Latest / Pod Save America / "MAGA v. The Military." (with Sam Sanders!)

Transcript

"MAGA v. The Military." (with Sam Sanders!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor. We're not used to this order.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Jon Favreau is taking some much-needed R & R on
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin's houseboat. Joining us, we have a special guest.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: He is a correspondent for NPR and host of It's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Been a Minute with Sam Sanders. Sam Sanders, good to
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: have you.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: On the pod.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: It's so good to be here. I'm realizing now that
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: I have really big shoes to fill, so I hope
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I don't screw it up.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Well, here's something I don't get to do in my
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: gay voice very often.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Happy Pride.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Happy Pride. What a pride it's been. There we go.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: What a pride it's been. On today's show, thanks for
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: being here, Sam.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: On today's show, as Trump holds his first rally since
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: leaving office to lie about the election and Democrats look
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: for a way to investigate January 6th after Republicans blocked
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a bipartisan commission, we have three big stories that look
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: at how Trump's rejection of the results led to the
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: attack on the Capitol, how the Department of Justice responded,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and what was taking place inside the White House as
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: protests turned violent. Also today, Conservatives attack the chairman of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military generally for
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: suggesting it's good when students read books. We'll briefly talk
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: about the latest on infrastructure and how President Biden saying
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: something obvious and true about the negotiations caused a mini
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: freakout over the weekend. And Tucker Carlson gets outed as
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a secret source for the reporters he claims to despise.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: That pause was nice.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Really nice pause.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Before we get to the show, we did record our
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: first Love It or Leave It live in over a
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: year to raise money for the Trans Justice Funding Project.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: We raised over $ 50, 000 and it's one of my favorite
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: episodes of all time with an incredible lineup of guests.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: So check it out.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: You can listen to it as a podcast. You can
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: watch it on YouTube or you can donate at crooked.com
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: slash pride fund.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So since Friday, we've had these three big stories. I'd
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: say that two are pretty serious stories. And one is
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: pure gossip, which is at times single source to some
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of the biggest liars on earth. But the details are
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: fun and we've earned it. So let's start with a
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: story that takes place in the run up to the insurrection.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Karl, a reporter for ABC, interviewed former Attorney General
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Bill Barr, who's obviously most famous for lying about the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Mueller report, protecting Trump at all costs.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: It's December.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: You have Trump running around claiming the election is stolen.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, Republicans are desperate to hold
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: on to two Senate seats in Georgia. And Carl documents
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: surprising conversations between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: at the time, and Attorney General Bill Barr. Tommy, can
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about what McConnell and Barr
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: were scheming over? And were you surprised by how direct
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the talks between them turned out to be?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, I was quite surprised. I mean, look, there's sort
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of two big takeaways from this story for me. One,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Barr repeated in stronger terms, more colorful terms, what we
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: already knew, which is that he didn't see any evidence
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: of election fraud. he said, quote, it was all bullshit.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: And then two, you have this anecdote where McConnell, Mitch
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: McConnell calls Bill Barr, the sitting attorney general at the time,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: and asked him to talk to Trump, to intervene with him,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: to shut down these lies about electoral fraud, because McConnell
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: was worried that Trump's ranting and raving about the election
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: would impact the Georgia Senate runoffs. Now, that actually, that
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: shocked me. Um, that someone, the Senate majority leader, would
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: call the sitting attorney general to ask him to intervene
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: politically in Senate races. But like you sort of alluded to, John,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, McConnell confirmed this with Jonathan Karl, and Bill
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Barr said a lot of it on the record. So
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: they don't seem too worried about it. A lot of
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: the same people who were quite concerned about Bill Clinton
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: talking to Loretta Lynch back in the day on the
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: tarmac about an investigation are seemingly cool with this. That
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: surprised me.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's sad. Like even, you know, Jonathan
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Karl is very forthright at the top. Like this is
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a bunch of interviews with Bill Barr. It is Bill
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Barr is seeking to tell a story about himself. But
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: what Karl says is that Barr seems to be frustrated
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that he's been widely seen as a Trump lackey who
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: politicized the Justice Department. So let me tell you a
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: story about how I yet again politicized the Justice Department. Sam,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: what was your reaction to this kind of rehabilitation effort
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: by Bill Barr?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, I've stopped being surprised by it. I think
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: there's a litany of people that have been around Trump's
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: orbit that are trying to guarantee for themselves some semblance
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: of a legacy or their next job. So the fact
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: that these kind of interviews from someone like him exist
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: don't surprise me. What surprises me and what perhaps is
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: the most dismaying is that at the same time, Barr
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: is saying to Trump, you can't win this election.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: It's over.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: There is no fraud. He also indulged Trump and said,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: I'll allow the DOJ to keep investigating this stuff. And
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: that felt like, you know, a parent when their five-year-old
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: is like, there's a monster under my bed. There's like
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: two options. You can say there is no monster, go
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: to bed, or you can look under the bed for
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: half an hour and waste everyone's time. And the fact
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: that Barr chose to do that in a way that's
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: much more serious than like what's beneath some child's bed,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: that's the danger. So I'm not surprised that someone like
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Barr would do an interview like this. I'm surprised that
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: He was so casually talking out of both sides of
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: his mouth. On the one hand, he could say to Trump,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: you're going to lose. On the other hand, but we'll
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: investigate why not. The why notness of it is very dismaying,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: if not surprising.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Do you think he looked under the bed and found
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: like a half-eaten McRib? Like what was under there? What
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: are we talking about here?
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: This is the thing. It's like Trump has been trying
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: to get everyone to look under his bed for like
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: more than 40 years at this point. And the fact,
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: sorry to keep this metaphor going, but it's like.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I love it. No, no, it's good.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: This has been the central problem of Trump acolytes. You know,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: people who thought that they could do two things at
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: once with him. On the one hand, defend institutions, fight
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: for the truth. But on the other hand, indulge Trump.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: when you indulge Trump, there's no end to the indulging.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: He's going to keep it going to the point of
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: literal insurrection. And this is like, this article on the
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: story feels new, but that both sides-ism, both sides of
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: the mouth-ism, that's been a constant since this man was
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: running for office, you know, the first time back in
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: 15 and 16.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you remember the quote by a Republican
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: leader right after the election saying, oh, we'll indulge him
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks. What's the worst that could happen? Tommy,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So putting aside how political an effort this is, it's like, okay,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: we have the majority leader and the attorney general basically
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: worrying over Senate seats in Georgia. You have the president
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: attacking American democracy all over the country. And the only
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: reason the two most powerful Republicans on earth are willing
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: to intervene at all is because they're trying to win
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: the Senate. They're not worried about the democracy. They're not
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: worrying about what it does to the constitutional order. They're
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: worrying about these two Senate seats in Georgia. What does
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: that tell you about what would happen if a Republican
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: nominee were to challenge the results in 2024?
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think it's absolutely like a blinking red
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: warning sign. I mean, I think Sam's sort of point
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: he just made that there's no end to the indulging
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: once you start, I think is sort of the core
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: theme to all the things that happened over the weekend.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, I watched the entire Trump rally because I
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: was quite bored. And like the last 30 minutes are
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: about the election lie, right? Like there's no getting endorsed
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: by Trump and getting up on stage and supporting him
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: because you love the tax cuts and because you love
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: that we got out of the war in Afghanistan or
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: whatever and saying, yeah, but I don't love this other stuff.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I don't love this big lie that he keeps perpetuating.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: It is the core of who he is right now.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: And to be a part of Trumpism, you have to
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: go along with that, right? So he just pulls everyone
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: along with him to the darkest depths, no matter how
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: much they would want to avoid that part of the conversation.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: It's disconcerting for the next iteration of whatever he does politically.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you see it. So the next story, there's
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: this ProPublica story that looks at what happened in the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: run-up to the protests and rallies that took place on
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: January 5th and January 6th. And you've kind of seen
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: that same dynamic playing out of people around Trump trying
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: to indulge Trump's fantasy around the election, while Trump officials
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: are trying to manage the fact that this has drawn
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: in some of the worst elements in American society. this
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: is the reporting from ProPublica, on one side stood Women
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: for America First, which wanted to, and I want to,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: this is stated so with such a kind of genteel manner,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: they wanted to hold a kind of extended oral argument
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: with multiple speakers making their case for how the election
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: had been stolen. Oh, is that what that is? Rejecting
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the election. And then on the other side was Stop
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the Steal, a new more radical group that had recruited
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: avowed racists with Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and Alex
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Jones and his followers. But It turns out that there
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: was a ton of communication between the Trump White House
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and the various factions that were putting this on. And
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: while they were trying to manage the optics of who
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: was going to speak and who wasn't going to speak,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Trump was promoting all of it. He was promoting Stop
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the Steal. He was promoting this less radical but still
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: anti-democratic group that was sort of running counter to them. Tommy,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: one thing that comes out in this story is that
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: The officials around Trump were desperately trying to get Alex
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Jones and other speakers like that to have a different
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: time slot. Do you think that that counts as disavowing
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a person who has harassed school shooting victims and has
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: promoted the most racist propaganda that you have disavowed them
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: by saying that they should speak the night before at
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: a different time slot?
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Or have worse seats at the rally. First of all,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: shout out ProPublica. ProPublica is having a moment. They got
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: this story. They broke the big tax story. They got
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: every rich person's tax return. So credit to them. It's
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: like Britney.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: ProPublica is having a moment.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: They are the it girl of journalism right now.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: They are the Icaro journalism. I support ProPublica. I think
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: they're great.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: That's so funny.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the story was really interesting. It's unclear if the
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: organizers spoke to Mark Meadows, then the chief of staff.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: It's clear that Trump aides were working behind the scenes
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: to keep these most controversial march leaders off the stage.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: The worst actors were this guy, Ali Alexander, Alex Jones,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Nick Fuentes, who's just an out-and-out white supremacist. But you
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: also learned a lot about this woman, Caroline Wren, who's
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: an establishment Republican fundraiser. She has close ties to Don Jr.,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Kim Guilfoyle. So whatever the White House was doing to
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: try to keep these people off the stage, she was
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: personally pushing to get Ali Alexander and Alex Jones on
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: the stage to get them better seats. She was working
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: with Katrina Pearson. So there is some suggestion that they
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: were trying to manage who spoke at this rally so
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: as not to embarrass Trump. But the outcome eventually was
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: that Trump offered language and rhetoric to this group that was,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: you know, did more to incite the crowd than i
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: think anyone else could so i don't know that they
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: really get their distance here sam what do you make.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: Of this story um i think if you look at
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: it in the most craven interpretation for donald trump that
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: rally before the insurrection was not about actually changing the
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: outcome of the election It was about setting up what
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: would come next for him and his media empire, right?
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: And how much of getting the Alex Joneses there and
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: the other folks there to gin up these crowds and
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: get all of this time on the airwaves was to
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: promote Trump and what might come next, you know? And
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: I think that there's two ways to look at what
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Trump was doing in that moment, either totally trying to
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: undermine democracy and become a dictator or.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Just being a craven businessman. And I kind of think it's,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: I want to say like, it works if you look
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: at what Donald Trump is as a media business. He
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: is a media business and he needs to keep attention.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: And once he realized he wasn't going to have the
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: White House, it was like, how can I go out
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: in a way that keeps the attention on me? And
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: so when you look at the folks that were organizing
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: that rally and organizing those events, they had a financial
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: interest and seeing what Trump would do next and helping
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: him do something next like Parler or his own media
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: business or his own new platform. So it was as
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: much about that as him being mad that he lost.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: And I think that like, if it's about that and
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: about eyeballs and viewers, of course you're going to have
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Alex Jones there because he gets eyeballs and he gets ratings.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: So it's not surprising. And I think that like, we
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: have to, as journalists, look at these things for what
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: they are as well. I think that there's so much
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: coverage of Trump continuing to try to have rallies where
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: there's a little more seriousness ascribed to what he's doing
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: than what it really is. This guy needs eyeballs to
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: make money. He needs eyeballs to make money, right? And
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: we should not cover these rallies without keeping that in mind.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: And I think that just because he gets the old
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: band together and sings the same songs doesn't mean it's
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: going to be a number one hit again. You know,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: like I would happily go to a jagged edge reunion concert.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: It doesn't mean that where the party at is going
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: to be number one on the billboard charts the next week,
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: you know? And so we have to put what Trump
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: is and what he represents post White House in perspective
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: and understand that whether he is a politician or in
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: office or not, he is a media entity. He is
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: a media enterprise, and he is going to try to
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: get as much attention as he can until he's.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Out of here. Bring all the Jagged Edge comparisons to me, please.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Last night I watched a Netflix show about pop culture
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: and pop music, and I watched an episode just on
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Boyz II Men that I highly recommend for everyone because
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: they do not get enough credit for how good they
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: were at singing and how they merged Philly and Motown together.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Love it. I apologize.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Don't apologize for that. No, I'm New Jack Swing forever.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Just processing that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Just processing that information.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: No, I.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I think you're right, though. My one caveat on what
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Sam just said is that I think that one aspect
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of Trump as a politician is the shock that he
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: experiences by how far his own bullshit has taken him.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, we're going to talk about this
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Michael Wolff reporting about just how about Giuliani and Trump
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: spinning each other up, actually coming to believe that Mike
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Pence really might step in and give him the presidency.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And I do think two things can be happening at
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: once because he's not a he's he doesn't need these
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: facts to align. He doesn't need his story to make sense.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: That's sort of, that's, that's the essence of what Trump
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: has done as a politician. He says whatever he has
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: to say, even if it's contradictory to what he had
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: said moments ago, there's no theory.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: It's about a feeling. There's no theory.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: It's just feeling.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: It's about, it's about, it's about a feeling. And so
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I think that you're right, that this was about generating
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the most attention, generating the most press possible, getting people
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: riled up. But if it did result in, those objections working.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: If it did result in Republicans being so intimidated as
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: to overturn the election on his behalf with Mike Pence
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: at the helm, that would have been a great outcome
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: for him too. And it puts in context too, I
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: think one thing that also I think was, I'm glad
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: we're having this conversation about these look backs is because
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: it helps make sense of what was happening while these
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: things were unfolding. Like I remember when Bill Barr comes
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: out there and says that he sees no evidence of
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: widespread fraud. And I'm like, That doesn't seem like the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Bill Barr I know. And now we know McConnell was
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: trying to win the Senate with Bill Barr's help. And
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: then it was a little bit strange when Trump was like,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: we're going to start here and we're going to walk
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to the Capitol. And then there's a bit of confusion
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: at the time about, wait, there's an event at the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Ellipse and there's some smaller events supposedly taking place at
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: the Capitol, but it's one big event. What's going on here? Oh,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: it just seems clear to me now.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Like, oh, I see.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: They really were trying to have it both ways and
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: keep this whole big operation together with the Proud Boys,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: but also some of the kind of base of the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Republican Party that they've been relying on the whole time.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Well, and like the most revealing part of that reporting
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: from Michael Wolff that y'all sent to me, just like
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: stopped me in my tracks. It's like, you know, he's
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: at that rally before the insurrection begins. And he's like,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: we're going to walk over there. We're going to walk
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: over there. And then he walks off stage and his
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: staff is like, what did you mean? And he was like,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: I didn't mean that.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: He didn't mean it.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: You know, he understands that there's a disconnect and a
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: difference between between what he says and what he really means.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: And he's never had to grapple with that. And it's
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: like his most ardent supporters, I don't think have ever
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: internalized that. Like he's never gonna put himself at risk
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: for them. He's never gonna risk it all for them.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: He's gonna preserve himself at all costs. But you feel
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: free to walk to the Capitol and risk your life.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: You feel free to do it. That like to the
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: very end, that was his dynamic.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: So Tommy, let's talk about this. So there's an excerpt
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of Michael Wolff's book, that looks at the day the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: insurrection was unfolding. We already talked about how Rudy Giuliani,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: who Wolf reports, was drinking heavily.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that. That was really surprising to me.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: I had no idea, but now it makes sense.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: It does make sense.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Have you seen drunk people before?
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: I've seen myself.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen drunk people before. Yeah, I guess I
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: would say it's the first time I've seen it actually
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: written down. But yeah, I mean- I do think it
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: was pretty obvious that Rudy was drinking too much when
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: he asked Jeanine Pirro for three fingers of scotch on air.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Shouldn't have done that.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So Tommy, in this story, well, we can get to
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: some of the more substantive points, but what was Ivanka
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Trump doing as the protest turned violent in the White House?
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: This was one of my favorite little anecdotes. Apparently she was,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: as the Capitol is being overrun, like we're hours into it,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: she's walking around the West Wing. She's talking to people
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: about how her kids got into some Florida private school.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And then she tweeted some message to American patriots. She
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: was urging them to calm down, to stop the violence.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: And then she ultimately deleted this tweet, but she called
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: them American patriots. But I just love thinking about Ivanka
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: walking around as the Capitol is getting sacked, talking about
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: how her kids just got into some $ 50, 000 a year
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: preschool because that's where her head is at all times.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So- Sam, one point that Wolf makes here that I
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: do think is worth highlighting, and he's a sleazy person,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and a lot of this has to be taken with
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a grain of salt.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Big old grain of salt.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And the amount of single source... There's a moment in
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the story where Jason Miller, who is a despicable human being,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: just a creep beyond all creeps, is like, and then
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I shot out of bed and I realized... we had
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: to have an orderly transition. It's like, all right, now
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you're so full of shit.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: But there is one point that he makes that I
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: do want to highlight. He says this, as the effort
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to stop the certification is unfolding, he says, there is
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: nobody on the White House side whipping votes. There was
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: nobody on the White House side who was particularly up
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: to date on who might be with them or against
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: them other than from public reports. The extent that as
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the media darkly warned, there was an extraordinary plot to
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: hold onto power, an incipient coup even, there really were
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: only two plotters with no one to back them up.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: So Sam, on the one hand, that's true. This was
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: an incompetent operation. As you said, it is a media operation.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: But also at the same time, even with all that incompetence,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: most Republicans now believe that the election was stolen and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Trump should be the president. How do you think about
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: that balance between the malevolence of what they were trying
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to achieve and the incompetence with which they tried to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: achieve it?
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: I think we should be used to it by now.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: I think it like this was just what it was
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: from the start. And I think the problem really for
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: me in the aftermath of election day is was the
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: speed at which mainstream newsrooms, including my own, were eager
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: to put on the air and in the paper and
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: on TV the voices in the Trump White House that said, oh,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: it's not over yet. You know, we, I speak for
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: big J journalism, we could have said, we're not interviewing you.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: You know this is psych and this is bogus. No.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: And so it took my industry a good month to
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: start calling the big lie the big lie after we
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: had given those folks the microphone to tell the big
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: lie for a month. So the behavior of the Trump
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: administration is not surprising, as I've said several times in
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: this conversation. What is surprising is the extent to which
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: we all just sit there and watch it happen and
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: don't say anything. And the we right now was my industry,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: you know? There is a version of reality in which
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: a day or two after election night, CNN and the
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: New York Times and NPR and the Post and the
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Journal put all their heads together and say, we're going
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: on our airwaves and our papers saying it's done. We
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: didn't do that. You know, we we all were at
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: that four seasons total landscaping press conference. Right. So some
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: of this I hate to use the word blood. Some
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: of this, whatever it is, is on our hands, too.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: These are clear, obvious lies, but there are real world
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: consequences no matter what Bill Barr says. Right. Like Trump
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: savaged Bill Barr the minute he made all these statements
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: with ABC this morning. The Michigan Republican led state Senate
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: concluded that there was no evidence of fraud in the
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: 2020 election. This Arizona audit that's happening as we speak,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: and not done until August, I believe, is clearly a joke.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: It's not credible. It's being conducted by unqualified people. But
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: all of this churn, all this big electoral lie content
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: is leading to voter suppression laws in dozens of states
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: that the net effect is going to be probably to
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: make it harder for mostly Black, mostly Latino people to
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: vote in the next election. So there is real damage
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: being done by these lies, even if Bill Barr is
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: belatedly repeating that it was all nonsense.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there's the flip side to the coin
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: of the kind of failure to tell the truth as
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: it was unfolding. It's like, okay, there was a failure
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: to be direct enough about what was taking place in
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: this country out of some reverence for dispassionate, non-biased coverage.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: No, or a desire to hold on to this mythical
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: conservative news consumer.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I digress.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: But no, no, but that's important. That's part of this, right?
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: That's how they kept it. They have to think about
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: that mythical consumer. And then after the fact, the coup fails,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the insurrection attempt fails. And then you have the kind
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: of cynical, hard-edged media reporter like Michael Wolff, like many others,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: who say, see, there's all these sensationalistic resistancy types who
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: are taking this way too seriously, acting like it was
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: some coup in the making. But look how dumb it
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: all turned out to be. Look how incompetent it all
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: turned out to be. Tommy, do you think we overstated
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the case for the fact that Trump was a threat
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to democracy? Do you think we're overstating the case now?
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: No, no. I think it's absolutely clear that he is
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: willing to believe his own lies and he's willing to
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: push people until they go along with them, and that
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: if he had had the opportunity to stay in power,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: and it sounds like for a while, he and Rudy
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Giuliani were the only ones who actually thought there was
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: a chance Mike Pence might actually take steps to overturn
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: the election, that he would have been happy to remain.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: So I think we came very close to him sticking
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: around in the most traditionally authoritarian manner possible, and it
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: was a big deal.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like Lord of the Flies. The book starts,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: you're like, these are little boys. They're going to have
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: some fun on this island. And then before you know it,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: shit turns. And it's like, that's just human nature. If
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: you push any human hard enough, long enough, something happens,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: shit turns, and it gets real. And so it's psych,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: I'm just playing until it's not. And I mean, this
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: is not new to Trump. This is just human nature.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: And Trump is this rare breed of politician who just
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: doesn't have a stop button. He doesn't have a freaking
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: stop button at all.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the, and you can see these connections, right?
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Like Trump knows the election wasn't stolen. He's basically talked
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: about it. He gives interviews about the different demographics he
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: lost at this point. And yet he still says that
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: there's this big lie and everybody plays along. And then
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people believe it. And they show up
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: at the Capitol where you have a clearly blatant effort
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: to invent a boogeyman in critical race theory. But a
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: bunch of people start showing up at school board meetings
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: screaming because they believe it. Because they really believe it.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: They have internalized it. And so the creators of this
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: propaganda may not be great organizers. They may not be
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: successful at it. They may not be competent, but it's
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: still reaching millions of people every single day and ripping
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: at the fabric of our society.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Well, and this is the thing that is always the
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: elephant in all of these rooms. The connective tissue here
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: is Fox News. They carry the water. They carry the messaging.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Even mentioning critical race theory, the trajectory of where that
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: story came from. This conservative filmmaker, Christopher Ruffo, appeared on
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Fox News in early September of 2020. He said the
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: words critical race theory. The White House was watching. They
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: saw it. They liked it. Within a few days, they
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: had Ruffo at the White House to help them craft
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump's executive order banning CRT in the federal government.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: That happened by the end of September. There's a direct...
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: through line to all of these stories and all of
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: these conspiracies, and it is Fox News.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: So before we go, obviously, this is still playing out
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: because Trump held a rally this weekend, his first since
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: leaving office. And what did he talk about? He talked
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: about the big lie. Sam, let me start with you.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: What were your thoughts as this latest rally unfolded?
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: I would say to reporters covering it, just because Everyone
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: in those pens is full of great Vox because they'll
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: say crazy stuff for your article. Doesn't mean it's an
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: actual trend. I think we confuse sometimes the ease at
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: which we can get a story to the importance of
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: the story itself. It's really easy to do a story
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: at a Trump rally. We know how to do it
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: at this point. And there's a lot of folks that
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: will give you great tape and great bites. It doesn't
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: mean that it's the most important story in the country.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: And I don't think a Trump rally right now is
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: nearly as important as journalists think it is. Yeah.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. I also just, I do
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: think like sort of having watched the whole thing, I
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: do think it's instructive where you can see what they
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: want to talk about, right? So ostensibly 2022 is the focus.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: He leads with crime. He leads with murder, you know,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: defund the police, borders are overrun, cartels and drugs, right?
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Critical race theory, like those are their top core issues.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: But when you get to the end, after Trump complained
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: about the teleprompters being messed up by the wind, you
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: get it to the parts that he really wants to
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: talk about, which is just 30 more minutes of regurgitating
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: all the election lies. So I thought that was interesting
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: and instructive, but you're right. It's not surprising. It's not new.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: It's just sort of like the core of the GOP
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: message filtered through the broken brain of the president who
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: would like to have won the election that he lost.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Well, let's leave it there.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: When we come back, Republicans no longer love the troops.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Last Wednesday, in a House Armed Services Committee hearing on
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the 2022 defense budget, Republicans pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to investigate the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: its use of critical race theory, following reports that a
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: guest lecturer at the academy used phrases such as white rage.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Matt Gaetz took the opportunity to question the military academy's curriculum. Obviously,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: he's famous for funding a lot of tuition at various schools.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. I'm very sorry. I know that it's true.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Don't be sorry for that.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: All of this led to an impassioned response from the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Let's listen.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: On the issue of critical race theory, et cetera, I'll
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: obviously have to get much smarter on whatever the theory is.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: But I do think it's important, actually, for those of
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: us in uniform, to be open-minded and be widely read.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: And the United States Military Academy is a university. And
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: it is important that we train and we understand. And
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: I want to understand white rage.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And I'm white. And I want to understand it.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: So what is it that caused thousands of people to
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: the United States of America?
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: What caused that?
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: So Tucker Carlson reacted with his trademark subtlety.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: He's not just a pig. He's stupid.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: So Republicans lashed out against not just Milley, but the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: military in general. Gates said our nation's military should be
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: focused on defending America, not defending wokeism.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: J.D.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Vance, who is going to be running for Senate on
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: these issues, he has basically said, I am going to
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: run for Senate from Ohio tomorrow. On the Culture Wars said,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I personally would like American generals to read less about
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: white rage, whatever that is, and more about not losing wars.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: John and Dan had a great conversation with Jelani Cobb
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a week or so ago about the propaganda campaign around
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: critical race theory. But Sam, what was your reaction to
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Mark Milley's speech there?
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, when I saw it, I was like,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: go off, sis.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Surprising.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: But I also think that like, when you think about
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: the military and particularly the star generals and top tier
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: talent at the higher echelons of the military, they all
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: see themselves as philosopher warrior kings, and they want to
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: be highly educated and highly literate. And this is a
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: tradition in the military that goes way far back. The
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: second thing to keep in mind is that the American
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: military on several issues has been a few steps ahead
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: of the rest of American society on social issues. So
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: The military racially integrated before the rest of the country did,
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: decades ago. Before Donald Trump's trans ban in the military,
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: the military had thoroughly integrated trans employees into every layer
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: of its workforce. And in fact, the US military was
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: the single largest employer of trans people in the country,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: if not the world. So if you know the history
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: of the military, particularly the recent history of the military,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: the US military, It's not out of line for someone
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: like Mark Milley to say, we want to actually talk
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: about race and study race. One, it is in line
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: with this through line of intellectualism at the top ranks
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: of the military. And two, the military's single goal is
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: to get as many folks in as possible. And they
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: need to have a space that feels welcoming to black
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: and brown people who disproportionately serve in the military. Right.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: And so further from that, to go to J.D. Vance's comments,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: he went on in this tweet storm to apparently say
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: that the generals need to keep in mind that it's
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: like poor white conservatives who disproportionately fight America's wars. That's
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: not true. It's not true at all. It's never been
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: true at all. Black and brown people and poor people
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: disproportionately fight America's wars. And if you look at the
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: highest rate of military service, that honor per capita goes
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: to American Samoa. Not a country full of white people.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of mythology that you're seeing holes
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: being poked into some of the right-wing mythology about what
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: the military actually is. It's not what you think it is.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Well, it's also they give away the game a bit
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: when a general says, I want to understand what led
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: to an insurrection. I want to understand racism in this society.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And then a bunch of people raise their hands and say,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: how dare you?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Talk about me this way.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How dare you attack people that see the world
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: that way?
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: It's the white rage that Milley speaks about. Yeah.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Right. Right.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: So, Tommy, Michael Bender is a reporter for The Wall
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Street Journal. He has a report around Milley calling C
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: plus Santa Monica fascist Stephen Miller that he said he
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: told him to shut the fuck up because he was
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: comparing Black Lives Matter protests in cities across the country
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to war zones. it does seem that part of the
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: emotion in Milley's voice is rooted in genuine outrage about
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: what took place in the insurrection and some of what
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: he saw from inside the Trump administration. What did you
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: make of his speech?
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think Milley seems genuinely frustrated by
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: what he had to deal with in the Trump days
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: and also how he was portrayed because he was talked
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: about in terms of the clearing of Lafayette Park and
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the Trump photo op. So You know, I had a
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: similar reaction to Sam. You know, it was like good
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: for General Milley. I mean, you know, as you noted,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: the military desegregated in 1948. That obviously didn't end the
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: sort of systemic racism within the military. If you look
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: at the top brass, it was overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: But I also imagine Milley is aware that they have
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: a real right-wing extremism problem in some parts of the military, right?
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Like the Oath Keepers, that was founded by an Army
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: veteran who There were some ex-military members who were part
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: of that mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6th.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: There's National Guard members have been removed from their posts
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: for making extremist statements. So the Pentagon, they know this.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: They're aware of it. They're offering training to help sort
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: of root out and identify some of this right-wing extremism.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: But to me, I mean, this is a story once
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: again where like there is a lie that I think
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Sam sort of explained how it came to be extremely well.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: And all of a sudden it's on television again. And
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: then you wake up one day and 22 states have
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: proposed laws to ban the teaching of historical racism, right?
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: So like these lies have real world impact. And again,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: it shouldn't surprise us because culture war fights over curriculums
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: or school textbooks are a constant in these new conservative politics.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I was reading about how in 1974, some fundamentalist Christians
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: were so angry about textbooks that they considered ungodly. that
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: they blew up a West Virginia school board building with dynamite.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: The great West Virginia textbook war. It was amazing. They
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: were shooting up school buses. They had to close down
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: the coal mines in that county in West Virginia because
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: it got so crazy.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yes. And you know who helped them out? The Heritage Foundation.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: The Heritage Foundation sent a lawyer down to defend a
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: bunch of domestic terrorists. So it should be no surprise
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: to anyone that today the Heritage Foundation is releasing these
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: hysterical reports about the dangers of critical race theory. So
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Republicans look for these culture war issues. They want to
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: exacerbate the feeling that society is changing, that mostly white
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: voters are losing their privileged place in society. That's what
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: this is. And you can see with Tucker Carlson that
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: his respect for reverence for the military comes after. his
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: reverence for white supremacy, and his love of the culture wars.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: And that's what I made of just the whole... J.D.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Vance is an annoying troll who thinks that he's just
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: going to tweet his enough shit to get resistance liberals to, quote,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: tweet him in outrage and win a primary in Ohio.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: And he's a clown who's propped up by Peter Thiel's
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: venture capital money as Vance denounces the tech industry. But yeah,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I was not at all surprised by this. I think
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: this is going to be their go-to.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: You know, just to kind of piggyback on this idea
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: that these culture wars have been with us for a
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: very long time, they have. So on my show, I
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: had a historian on who studies the history of education.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: We talked last Friday about critical race theory, and he
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: outlined how this stuff goes back decades. Even in the
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: 30s and 40s, you had the Daughters of the American
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: Revolution and the American Legion fighting textbooks by some Columbia
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: professor named Harold Rugg. And all he wanted these books
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: to do was to have kids ask, What do you
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: think about history and what should change, right? So this
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: goes way back. And what's crazy about the origins of
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: critical race theory, the guy that kind of made it
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: a thing, Christopher Ruffo, this investigative journalist filmmaker who went
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: on Fox News last September and then made it a
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: thing with the Trump White House. He has said in interviews,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: this is the same kind of stuff that we talk
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: about when we decry multiculturalism or diversity. But the phrase
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: critical race theory, it's nebulous enough to be scary. And
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: I like that. Critical race theory as a term is
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: not new. This is an academic term that was coined
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: in like the 70s. And it's like a legal term
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: to allude to policies and laws that might not directly
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: address race, but can still be racist in their outcomes,
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: given this nation's history. This is a graduate level theory
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: for literally like law students. It's been around for a
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: long time. It is just a nice new label for
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: the same old fights. And it's nice for these folks
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: because it's ambiguous enough to place all of your fears
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: in it. And when you look at these interviews and
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: these conversations where you ask folks about what's going to
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: be taught or what's not going to be taught, they
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: don't know what it is. They don't know what's in
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: the books. It is just, it's just a symbol to
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: launch their fears into. And I think that it all
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: really boils down to race and who our public schools
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: are for. You know, there are all kinds of issues
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: that put school boards on edge about what can be
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: in a textbook, right? Evolution, sex shit, gay shit. But
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: the one that's always the worst, the one that always
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: gets folks the most up in arms is race. And
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: I think that it's because it gets to the core
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: of what people think public education should be. There are
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: some people that still believe that public schools and all
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: schools exist primarily for white children and should indulge white
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: fantasy to keep those white kids and their parents happy.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: But the rest of the country is quickly saying right now,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: We cannot continue to educate a diversifying country without actually
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: speaking to the truth of what this country is, particularly
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: for black and brown children who are gonna read that
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Pollyanna history and say, that don't make no sense. How, Sway?
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: And so for me, it's not about the buzzword itself.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: It is not about one academic or one professor. It
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: is about whether or not all of us in this
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: country want to actually integrate our schools and not just
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: integrate them by the makeup of the kids in them,
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: but integrate the kind of ideas that we think our
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: children can stomach. And it's got to be more than
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: just white fantasy for white kids and their parents. It
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: has to be.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Clint Smith's book has a really powerful chapter on this
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: about the lost cause effort, which is an effort to
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: rewrite the Civil War history, to defend the Confederacy, to
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: make it as if it was about states' rights or
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: something more noble than just the defense of slavery. He
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: talks about how individuals who are pushing this lost cause
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: ideology care about the monuments that people are tearing down,
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: but they actually view children as the most powerful monuments
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: because they can go on and spread that revisionist history lie,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: this lost cause narrative, to their friends, to their peers,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: and will defend it because it's something that gets ingrained
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: in you and no one likes to be told that
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: what they think or believe or that their worldview is wrong.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: So you get attached to it almost.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: But in the absence of the truth about our history,
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: you have these white parents who want to hold on
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: to that white fantasy of what history was. And this idea...
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: that white people have always been the protagonist. That's really
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: what it's at.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: It's core, right?
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: This idea that white people were actually always on the
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: good side all the time and they were the heroes.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: But when you do that, it says to every other
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: child in that school, you don't just matter less, but
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: the way you got to be here and the way
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: that you and your community is, it doesn't make sense.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: And we're not going to explain it to you. And
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: so like, it is, it is, it is, it's not
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: even like the fact that this conversation has been, we've
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: been able to make this conversation about white kids and
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: white parents. For me, they're a little bit less important
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: than like the black and brown kids who are just
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: going to grow up confused, totally confused. These white kids
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: are going to be fine. These white kids have access
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: to Google and TikTok and they're seeing this stuff anyway.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: These conversations happen anyway. I'm worried about the black and
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: brown kids who are still told that the civil war
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: was about states' rights or who are never told the
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: actual history of Native people in this country. Like, Their
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: confusion is more important to me than these white parents' discomfort.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Sam, one more question on this. There's also this aspect
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: in which this is a kind of role reversal where
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: we've spent a lot of time having Republicans use the
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: military as a cudgel against Democrats. And this seems like
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: it's the reverse of that. What's your reaction to how
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: that's been playing out?
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: I think it speaks to a larger issue of the
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: way that the entire country conceptualizes the military, period. We
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: see it as distinguished white men who are strong leaders
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: like Milley who talk that way and wear all the badges,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: when in actuality, a large swath of the military is
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: black and brown, working class people, many of them women,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: many of them queer. I grew up in San Antonio, Texas.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: And when I was a kid, San Antonio had about
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: five military bases just in the city. And the first
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: both high schools I went to were a few miles
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: down the road from Randolph Air Force Base. And by
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: virtue of my public school being next to an Air
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Force base, it was the most integrated school that I'd
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: ever gone to in my life. It was about a
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: third white, about a third black, about a third Hispanic.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: It was a totally integrated society. That was because of
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: its proximity to the military. And so when I see
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: these fights over Milley and what Milley means for the military,
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: I think we have to expand the conversation and say
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: the military was never just those white guys at the top.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: The military is an incredibly working class and in many cases,
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: diverse institution. And when you hear from those voices, all
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: of them holistically up and down the chain, Mark Milley's
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: comments don't seem that out of place.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: We're looking like we have allowed ourselves to believe another
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: white fantasy about what the military is. And it's never
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: just that. It's never been just those white guys fighting
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: our wars.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: I also think that the Laura Ingrams of the world,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: the Tucker Carlsons, they know the power of that Milley speech, right?
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: They're communicators, they're partisans, they're propagandists. And you can look
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: back in pretty recent history at comments made by Admiral
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Mike Mullen, the previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs, about
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: the need to get rid of don't ask, don't tell.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: And the impact that those comments had on moving the
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: debate forward and removing this horrendous rule or law or
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: whatever it was, you know, getting rid of the stigma, right?
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: And I think it was interesting and notable to me
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: that Lloyd Austin, who is the Secretary of Defense, African American,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: didn't necessarily seem like he felt like he had the
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: same space to go on this soapbox the way Milley did.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: But frankly, like we needed to hear it from Milley, right?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Like he is the sort of You know, I think
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: the kind of messenger who normally would convince a Fox
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: News audience. And so they saw him as a threat
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: and they went after him as hard as they could
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: in the most personal terms. And they did it immediately.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: It's the Elvis effect.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: You can have all these black singers sing their songs
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: and they sound great. And it's not a hit until
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: Elvis covers it. And it's and it's just like it
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: happens in every space and every way all the time.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: And again, to take it back to my industry story.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: We capital J journalists, the media have to fight that
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: tendency to focus on the kind of voices that we
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: think are from central casting. There's a lot of voices.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: There's always been a lot of voices. Yeah.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All right.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will briefly talk about a
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: mini freak out over the infrastructure negotiations and cover a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: intra Fox news fight that broke out over a surprising column.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: On Thursday, Joe Biden and the bipartisan group of lawmakers
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: crafting an infrastructure deal announced that they had reached a $ 1. 2
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: trillion deal focused on roads, bridges, tunnels, railways, waterways, and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: broadband to be paid for with increases in IRS enforcement
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: projected to bring in a bunch of money in unpaid taxes.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Biden's joy was short-lived. An hour later, during a news conference,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: the president told a reporter that he would not sign
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: a bipartisan bill without the second reconciliation bill, a partisan
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Democratic-only bill, that might spend trillions more. He said, if
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: this is the only thing that comes to me, I'm
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: not signing it. I'm not just signing the bipartisan bill
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: and forgetting about the rest. Republicans responded with outrage. Senator
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Bill Cassidy said he felt blindsided. Senator Rob Portman was
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: pissed and disappointed. Senator Susan Collins bemoaned the Republicans never
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: had an inkling that there wouldn't be a linkage, which
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I found very, um, Seussian. Uh, This is despite the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: fact that everybody knew that this was what was going on.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: These were linked publicly over and over again. Schumer said
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: it on the floor. These two efforts are tied together.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Let me make that clear. Speaker Pelosi agrees that we
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: cannot do one without the other. Biden later walked back
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: the comments saying that they were a mistake in affirming
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: that he is standing by the bipartisan deal, saying, I
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: fully stand behind it without reservation or hesitation. The New
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: York Times had a play-by-play with this headline, how Biden's
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: impromptu comments upended a political win. And this lead, it
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: was all going according to President Biden's tightrope plan to
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: pass the most ambitious economic agenda in generations, right until
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: the moment that Mr. Biden, a politician with a history
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: of rogue comments, veered off script. Tommy, this was pretty
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: confusing because it seems like everyone knows what is going
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: on and Biden just said what was going on. But
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: why is it so important that Biden not acknowledge the
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: reality of the two bills being linked together?
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think what Biden was reflecting in his
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: walk back is that the idea that he would veto
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: the bipartisan bill if he didn't get the Democratic-only bigger
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: bill could actually upset the negotiations. And so that's fine.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: And if they felt like they needed to do this
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: dance to get things back on these two tracks, that's fine.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: I do, you know, sort of, I don't want to
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: be a media critic here, but I think, you know,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: sort of echoing some of the things Sam said earlier, like,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: This is a lot of play acting and we're covering
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: the play acting, right? I mean, you know, Mitch McConnell
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: is just the most, his agenda is stopping Biden, right?
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: He's just the most cynical person you could imagine. So
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: of course he's going to do everything he can to
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: prevent this bill from passing, screw up bipartisan negotiations, prevent
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: Democrats from doing a follow-on bill with a lot of
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: additional liberal spending and maybe even a tax increase for
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: the wealthiest people in the world. So he's going to
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: throw whatever he can, you know, like throw, whatever you
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: can in the gears to try to muck this thing up.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: And it's a little bit frustrating that we are playing along,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: acting like these are real concerns. Like anyone was surprised
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: by this linkage when, as you said, everyone has talked
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: about how Democrats are cool with the bipartisan bill because
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: they know that they will get another run at it
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: with their other priorities. It doesn't mean Manchin and Sinema
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: are going to go along, but of course everyone knew
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: they were going to try. So yeah, I mean, I
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: read all these stories. I found them a little bit exhausting,
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: but here we are.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: I do think that there's this knee-jerk instinct to cover
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: bipartisan negotiations from the point of view as Democrats, as
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: the protagonists, trying to recruit the Republicans as the antagonists,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: which ends up being about like, what are we doing
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: to keep the Republicans on board? What are the Democrats
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: doing to keep the Republicans in line? But actually, this
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be about the Republicans.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, I.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Understand why for pure kind of messaging, the Republicans want
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: to not have them be linked directly because it's a
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: little bit like, wait a second, so we're going to
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: do what we both agree to together, and then when we.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Go to the bathroom, you're going to do all the
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: stuff we hate.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I get there's a little bit of a kind of
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: strangeness to that. But really, this seems less about those
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: 10 Republicans who are going along with this because they
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: know Democrats can pass a reconciliation bill without them with
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. So it's just about them getting credit
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: for some.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Piece of this.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: It's about keeping the 50 Democrats together. And it seems
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: like you keep the 50 Democrats together, you need to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: show a couple of those Democrats that you're willing to
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: do this bipartisan deal.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Sam, is that right?
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Is that how you're seeing this?
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I read all the stuff about it
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: and was trying to get right into this whole story
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: before taping and The only big thought that I came
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: away with was, oh, Joe Biden made a gaffe? So surprising.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: He's never done that before. I mean, this just seems
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: like a whole lot of crying over like the normal
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: order of things. Totally. Bills this big work their way
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: through both chambers. This is kind of how it's done.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: This is the order of things. And this is the
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: way that Joe Biden does politics. He just talks and
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: he never shuts up unless you make him shut up.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: And I think ultimately at the end of the day,
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: something passes because one thing I know for sure, in
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: spite of all the hemming and hawing over the cost
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: of infrastructure and the cost of this and that, something
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: all politicians in Congress love to do is go home
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: to their districts and talk about all the money they
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: got for their district, they got for their county, they
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: got for their state and the latest bill that just passed.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Whatever these folks say about the cost of these bills,
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: They all like to go home and brag about getting
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: money for their home. They do. And I just really
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: think that at a certain point, something passes, something big.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: These kind of conversations will keep happening. You know, see
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: the forest. You know, this is one tree in a forest.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: It's one tree. Keep that in mind.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, you know, Sam, that point is so true
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: that you had Republicans bragging about money going to their
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: districts from a COVID relief bill that they voted against.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: So yes, maximum cynicism here. I mean, I also think
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: the more interesting to me, love it was I saw
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: AOC came out over the weekend on the Sunday shows
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: and she's like, look, my message to Biden is house
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: progressives wanting to succeed. We want to pass this bigger
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: infrastructure bill. So that gave me some hope. You saw
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Manchin talking about how, you know, he's willing to sort
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: of meet in the middle, maybe not a $ 6 trillion bill,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: but maybe not a $ 1 trillion bill. He's talking about
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: raising taxes on some of the richest people in the
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: country to potentially pay for it. So all of that
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: made me hopeful. There is though, like, there's that, that's
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: like the political piece of my brain. The sort of
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: human being who lives in the world in 2021, part
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: of my brain is sitting around looking at news reports
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: of like Seattle being 115 degrees and like 110 in Canada.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking like, holy shit, I hope we do the
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: climate change money ASAP because things are real bad and
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: that should be our priority.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I, I will.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: And, but it does seem like there is a larger
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: lesson here in that, you know, One thing that's been
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: so frustrating about Mansion and Cinema, and we're not going
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: to talk about them again today, is that, okay, they're
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: not for getting rid of the filibuster.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: We get it. We've read both of your op-eds. But the.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: They could have kept the filibuster in place while threatening
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: to get rid of it, which would have put them
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: in a position to negotiate better bipartisan deals. And one
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: of the lessons for why this bipartisan deal is even
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: on the table is because those Republicans know there's a
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: partisan deal that will happen with or without them, that
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: like the threat of legislating without the Republicans have put
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: the Republicans in a position of wanting to negotiate. And
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: there's a lesson there if Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: care to learn it.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: But unfortunately.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: They are not interested in lessons. Before we go, last
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: week in the Times, Ben Smith reported what many reporters
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: have apparently known, that Tucker Carlson spends his time when
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: he's not denouncing the liberal media by trading gossip with them.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: He's the go-to guy for sometimes unflattering stories about Donald
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Trump and for coverage of the internal politics of Fox News.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: This led to a ton of internecine, horrible news. horrible
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: fighting amongst some of the worst human beings on planet earth.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: And so, uh, because this is a pointless navel gazing
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: and therefore we are going to indulge in it briefly.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Here's how this works. I'm going to read a quote
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: and you're going to have to tell us who said it.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: Call it out.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: If you know it, Tommy and Sam, call it out.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: If you know, this is eerily similar to a game
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: called who said that, that Sam plays on.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: It's been a minute. Here we go.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Now, the big news is that some people at Fox
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: apparently don't like me and said bad things about me
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: gutlessly behind my back, according to Ben Smith and members
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: of the media mob. Ben, if that's true, that's called
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: a normal day in.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: The world that I live in. Who said it? Tucker Carlson?
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Sam, who's... No.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: Tommy?
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: Black Belt in karate, Sean Hannity? That is correct.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Next quote. I don't give an Adam Schiff about what
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: anybody says about me.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: No.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, man.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Laura Ingram?
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: It was Sean Hannity. Final quote. I'm not going to
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: change just because some of you don't like me.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson. Just one.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Nope. Sean again? Sean Hannity?
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: It was Sean Hannity. He went on a very, very
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: long diatribe about Tucker Carlson, and it's a delight, and
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: every piece of it is enjoyable.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: WandaVision voice, it was Sean Hannity all along.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: It was Sean Hannity all along.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, all you can do is have fun with
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: this story because these people are just so full of
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: shit that it's fun to lay it all bare the
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: way Ben Smith did. It does make me think back
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: about years and years of what felt like soft coverage
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: of Tucker Carlson, of reticence to refer to his content
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: as sort of white supremacist, even when it clearly was, right?
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: When he's talking about like South African white farmers being killed,
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: like literally like pulled off the VDARE, like sort of
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: white supremacist websites. And now you have to wonder, is
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: that because the people who cover him and are supposed
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: to write these things up are more concerned about losing
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: him as a source? I saw Astead Wesley from the
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: New York Times sort of tweet something to this effect
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: that was just sort of like, this is a reminder
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: of some of the circles you are expected to run
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: in to get all the big scoops and why it's
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: real shitty sometimes in Washington. I thought that was instructive.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, They're all such messy queens. I mean, it's like,
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: come on, come on. When you see this like sniping
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: back and forth from people who work together, you're just like,
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: grow up. Like at least like try to protect the
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: company bottom line. Like I got a lot of colleagues
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: I can't stand. You're not going to hear about it
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: on my show. You know, it's not going to be
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: on my show. Yeah.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Open up Slack. Yes, exactly.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: And another thing about Ari Shapiro, that guy, that guy
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: grows pears inside of a jar. What's he trying to prove?
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Who's got time to plan? That's real, by the way.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: He does grow pears inside of a jar and it's
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: always bothered me.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: He lives in a perfect farmer's market. I tell him
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: to his face. Yeah.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: I crashed at Ari Shapiro's house years ago for like
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: a week. And every day- I'd come in there and
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: he would have made me a meal like from the garden.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: And after he worked a full damn day, like now
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: that guy, let him run Fox News, NPR, all of them.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: Put him in charge. And he can sing?
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: He's in a band that plays at like Carnegie Hall.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: And he's tall. People should be looking into this. Yeah,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: he's in good shape. Nobody's talking about this. Why aren't
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: they taking it to Ari?
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: We're not doing a good job leaking about Ari Shapiro.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: They're not supposed to be compliments.
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: Well, I heard.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: It is also, I think, like, Tucker Carlson is putting
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: on a show. He's playing a character. And all the
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: people he's texting know that it's a character. All the
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: people in Tucker's life that apologize around him, all the
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: people that work for him, everybody thinks it's just a.
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: He's a Colbert report. He's a Colbert report.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: But it's not a game. But it's not a game
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: because people take it really seriously and it's really dangerous, so.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: With that, that's our show. Sam Sanders.
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for being here.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: It was so much fun.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: It's great to be here.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Dan will be back on Thursday with Anat Shankar Osorio.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: And very excited about that conversation. Have a great week, everybody.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Our associate producers are Jazzy Marine and Olivia Martinez. It's
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, Yale Freed,
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: and Nar Melkonian, who film and share our episodes as
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: videos every week.