling at 50 or 51, you're feeling pretty good
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: if they're polling at like 46, 45. And there's still
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: three or four points ahead of the Republican candidate. I'm
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: still not feeling that great.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: No, you should feel really badly in that case, unless
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: there is a significant third party candidate that brings your
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: wind number down to closer to 47, which is not,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's happening in any of these major
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: races other than maybe the Oregon governor. Um, we should
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: be deeply concerned. And I'm very worried about Nevada where you,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: that's the number you constantly see Catherine Cortez Mastovat is
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: like 46.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the only two things there are like in Nevada, uh,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: You can also choose, it's one of the few states
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: where you can choose no candidate for some races. So
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that could bring the number down. And then in Georgia,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: of course, there's a third party candidate and then there's
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a potential of a runoff if no one hits 50%.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: So we could all be talking about the Georgia runoff again.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have not.
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: Won't that be fun?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: We have not focused on that. That might end up
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: being by far the likeliest scenario given the presence of
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: that third party candidate. For someone to get over 50
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: would be pretty hard.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so everyone get ready for that.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's rerun the whole thing in the holiday season
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: during a potential COVID spike. That seems great.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Fuck. One thing that seems to be happening, at least
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: in the Pennsylvania race, is that John Fetterman's unfavorables have
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: gone up. Media Matters has one possible explanation for this.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: They did a study that found in the four weeks
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: following Labor Day, Fox's weekday primetime broadcast mentioned that Democratic
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: nominees in seven competitive Senate races more than twice as
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: many times as CNN and MSNBC's broadcast did combined. This
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: has been especially true of Fetterman. He's now a star
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: of Fox News primetime. How much of an impact do
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you think this could be having on these races?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I think it's a pretty significant impact. And particularly just
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: as we were talking, the Republican gains primarily over the
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: last few weeks or months here have been among Republicans
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: coming home. People who live either directly in or adjacent
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: to the right-wing media ecosystem are And I think this
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: whole thing, it's fascinating for a whole host of reasons.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Because one, it goes to the larger point that Fox
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: is an arm of the Republican Party. They think they
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: need to do this. They have watched what's happening. We
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: have made Democrats successful. We made this race about Dr.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Oz's weird elitism, Blake Masters' creepy conservatism, Ron Johnson's Dopey insurrectionism, right?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: That's good. I like dopey insurrectionism.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: And they sort of agree– sort of it's the thing
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: we've said on this podcast before is that in this
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: media environment, you're either serving lunch or you're on the menu.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: And so they want to turn this around and make
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: it about Democrats. And they know they can get people
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: fired up about Fetterman because of his tattoos, his support
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: for legalizing marijuana. They can– he is a character– he
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: is someone who you can radicalize Republican voters around. So
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: they are doing that because they think that's in the
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Republican Party's interest. MSNBC and CNN are not arms of
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party. They don't make their decisions based on
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: what helps Democrats win elections. And the thing that I
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: think is an interesting, longer sociological understanding of that is
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Fox also does things that are in its ratings interests.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: And if they were not getting ratings for this, they
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: would not do it. But I would just note that
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: conservative media consumers are eating up these Senate races. And
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: I promise you, MSNBC and CNN would, you know, they'd
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: probably remove their pinky finger for ratings. And so if
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: they got ratings, they would cover these races, but they
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: don't get ratings. Which makes you wonder why, like sort of,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: it maybe bespeaks the larger problem of why Democrats struggle
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: in midterms when Trump's not on the ballot is because
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: we were probably, I bet when they cover Trump Mar-a-Lago investigations,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: ratings go up when they cover John Fetterman and Mark
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Kelly ratings go down. So they do the former, not
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: the latter.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Or even when they cover Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Like, I think there's just more of an interest on
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the on the Republican side. I would guess that the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: free media that Republican candidates are getting from Fox News
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: attacking these Democratic candidates may be even more value valuable
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: than all of that outside spending you referenced earlier on
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: political ads, which I think, you know, some voters, they're
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: just sort of numb to some of these ads. But
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: they're watching their news all the time and they're seeing
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: another story about John Fetterman. or another story about Mandela Barnes,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: or another story about Raphael Warnock. And, you know, that's
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: registering in a way.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: And they're altering the context in which these campaign ads
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: are being consumed. Yes, that's right. By sort of creating
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: an alternate image of Fetterman, but also just raising... If
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: you even... Like, this is not in this study, but
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: this has been shown up in other studies, is that
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: crime as a topic on Fox has also gone up
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: dramatically in... in recent months is to create a context
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: for these crime ads against Democrats, right? The crime ads
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: hit all working together. It's all part of a plan
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: and Republicans have both parts of the plan and we
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: have neither. So congratulations, Democrats.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Well, any thoughts on, we'll end on a hopeful note.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Any thoughts on how Democrats can regain the momentum in
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: these final weeks?
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: We need to send a Daily Beast reporter into every state. No. Look,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I think what Democrats have to do is pivot and
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: punch back. And I've been watching the Fetterman race, as
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: we all have, very closely. And the way they have
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: leapt at this Washington Post story about Dr. Oz, his
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: grifting– pseudoscience, uh.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Help, you know, puppy murder. Don't forget the puppy murder. Yeah.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I was going to get to, I was going
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: to get to the puppy murder, but I know how uncomfortable,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: like uncomfortable that conversation was at two X speed on
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Tuesday morning. So I didn't want to like, even at
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: two X speed, you're like the utter emotionally fragile disgust
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: was like palpable. Um, but, but you know, that is,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: they have is you have to find an issue, latch
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: on it and punch back as hard as you possibly can.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: And Fetterman has done that. Well, I've seen Mandela Barnes
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: making a few moves on that way, but that's ultimately
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: what you have to do. And just to try to
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: once again, be on the off, regain the regain offense.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: And it's going to be, I think a little different
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: in each race. Obviously we know what it's going to
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: be in the Herschel Walker race. Do we have puppies
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: in pseudoscience in Pennsylvania? And there are some real opportunities
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: around social security and Medicare in Wisconsin that I, that
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: you've seen the Mandela Barnes campaign get aggressive about very recently.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I do think in the case of Pennsylvania, uh,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: it's not just that there's a really bad Republican candidate.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: There's a really good Democratic candidate. And people, I mean,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I remember this from the groups I did in Pittsburgh,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: but people just love John Fetterman. They love that he's different.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: They love that he doesn't seem like a typical politician
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: because he's not, doesn't look like one, doesn't talk like one,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: that he's willing to say things like, I want to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: legalize weed and take on some of those parole board
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: stories head on. And I think that it's been tough,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, because He is, of course, still recovering, as
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: he's mentioned. But getting him out there and reminding people
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: why they like John Fetterman so much in the first place,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: because he's not like every other fucking politician in Washington,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: is going to be important in these final weeks, too.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: When this is all said and done, if Fetterman wins
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: and Kelly continues... wins as we hope and expect he will,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: it's going to be a really interesting case study in
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: two very different but very good candidates. They could not
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: be more different in demeanor, but like Kelly is, of
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: all the states we've talked about that are the Biden
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: states that decide to control the Senate, Arizona is probably
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: the toughest one.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: And Kelly has been in the lead and has run
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: a great campaign from the very beginning. And like we
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: talked about John Fetterman all the time, John Fetterman's on
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: the news, John Fetterman's on the internet, John Fetterman's on
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: this podcast.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Mark Kelly just out doing his business yet somehow.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I'm just a quiet ex-astronaut.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it really works for him in a lot
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: of ways. I guess maybe the more important way is
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: that good candidates come in all different shapes and sizes.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: That is very true. That is very true. Okay. When
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: we come back, We will talk to Maggie Haberman of
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: The New York Times about her new book, Confidence Man.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Joining us now to talk about her new book, Confidence Man,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist who has
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: had the great honor and misfortune of covering Donald Trump
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: for much of his career, Maggie Haberman. Maggie, welcome to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the pod.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: So none of us have been able to escape Donald
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Trump for the last six or seven years. For you,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: it's been longer. An endless number of words has been
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: written about him. You wanted to focus a good part
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: of this book on his New York origin story. What
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: did you want people to understand about Donald Trump that
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: we don't already know or that maybe we get wrong?
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: So a couple of things. And you are correct that
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: he is the most written about man on the planet,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: I think, at this point, or one of them. I
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: wanted to tell... a story about the arc of his life,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: about the world of dysfunction that he came from, where
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: corruption touched on various aspects of the media, of the
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: real estate industry that he came from, of his family business,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: of machine boss politics, and of racial tribalism in New York,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: and how all of that was exported by him to
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Washington and foretold how his presidency was going to go.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Because in addition to the world he comes from, he
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: has these, you know, specific characteristics about his personality where
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: he has sort of a handful of moves and it's
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: just figuring out which one is operative in any given moment.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: He is not strategic. And I do hope that people
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: who read a lot of strategy into what he does
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: come away with realizing that from reading the reporting in
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: the book. But what he is, is more calculating moment
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: to moment. And I hope they get that too.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I've always thought that an underrated part of Trump's appeal,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: at least to people like me who aren't fans of
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: is his ability to entertain even as he horrifies. You
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: write about feeling queasy during the 2016 campaign when Trump
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: read Lindsey Graham's phone number aloud at a rally, but
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: then a colleague of yours later remembered it as funny.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: And you write, it seemed as though there was both
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: a menacing psychological thriller score and a sitcom laugh track
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: playing behind him at all times. To what extent do
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: you think Trump's ability to both repulse and entertain at
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the same time explains his political success?
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I think a great deal. I would put that in
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: one bucket. I think another bucket that explains his political
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: success is that he spent decades brick by brick, news
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: story by news story, building this artifice of himself as
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: a massively successful tycoon, commensurate with New York's biggest names
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: in finance, which was just not who he was, But
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: the view of him outside of the five boroughs of
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: New York was much more that that was the case.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: And I remember being very struck by the cognitive dissonance
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: in that in 2015. A big part of that was
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: him playing himself on The Apprentice. The person who we
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: got to see over and over again doesn't really like
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: interpersonal conflict and doesn't really like to fire people himself
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: had the catchphrase, you're fired. And that's what he was
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: known for. And so people had this view of who
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: he was combined with, to your point, he both intimidates
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: and is about power and dominance, but he also tries
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: to entertain and that has kept him where he is.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, a theme of the book is that
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Trump mostly has no core beliefs and will say whatever
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: he needs to get ahead. But you do write about
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: how one of his few consistent beliefs is that hate
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: should be a civic good. Can you talk about that?
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Explain that a little?
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: So I wrote that in the context of the ad
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: that he took out. He took out a full page
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: newspaper ad in 1989 after the notorious Central Park jogger
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: case where a white Wall Street executive was jogging in
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Central Park in the evening. She was brutally raped and
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: beaten and found several hours later. And teenagers were charged
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: with the crime, all teenagers of color. Their confessions were,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: it was later learned, coerced by police. They were all
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: ultimately overturned, the convictions. But Trump at the time took
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: out a full page newspaper ad about these kids saying,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: bring back the death penalty. And then I think the
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: second half was bring back our police. I just don't
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: have it in front of me. But he talked about
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: glorifying police brutality. He talked about what I'm positive is
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: not a real story about his youth and watching police
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: officers throw some rowdy people out of a diner. And
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: he missed those days. And Ed Koch had told Then
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: the mayor of New York City had told the populace,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: you know, to keep hate and rancor out of their
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: hearts toward these kids and toward others in the wake
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: of what's happening. Because when there's an incident like that
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: in a major metropolis or anywhere, but in a major metropolis,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: it tends to cleave the city into two. Koch was understandably,
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: as any leader would, trying to avoid that. And Trump's
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: response was, I want to hate them. You know, he
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: wants people to hate them. He wants society to hate them.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: And so I said this was as clear an ethos
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: that Trump appeared to have guiding him, which was hate
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: as a civic good. And I think that is something
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: we saw him use in 2015 and in 2016. You know,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: he a really important moment in the campaign in 2015,
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: I would say, was I think it was September. He
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: had a rally in Arizona and he brought out a
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: so-called angel mom, someone whose child had been killed by
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: an undocumented immigrant. And that really set the tone for
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: what we were going to see. And now these rallies
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: that he does, you know, it sounds like he's reading
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: a police blotter sometimes. I mean, he's just talking about
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: this one getting killed or that one getting killed. And
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: he has infused our politics with it in a way
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: that has been, you know, durable.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Do you see him as an authoritarian, even if he's
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: a very American version of an authoritarian?
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: I see him as a bossist. I'll answer that slightly differently,
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: because I think an authoritarian has a coherent view of governance.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: And I think an authoritarian doesn't mind having responsibility in
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: addition to power. I think Donald Trump is all about
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: avoiding responsibility. He wants credit. And that's something different. But
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: I think he has significant strongman impulses and does not
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: accept systems and does not believe systems should apply to him.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: There's a pretty significant tension between someone who wants to
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: avoid responsibility and someone who is seeking the presidency, the
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: position where you're responsible for everything, right? The buck stops here,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: all of that. We're all sort of operating based on reporting,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: some of yours, someone else, that Trump is going to
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: run again in 2024. I mean, you've reported some pretty
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: active planning that's been going on about announcements. Is there
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: a scenario where he doesn't run? And what would that
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: look like? Or is it a foregone conclusion?
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: I don't think anything with him is ever a foregone conclusion,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: especially because when I write about this, he is so
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: expert at leaving all options open until the last possible second.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: And his heart really doesn't actually seem in running right now.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: He does not enjoying himself. You can see it when
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: he's at these rallies. It's just something is not quite
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: what it was. However, I think he has backed himself
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: into a corner, I think both in terms of his
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: desire for attention, his desire to fundraise, his desire to
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: have a cudgel to use against the various investigations he's facing,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: and the prospect of having the constitutional protections that the
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: White House gives a president against indictment or against trial.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: I think all of those are reasons why he's likely
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: to run.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: I remember when, and you've written about this and talked
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: about it many times, but When Trump first wanted to
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: tell you personally that he was going to run for president,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: you didn't think he was ever possibly going to do it,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: in part because he would never want to be a loser.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: To run and lose again would be to put himself
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: in the absolute dustbin of history. People have lost re-election
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and gone on, whether it's Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: gone on to have careers, but to lose reelection run
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: and lose again would be to like paint the ultimate
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Scarlet L on himself. And you, you think it's a
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: risk he's willing to take.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: I do because I think that when you are willing
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: to say that you didn't really lose, even when you've lost,
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: I guess it is the, I think, yeah, I think
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: your calculus becomes a little different. So, but I don't
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: think he wants it. And I do think that that's
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: something he's cognizant of. I just think that the, in,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: in his mind at this point, the it's worth the, the, the,
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Desirable effects of it outweigh the negatives.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: One of the things I've been very interested about as
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: relates to Trump is he is obviously not shy about
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: sharing his opinions in public about anyone, right? Republicans, Democrats,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: reporters who cover him. You know, he just basically wished
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: death upon Biden. Mitch McConnell last week, depending on how
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: you read his most recent truth. But he is incredibly
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: quiet about Ron DeSantis, who is this person looming over
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: his 2024 race, people who had supported Trump before, sort
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: of either openly advocating or quietly flirting with DeSantis. Why
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: is he so quiet about DeSantis? And do you have
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: a sense of how he really feels about him?
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: Well, he's not quiet privately. He's quiet publicly. And he's
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: not on Twitter anymore. You know, I think even Trump
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: is aware that Truth Social doesn't quite get him the
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: sugar high of followers that Twitter did. I think he's
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: maybe got 3 million.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: He could be back any minute now, I guess.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: Well, that may happen. And he may be back with Facebook, too,
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: at some point pretty soon. There are moments where he
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: can actually show some discipline. They're usually not long lasting
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: and they're always when it's to his own advantage. It's
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: not about someone else. There are a number of people
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: around Trump who just don't see a benefit in getting
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: into a big fight with DeSantis because it just elevates DeSantis,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: number one. And number two, the flip side is if
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: DeSantis were to be hurt in his active reelection campaign
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: right now against Charlie Crist, pointing to Trump as a
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: fault would be problematic for Trump. So that's why.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: And do you, you've also done a lot of reporting
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: around Ron DeSantis, the people who support him. Do you
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: think he runs if Trump runs?
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: So with the caveat that my predictions are worth the
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: paper they're written on and the air they're breathed into,
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: I have not been certain that DeSantis really wants to
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: go into the Trump meat grinder. And that's just based
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: on people who I talk to. Now, as you guys
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: know better than anybody, you get a moment in time
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: and you either take the moment or you don't. And
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: you can make an argument, this is DeSantis' moment. If
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: he waits, it's not clear what it ends up looking like. Um,
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: but everybody thinks it's going to, you know, they're going
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: to be the ones who can really take Trump on. And,
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: and it's incredibly difficult when he is, you know, saying
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: all kinds of vicious things about you, uh, to keep
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: going in the face of it because people who accept
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: normal parameters aren't used to dealing with that. And even DeSantis,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: who does a fair amount of insulting, um, you know,
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: it's not like Trump. I will say, um, We don't
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: know what DeSantis is going to look like on the
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: national stage yet. There have been a couple of vaguely
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Scott Walker vibe, you know, 2015 moments with DeSantis recently.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: So I'm just not convinced as a foregone conclusion.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: One thing I've always been curious about in reporting on
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Trump and Trump world is, you know, as you document
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: this in the book, Trump is obviously a sort of
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: a historically prodigious liar. He is surrounded by people who
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: also lie and sort of there's been this, you know,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: if you're unwilling to lie for Trump, you're not really
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: close to Trump. When you're talking, you know, reporting about
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: things Trump may do, may believe, may say, how do
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: you sort of sort out what is factual and true
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: when you have, you know, sort of an unprecedented amount
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: of dishonesty in all the concentric circles around, you know,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: sort of a historic dishonest person? It's a great question.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: And it's a question we've all wrestled with since 2015.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: The normal rules of multiple sources, you amplify it because
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: everybody around him doesn't lie, but a lot of people
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: around him lie. And a lot of people are willing
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: to do it because he encourages it or, Dan, because
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: they think they'll get extra benefit of the doubt because
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: they're not him. I mean, there are a number of
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: people who take advantage of the fact that a lot
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: of what he says is not true. to say what
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: they want, even if it's not true. It's just, it's
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: a huge challenge. I mean, getting a baseline of truth
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: with him is a huge challenge. And in the process
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: of the news report day-to-day, in the process of this book,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: we do the best we can to get the best
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: attainable version of the truth, but it's a challenge.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about your Twitter mentions, which unlike
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: your book, I would not recommend. I see, so- Thanks, John. Look,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't recommend mine either. I wouldn't recommend anyone's personally.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: So I see like two main critiques of your work.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: One is that, and this is the more recent one,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: that you somehow held back urgently important reporting for the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: book that I guess would have sent Donald Trump to
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: jail already. And two is that all the access you've
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: had to Donald Trump over the years hasn't resulted in
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: urgently important reporting. and sometimes both of those seemingly contradictory
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: critiques come from the same people. I'm like, is she
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: holding scoops back or does she not have important scoops?
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: You can't have both. Um, but like, what is, what
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: is your response to sort of those two broad criticisms
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: that you have no doubt heard over the last several years?
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: So as you know, those two things are in conflict. Um, I,
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: I had, uh, this figure has been cited to me,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: which is why I know it. I had close to
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: 600 bylines in 2016. The vast majority were about Donald Trump.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: I had well over a thousand during the presidency. I
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: was part of a lot of rigorous reporting on him.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: My general view on it is I report and people
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: can react how they're going to react. And the goal
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: of it is not to get a reaction. When I
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: have confirmable reportable information, my goal is to get it
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: out as quick as possible. And that has always been
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: my guiding ethos.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: I also, I think people misunderstand too, like you didn't
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: have the reporting that he had taken classified information with
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: him from the White House. People like assumed that he
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: just sort of lied to you during that interview.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: No, in fact, he said the opposite, that he said
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: he didn't take anything of greater urgency. And I asked
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: the question on a lark, because he was so proud
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: of those Kim Jong-un letters. He would wave them around
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: to people in the Oval Office. And his immediate reaction
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: when I asked if you, did you take any memento
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: documents was my question. And he said, nothing of great urgency, no.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: And then he sort of said something mushy about the
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: KJU letters. And I thought he was saying he had
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: them and I kind of reacted. And then he said, no, no,
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: those are in the archives and took it back. So no,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: he didn't inform me of that. I mean, listen, if
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: I heard that Someone that Donald Trump literally said, I
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: have I have classified material here and it didn't get reported.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: I'd be really outraged, too. But that is that is
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: not what happened.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: And the toilet stuff was reported. Your toilet reporting. That
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: was back in February.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: I appreciate the headline. Yeah, I put that out in
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: February as as an issue around the documents was was
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: coming up. You know, and that was eight months before
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: the book came out.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Not to be confused with your Rudy Giuliani toilet reporting,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: which is another anecdote in the book that I highly recommend.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: That has a less security implication around it. Different issues.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Frankly, that's one tidbit I wish you had held back.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: You can't please everyone.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Fair enough. Fair enough. John and I are
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: divided on that one.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: My last question is, you must be so tired. Today
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: or in general? That's what I'm saying. I guess all
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: of it. Tired of Donald Trump. We're all tired of
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. How do you keep going? Will you keep
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: going if he runs again and covering this beat? It
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: must be exhausting for a million different reasons. What keeps
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: you into it?
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: So I would just make the point, there's a lot
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: of people who are not tired of Donald Trump. And
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: that's part of why he sustains in political life, number one.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: And he remains a huge force. I don't know what
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: the next couple of years will look like, assuming he runs.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: I think these investigations into him, which I've been pretty
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: involved with reporting on, are going to continue and that
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: will remain a focus.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: But who knows? All we have is today.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. Maggie Haberman, thank you for joining
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America. The book is Confidence Man. Look, as
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: someone who has thought way too often about how to
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: defeat Donald Trump over the last several years, I think
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: this book is fascinating and important in giving you a
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: window into his psyche, which is always a dangerous thing
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: for those of us who don't know him to try
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: to guess. But you know better than most since you have, again, unfortunately,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: had to spend so much time with him. So thank
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: you for doing that. And thank you for joining Pod
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Save America.
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, before we go, our chief take officer, Elijah Cohn,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: is back. He's married. Congrats.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Thanks, John. I am married. Exciting weekend.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: He's married and he's got some piping hot takes. Just
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: for us.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: And he's not married to takes. He's married to a person.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, he is married to takes also. I don't
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: want to take that away.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: He had to divorce the takes. Never divorce the takes.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: Trust me, if I legally could, I would. But I
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: checked some of the state of North Carolina.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: They would have loved me.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: All right. What do you got for us, Elijah?
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: Guys, I have a really exciting array of takes for
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: both of you to sample today. So I hope you
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: brought your appetites.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I'm hungry. I'm hungry.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Good.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Let's see. I'm going to explain how it works.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: I'm going to share these takes with you all. The
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: producers have seen them. You guys have not. John and
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: Dan they will react to these takes and rate them
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: on a scale of one to four politicos with four
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: being the worst John and Dan are you.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Ready so ready never been more ready all right.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: Let's get started this first one is from the Washington
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: Post shout out to friend of the pod David for
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: sending it to me this piece is so good you
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: guys This piece is titled, To Stop Inflation, We Need
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: to Secure the Border.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: All right. Here's a quote from it.
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: There's so many possible excerpts, but this one kind of
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: sums up the argument of the piece, and it's such
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: a great excerpt. So, quote, Biden's failure to secure the
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: border is ironically helping to fuel the inflation that is
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: undermining his presidency. We need foreign workers to help the
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: supply side of the economy meet rising demand. But we
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: cannot pass legislation to bring in these workers until the
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: border is secure. So the inflation crisis and the border
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: crisis spin out of control together.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Who wrote it?
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: That is some fucking galaxy brain shit right there. Because
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the economics, they do admit that the economics suggest that
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: we need more workers in this country. But we can't
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: bring those workers in because we have to kick them
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: out first? I don't know. I don't know. Who is that?
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Is this a person we've heard of before? Yes, definitely.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Is this person a regular columnist at the Washington Post?
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: They are, Dan. Ooh.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Is it Mark Thiessen?
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: It is Mark Thiessen, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, John,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: to be fair to Mark Thiessen, he says, we can't
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: just let anybody into the country.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: We have to let the right people into the country.
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: But we can't let the right people into the country
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: until we stop letting everyone into the country, which obviously,
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Do you think, I recognize that you're in charge of social, Elijah,
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: so you probably won't do this. But I was hoping
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: someone could clip starting at, to be fair to Mark Thiessen,
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: and put it out there. Yeah, I'll put it on
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: a graphic, just owning myself. yeah to be fair or
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: even if you just want to send it to tommy
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: and see what his reaction is that'd.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Be great yeah and roads i.
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: Did actually text us a time and he texted me
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: back in all caps of course it's fucking mark tason.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Yes so here's my thing on this it's a very
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: uh i'm gonna take points away from him because it's
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: like a it's a very like lazy bush era which
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: of course because he's a bush era speechwriter a bush
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: era take about immigration like We can't give a pathway
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: to citizenship unless we secure the border. It's sort of
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: a few steps ago for the Republican Party on immigration.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: It's not where they are now. So I'm going to
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: give it two. I'm going to give it two.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to give you an example of what
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: an alternate version of that take would be. Inflation right
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: now is George W. Bush's fault because had he not
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: invaded Iraq in 2003– He would have had the political
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: capital to pass the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill in 2005.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: And therefore, the border would be secured. We would have
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: passed comprehensive immigration reform, and there would be no inflation.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: So ultimately, this is George W.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Bush's fault. That's a take. That is a take. Maybe
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: we could add to this game and it's alternate takes
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: from us.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I guess that's the podcast.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: That's right. Wait, was there a Politico rating in there, Dan?
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give you just two.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: Two Politicos. And once again, I will say I feel
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: dramatically constrained by the limit of four Politicos, which is
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: just like the problem that the Washington Post fact checker
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Glenn Kessler has with his four Pinocchios. Because the big
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: lie that sparked the murderous rampage on the Capitol gets
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: the same number of Pinocchios as Barack Obama misstating some
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: fact about Social Security. Right. So this is our, I mean,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: I need, I basically, I need some more room to
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: spread my wings. So just take that back to your
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: production meeting next time.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: No, please explore the space. I still have it written
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: as one to four political space.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: Go over.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: I feel so inclined. Uh, and we'll see if you,
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: if you feel that way about this next one.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Um, okay.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: So let's head over to the Elon Musk Twitter story. Uh,
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: it does look like Elon Musk will end up buying Twitter.
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: And many users are afraid that the sale means the
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: platform will be full of trolls and Nazis. There's also
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: discussion of it helping Republicans. That brings us to this take.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: It is a tweet and a quote. The relationship between
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: Twitter content moderation and electoral outcomes is a little ambiguous.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: Letting Trump back on Twitter is almost certainly good for Democrats.
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: Letting more Nazis and bigots back on Twitter is also
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: probably good for Democrats.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: Guys, who wrote it?
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay. We know, yeah, we both know it's Matt Iglesias.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I do not know if he is wrong.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: He, I think, I mean, he gets demerits for making
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: a prediction with near absolute certainty on something he knows
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: very little about. So like that is like, we don't
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: really know that. Is it likely that Donald Trump, just
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: reminding everyone of what a fucking lunatic he is, good
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: for Democratic prospects where we want Trump to be at
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: the center of the news story?
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: Is it true that a bunch of bigots and white
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: supremacists coming back on the platform to abuse everyone is
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: good for Democrats? No, I'm skeptical of that.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, clearly it was trollish in the sense
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: that it's like, obviously, it should go unsaid that it's
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: not good for democracy or the country to have that happen.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: But in the narrow question of whether more Trump tweets
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: helps Democrats democratic electoral fortunes, that is something that we
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: have argued on this very podcast.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, it was offered in a much more nuanced data-driven
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: view in a message box about a year ago, for
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: those who want to check it out.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Right, which is why we talk on the podcast and
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: write in the message box and don't write the tweets.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we've got to write the tweets.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: But the tweets get you in trouble.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you need more than 280 characters to explore a
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: complicated issue.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: No, I remember from the Boston show, we did talk
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: about this, but I guess like the Nazis and bigots
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: parts of it does really stand out.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: That's the problem. Because it's like, really, what's the connection directly?
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: They're not running.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: In fact, they are running, but those Nazis and bigots
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: are already on Twitter. Like Mark Fincham is on Twitter,
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. I don't know that that necessarily, that part
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: of the argument is helpful or right or anything. But
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: the first part about Trump and Democrats is, you know,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: I'm more inclined to believe that. So I'm going to
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: give this... going to give this two again. I'm going
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: to give it two. I'm like Dan. I want to
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: spread my wings and have a larger.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: John, sometimes you got to come up with your own
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: solution if the rule makers won't work with you. So
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: I'm going with 1.36 politicos. Love it. There we go.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: Exploring the space. All right.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: So last one. I do have a bonus one that's
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: so far outside the political realm. Maybe we'll cut it.
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: Maybe we won't even get to it, but This is
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: the last official one.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: No, now we're definitely, we're definitely doing it now that
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: you've said it and it's going to be a podcast.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: So go for it.
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: Let's go fight the culture war. There's a lot of
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: good culture war, you know, battles happening right now. Like
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: Lizzo's playing James Madison's flute and Velma from Scooby-Doo is gay.
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: But in the spirit of Take Appreciators, we're going to
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: do something that's a little more dressed up. You're not
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: going to get the author. So I'm just going to
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: have you guys guess the outlet. So the post promoting
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: this piece read, New York libraries have waded into America's
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: culture wars by directly lending books to non-residents since spring,
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: including thousands of students living under red state book bans.
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: This is a story about how Republicans have banned hundreds
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: of books from schools and libraries and how some libraries
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: are lending those books to people in those red states.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: Here's a quote.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: Proponents of the ban say that they're protecting children. Detractors
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: say this policy chills people. Discussions around institutional racism and
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: deprives LGBTQ children resources to help them better understand themselves.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: Guys, it's classic both sides. Which outlet wrote this?
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Politico?
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Correct. Yes, it's a Politico, Politico New York. But yes, Politico.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: There you go. There you go. Classic, classic proponents say.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give it 1.73.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Good job, John. Way to buck against the system. Quiet
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: civil disobedience. Civil disobedience by decimal point.
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: Dan, can I bring you back to the initial promotion
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: of New York libraries wading into the culture war by
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: lending books?
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: I did skip over that. I was focused on the quote.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: The headline is pretty, yeah, waiting in is funny.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, by loaning books across state lines. I don't know, 3.21%.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: We've lost the thread, guys. Maybe we're just numb to
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: bad takes, Elijah. I don't know. I'm finding myself less outraged.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Maybe I need to really get myself going here.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: That's how they get the lobster every time.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: You guys, are you focused on other aspects of the
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: culture war from Lizzo playing the flute?
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Read it to us.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: I'm still mad about Lizzo and the flute. Okay. about
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: the flute.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: Okay. I'm outraged about the outrage about the flute, just
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: to be clear.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: I'm outraged that I had to look up what that was. Yeah,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: that took some time out of my day.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, we'll go to this bonus one, which
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: is so outlandish.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, a bonus.
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: It's so outlandish. It's so ridiculous. It's so far off
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: the spectrum that it has to be talked about. Uh,
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: it's not political. Like I said, we can cut it
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: if we need to, but it's a piece titled, and
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: this was going around a lot. Uh, here's why you
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: shouldn't high five a child. Um, I heard, I heard
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: the piece literally starts with our good. Someone's screaming in pain.
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: There's so much to quote from it, but here's just one. Uh,
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: A high five is a gesture of familiarity to be
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: exchanged between equals. I have traded the palm slap with
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: adult friends. I will not slap the upraised palm of
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: a person who is not my peer and a peer
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: is someone over the age of 21, emancipated, employed, and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: paying their own way.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: Any thoughts on this piece, you guys?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: You did it, Elijah. It's a full playbook. It's a
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: full playbook. It's the craziest fucking piece. I can't believe
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: it was published. I read the whole thing, and I
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: was just like, what is happening here?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: You read the whole piece?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, everyone was talking about it, and I don't know. Yeah,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I did. After I finished Googling Lizzo flute controversy.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, Offline goes on fall break for like three weeks,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: and you read this entire piece?
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: It's a quick piece.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't... Like, this is... Like, I definitely
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: knew about the Lizzo flute thing. This... I heard nothing about,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: can you just give me like a little, I'm going
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: to give it a full playbook just to be clear,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: but can you give me some context? What's the rationale
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: about why you can't high five an unemancipated, non-self-sufficient 19
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: year old? Like what is the argument?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: It's a lack of respect. It teaches the child not
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: to respect an adult. And it's a problem in America generally.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Do you think it's a problem that in recent weeks
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: my one-year-old son fist-bumped the former president of the United States?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: Is that a failure of parenting? I think as a.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: person who reads a lot of Republican takes, uh, I'm
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: like getting excited just thinking about what that says about
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: the former president of the United States that he allowed that.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, to be clear, Jack initiated said fist bump, but,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: and to be clear, the former president's Barack Obama, not
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: So just, and to be, and to be clear, because
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: the former president in question was Barack Obama, it wasn't
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: just a fist bump. It was a terrorist fist jab.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, just another old 15 year old joke for nerds
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: of a certain generation.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Love making those. Love making those.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Which is funny because Cody Keeney, author of Grace and
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Amazing Work You Should All Buy, made that exact joke
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: on text to me two days ago.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: We only have a couple things we go to here.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: There's not a lot in the arsenal these days. Okay.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, thank you for your takes as always. Congratulations
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: on your nuptials. Maggie Haberman, thank you for joining the
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: pod today. Everyone have a great weekend and we will
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: talk to you next week.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Olivia Martinez and Haley Muse. It's mixed
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: sound engineer the show. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.