Latest / Pod Save America / “The 2024 Mess America Pageant.”

Transcript

“The 2024 Mess America Pageant.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Lovett is out today. He was in Philly over the weekend,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and then I think he set some cars on fire.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I think he was so... Climbing a greased-up pole on.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Broad Street, Market Street.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: What's the big street?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw a clip of him in Rittenhouse Square,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: sort of turning over some cars.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Turning up, turning over. I had a lot of questions
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: for him about the big game. I wanted to know
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: what he thought of Andy Reid's adjustments at halftime, the
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: controversial pass interference call at the end.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I really was going to ask him who played.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Lovett is actually not feeling well today, but I talked
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: to him briefly this morning, and I think he was
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: on a plane the entire game.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: All day Sunday?
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, not the worst. It's a pretty bad place
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: to watch Super Bowl.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Anyway, we're going to try to go on without him.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the GOP primary heats up along with
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a little Don on Ron action. President Biden enrages Republican
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: politicians everywhere by hammering their position on Medicare and Social Security.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Congressman Adam Schiff stops by the office to talk about
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: his campaign for California Senate. And Elijah Cohn is back
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: with another round of Take Appreciator. But first, be sure
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to check out Crooked's X-Ray Vision podcast. Join Jason and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Rosie as they explore the world of gaming and comics. Lately,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: they've been taking a deep dive into the new HBO
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: series The Last of Us. I can't watch The Last
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of Us. Zombies late at Sunday night. I can't do it.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I've not started it yet, but I would like to.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Emily loves it. She's like stayed up watching it and
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: then she's scared. She was crying one episode. I was like,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think I want any of this.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Episode three is sad is what Twitter is.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: That's what everyone keeps saying, yeah. They also take a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: look at the upcoming Ant-Man movie. Plus, you can watch
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: full episodes of the podcast right on the X-Ray Vision
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel. Tune in every Wednesday and Friday for new
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: episodes of X-Ray Vision wherever you get your podcasts. All right,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: let's get to the news. The race for the 2024
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Republican nomination kicks into high gear this week. A high-minded
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: contest of the country's best and brightest that we're calling
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the Messamerica pageant.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: There she is.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Rhonda Sanctimonious. Very nice.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: What do we think? Great sting.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I feel good about the sting.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: Explosive.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Good job, Andy. Good job, team.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Well done.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So Donald Trump will get his first official opponent on Wednesday.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: when Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador and two-term governor
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of South Carolina, announces her presidential campaign at a rally
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: in Charleston. The Wall Street Journal reports that Haley's fellow
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: South Carolinian, Senator Tim Scott, is also taking steps to
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: run with a home state speech on Thursday and a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: trip to Iowa later this month. Meanwhile, Rhonda Sanctimonious, whom
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Trump is also now reportedly calling Meatball Ron. It's just...
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: He's really, he's getting closer maybe to something.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: But like meatball, is that a body shaming attempt? Because
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: it's a.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Very glass houses sort of nickname from Trump.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: DeSanctimonious, that's not good either.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: Anyway.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Anyway, whoever he is won't formally launch his campaign until
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: late spring, maybe even late summer. But DeSantis was dragged
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: into the fray last week after Trump accused him of, quote,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: grooming high school girls with alcohol. Back when he was
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a teacher, he retruthed. some lunatic who had posted a
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: picture of DeSantis with some high school girls at a
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: party when he was apparently a high school teacher after
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: he graduated college. Here's how DeSantis responded to the attack.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I spend my time delivering results for the people of
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Florida and fighting against Joe Biden.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: That's how I spend my time.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: I don't spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think his voice is kind of annoying. I
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: just really, I don't know if that's going to wear well.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Suddenly it's the DeSantis balloon is popping for me just
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: from just hearing the voice.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm sad for you.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: So early. Let's start, let's start here. The New York
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Times reported over the weekend that DeSantis is quote, likely
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: to stick with a measured approach to Trump in a
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: piece that also quotes Democratic strategist, Tommy Vitor.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: This guy.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Tommy, what do you think about DeSantis' response here?
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, I could argue this both ways, so maybe
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: we should, and then in the future we clip whichever
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: one was right.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: We had an offline sort of debate about this, you
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and I.
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should replay that here for people.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: We're all texting away. I mean, I think that DeSantis
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: is in a tough spot because Trump wants to fight
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: with him, and that is dangerous always because Trump will
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: play dirtier, punch harder, generally be a worse human being
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: than anyone else, as evidenced by accusing someone who's not
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: in the race yet of grooming Trump.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Teenage girls.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: That's not normally how this goes. Not pulling any punches there.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: He's also very good at it. Look no further than
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: Ted Cruz, Jeb, Little Marco, et cetera. But I thought
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: that that clip of DeSantis sounded very weak. And my
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: takeaway from the last five, six years of politics is
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: that Republicans, above all else, especially Republican primary voters, want
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: you to be their tough culture warrior.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: And they want to own the libs.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: They want to kill the woke companies, be as cruel
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: as possible to LGBT people.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Et cetera.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: DeSantis has put in a lot of work in that category, right?
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: He's going after schools. He's fighting with Disney. He's going,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: you know, erasing black history from AP courses in Florida.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: He's like doing all the worst things you can do.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: And obviously attacking Trump is not owning the libs. But
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I think primary campaigns become sort of a proxy for
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: showing people how you'd run in the general.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: And if I were DeSantis, I would want to look
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: a little tougher.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: And I would want to remind voters in all these
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: exchanges that Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in And
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: maybe that's how you sort of incorporate that into that response.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Like when Republicans fight each other instead of Democrats, that's
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: how we end up losing to Joe Biden, as Donald
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Trump knows, something like that. But, you know, it's risky
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: because Trump is going to fight dirty.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I do think the Trump is a loser framing is
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: probably the most effective for DeSantis. I think his central
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: challenge is he cannot win. Ron DeSantis cannot win the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Republican nomination without the support of most people who still
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: love Donald Trump. And so if you're DeSantis, you've got
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: to figure out like, what can I say about Donald
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Trump that gets those people who love Trump but are
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: open to alternatives to vote for me? And I think
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: that there's a couple of reasons he might, look, I
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: agree that like it wasn't, I think he probably could
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: have gone a couple ticks sharper on the response.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: It screamed Jeb to me.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, see, I don't see, that's where I disagree.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I had a lot of please clap in there.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: It was such a, ooh, Jeb. I think he's not Jeb.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I think he has a lot more credibility with the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: base than Jeb, a lot more credibility with the MAGA
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: media universe than Jeb ever did. So I think he's
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: not Jeb. But I just think, I don't know what
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I would do if I was Ron DeSantis, because I
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: do think that he could have added something about Trump losing,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: whether it was an indirect reference to Trump losing or,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: or direct reference to Trump losing. I do think he
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: could have done that. I think the other reason he
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: may have held his fire is Trump truthed this attack
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: on DeSantis. Trump's truths haven't been getting much attention. He
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't get much media coverage. Yeah, well, the New York
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Times picked this one up.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, I thought this was a special, an especially
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: odious truth when you're accused of grooming high school girls.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: It's an odious truth, but notice that the Times didn't
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: pick it up until DeSantis responded. Right. You know, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I think that there's going to be a difference between
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: DeSantis responding, you know, in a pretty indirect way like
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: he did here. And if DeSantis is on the debate
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: stage with Trump and Trump says something like that on
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the debate stage, DeSantis cannot respond like this. He's going
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: to have to respond in a much sharper way. So
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: maybe he's sort of biding his time.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, you fight Trump now, you fight
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: him later. At some point, you're going to have to
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: throw a punch at the guy that the base loves
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: and figure out how to do it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: I just think that he looked Jeb-like in that exchange.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I agree he's not Jeb. He is.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: a vicious, nasty culture warrior person, whereas Jeb tried to
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: be something very different than that and is a bush
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: and has that whole legacy. But I don't know, not
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: a great day for Ronnie.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I also think he's probably hoping that he gets a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: lot more Bill Mitchells. Do you hear what happened with
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Bill Mitchell? Bill Mitchell was so upset that Donald Trump
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: made this attack against, launched this attack against DeSantis that
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: he said he was officially off the Trump train and
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: now backing DeSantis.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: We should probably be a little less online. Bill Mitchell
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: was a.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Super hardcore Twitter supporter, right-wing personality who endorsed Trump earlier.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: We all mocked Bill Mitchell because he said that the
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: only ground game that you need was in our hearts.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: We thought that was funny because there was no way
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton could lose in 2016.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Dear listeners, please let us know. You all know who
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Bill Mitchell is. Come on.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: He has great teeth.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: You all know who Bill Mitchell is.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Sparkly white veneers.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I do think, by the way, we sort of skipped
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: past the actual grooming attack itself, but it's really just
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: pure karma, by the way. Remember, DeSantis' current spokesperson said
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: that anyone who is against the don't say gay bill is, quote,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: probably a groomer or at least you don't denounce the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: grooming of four to eight year old children. So just
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: What a shame. What a shame that it turned around
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: and DeSantis got bitten by the same attack.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I also think it was a little... DeSantis responds to
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Trump calling him a groomer at an event where he's
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: surrounded by diapers. Did you see the... I didn't catch that. Yeah,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: he was at a diaper event and all you can
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: see is DeSantis and then there's just stacks of pampers
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: all around him. So I don't know if that was
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the ideal format for it.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: That's a weird image.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so that's... So Nate Cohn also has a piece...
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: analyzing the polling, the early polling so far, where he
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: concludes that Ron DeSantis is not Scott Walker, the former
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: governor of Wisconsin, who was anointed an early front runner
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: in 2016 before dropping out two months later after his
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: announcement due to a lack of support. What do you
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: think of the DeSantis-Walker comparisons? We already did a little DeSantis-Jeb,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: but what do you think of DeSantis-Walker?
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: I think they're unfair. I mean, they're both governors. They
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: both go after Democrats pretty hard. They both have resting
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: dumb face. But in terms of polling, DeSantis is way
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: ahead of Scott Walker. He is tripling up his best
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: ever score, no, quadrupling Walker's best ever polling.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Walker was just a bad politician.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, he never seemed depth. He made a bunch
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: of embarrassing gaffes pretty early on. That might be the
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: case for DeSantis, but he just won pretty overwhelmingly in Florida.
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think in the governor's race, even if
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you want to put horse race polling aside, it's like
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: on paper, DeSantis, I think is the toughest Republican Donald
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Trump has ever faced or might ever face his resume, right?
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Both his like governing record, if you like that kind
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: of stuff, if you're a right winger and his political record, right?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Scott Walker sort of eeked it out in Wisconsin. DeSantis
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: trounced in Florida, at least in his reelect.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: And he fought unions very hard, which is what Republicans
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: got excited about for some reason.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And this, of course, was like the Mitt Romney Republican Party,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: where they really got off on the union busting. These
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: people are the culture wars. He's got sky-high name recognition,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: high approval among the base, high approval among Trump voters,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: a ton of fans in the MAGA media universe with
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: all those influencers. He's got money. And I do think
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: that DeSantis has a primary calendar advantage, too. Iowa comes first.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Trump lost Iowa, right? And then also there's all these
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: stories about evangelicals being sort of turning on Trump a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: little bit. You can see DeSantis picking up that support.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: And then I think New Hampshire is a state that
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: is tailor-made for Ron DeSantis, too, because among early states,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: for Republicans at least, it's got a high percentage of
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: college-educated Republicans, and you do expect... DeSantis to do better
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: among the college-educated Republican set, which is the set that
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: is more likely to say that it's time for someone new.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: So then if he does good in those first two states,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: then you go to South Carolina and it's sort of,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you know, crowded.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see if some
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: of these institutions rally around DeSantis or just remain anti-Trump.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: There was a bunch of stories last week, I think,
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: about the Koch brothers kind of signaling loud and clear
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: that their entire network was going to be anti-Trump going forward. Now,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: that's all fine and good, but if they don't pick
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: a horse and the vote gets split again, I don't
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: think that does anyone a lot of good. I think
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: there's been some reporting that Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch, and some
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: of the Fox properties are all in on DeSantis. A
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: lot of Wall Street people are too, so we'll see.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I think, look, I'd love to compare DeSantis
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: to Scott Walker and treat him like a joke, but
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: I just don't think he is.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I also think that it's really going to come down
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to how DeSantis or other Republicans take on Trump. And
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: this goes back to your original loser point. In 2015,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the attack against Trump from all these other candidates when
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: they finally got around to attacking him was like, oh,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: our party can't be represented by this man. We're better
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: than him. And oh, he's just stooping so low. No
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: one's going after Donald Trump like this this time, except
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: like Larry Hogan, if he runs or someone or maybe
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Chris Sununu, you know, this is going to be this
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: guy's a loser. We have to win and we can't
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: win if we have Donald Trump again. And there was
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a little bit of that in 2015, but mostly it
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: was because we're not gonna be able to win because
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: America is going to think he's such a bad person,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Also, I think 2016 was a truly open primary. And
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: this time, I think it's much more of a contest
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: to see who is the main contender against Trump, which
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: is just kind of mess with the dynamics a little bit.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So aside from DeSantis, let's talk about the Republican contender
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: who's going to announce this week, Nikki Haley. She released
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a video on Monday teasing her announcement. Here's a clip.
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: America is the greatest force for good in human history,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: and we should never be ashamed to say that.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: For those that don't have our back, we're taking names.
• 14:12
  Speaker 7: I wear heels.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: It's not for a fashion statement.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: It's because if I see something wrong, we're going to
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: kick them every single time.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: What do you think of that message? And what do
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: you think about Haley as a candidate in general?
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, I want to like the foreign policy message,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: but I guess my takeaway is like kind of who
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: is that video for? It felt very 2002 post 9-11
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: kind of neocon adjacent to me. And I think I
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: think she has a lot of problems just structurally. Like one,
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: it hurts my heart to say this, but I don't
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: think a lot of people know who the U.S. ambassador
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: to the United Nations is, what that job does. or
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: really care about foreign policy. Second, both Haley and Mike Pompeo,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: they worked for Trump. So if they're going to try
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: to run on those accomplishments, Trump will have a much
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: better claim to those wins than they do. Pompeo also
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: seems to hate Nikki Haley and is going after her hard.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: He called her a quitter in his book. And so
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: I think Pompeo seems to think that they're occupying the
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: same sort of foreign policy tough person lane.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And that's a challenge.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: And then I think lastly, like Trump has reminded us
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: many times over that misogyny is a feature, not a
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: bug in the Republican Party and the Republican primary electorate
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: more broadly. And Nikki Haley has already faced some really
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: disgusting rumors and innuendo starting in Michael Wolff's book. And then,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: you know, look like Nick Fuentes, right? The little Nazi
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: that was dining with Trump and Kanye.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: He says he wants to live in a world where
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: women can't vote or work, right?
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: So it's like real, like literal misogyny. So I think
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know if she's a talented politician. A lot
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: of people see a lot of promise in her. I'm
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: just trying to figure out kind of how you run
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: against your former boss and do so knowing where the
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: current base zeitgeist is.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I think her biggest problem is she's one of the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: biggest phonies in Republican politics, and that's a pretty crowded lane.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: This is someone whose defining moment as governor was taking
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: down the Confederate flag from the state capitol after the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: horrific shooting at the AME church in 2015. Four years later,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: she's on Glenn Beck show, basically defending the Confederate flag
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: after she took it down, basically saying that the shooter
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and people like that hijacked the Confederate flag for their
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: own purposes. In reality, there's other people who view it differently.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: This is after Sherry took it down. She was like,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: remember when she endorsed Marco, little Marco in the primary.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And she was like, you know, we cannot have as
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the leader of our party, someone who refuses to disavow
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the KKK.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: I will not stop until we fight a man that
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: chooses not to disavow the KKK.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: That is not a part of our party. This is
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: not who we want as president.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is everything I taught my children not to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: do in kindergarten. These are the things she said. And
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: then she goes and is his UN ambassador. Then after
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: January 6th, she says, oh, he shouldn't run again. Then
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: she says, oh, if he runs, I'm not going to run.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: That hypocrisy, though, I think they all have that problem.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, not Pompeo, because he didn't really run against Trump.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: But I think everyone who ran against Trump in 2016-
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: has this problem.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: I agree with you. She, these are some of the
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: most egregious examples.
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Quotes. Well, Ron DeSantis is going to have, isn't going
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to have those, that problem.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: You know, he never, any like, this is why Nikki Haley,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, none of them, these people who
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: are like back and forth on Trump the whole time. Like,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: because even if you are a hardcore MAGA supporter out there,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: you're not going to like these people for the other,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: for the same reason that no one trusts Kevin McCarthy.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And Magarole, because they think he's a fucking phony. And
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley's just like that.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: It's funny that she endorsed Marco Rubio. It's tough.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: What about Tim Scott? Do you think there's a lane
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: for Tim Scott in this primary?
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: I feel like he has a similarly muddled message. He's
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: a very, very conservative senator. A very conservative voting record.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: But his message he's trying to run on is unity
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: and optimism. He's also gotten the most coverage for taking
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: on police reform, which I don't I suspect is not
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: very popular among his base and also didn't get done.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: So my question is sort of like, what's the strategy?
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Are we doing never Trump voters? Are we running right-wing
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: base conservative without the edges? I just, I don't, I'm
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: not sure what his path is. And like, now they
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: have this added home state problem with him and Nikki
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Haley running out of South Carolina. Nikki Haley actually appointed
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: Tim Scott to finish out Jim Dement's term in 2012.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: So they, I think they must've been close at one point.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: So sure. Advisors they, yeah.
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: So I don't know.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: And again, like I think Trump DeSantis, all the CRT stuff,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: like has proven that racism is a feature and not
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: a bug when it comes to the Republican base. And,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: you know, I wonder what that will mean for Tim Scott.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: So I don't know.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: I'm just, I wonder how many of these candidates are
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: floating their names or getting in, in hopes that Trump
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: decides not to run.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they also, I think they're looking at
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the field and they're thinking to themselves, okay, there's this
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: clear there's an appetite for someone who's not Trump. Ron
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: DeSantis is taking up space now, but if DeSantis falters,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: maybe me, you know, but I think, I mean, now
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: we should say that in South Carolina, Nikki Haley and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Tim Scott are the two most popular politicians. That's including
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: with the Republican base. So you have a lot of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: hardcore Trump voters who love both of them. But I
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: think nationally they are two Republicans who like Democrats think
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: would be a tough candidate. Republican to face in a
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: general election. And I think for the Republican Party, they're
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: like relics of what the party looked like in 2012.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I think if Nikki Haley and Tim Scott ran in 2012,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: maybe they beat Mitt Romney and they're the Republican nominee
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: against Barack Obama. And they're like, that's a really tough race,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: you know? I just think that that kind of Republican Party,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: like you said, that it's, you know, a bunch who
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: cares about like neocon foreign policy and Tim Scott's brand
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: of like up by your bootstraps you know, taking on poverty,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: but with the private sector kind of thing. Like, that's
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: just such a relic.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think where.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Tim Scott lost me was the message of unity and optimism.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: I think the base wants to actually just punch the
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: libs in the face all the time and own us.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: And I'm not sure that he can deliver on that.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: The constituency and the Republican Party for that is just like,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know, 5%, 10% to be really generous. Yeah,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: no shit. Now, maybe one of them or all of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: these folks are hoping that maybe they don't attack Donald
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Trump too harshly if they run, and then they hope
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: that maybe he's, you know, they're his VP.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or he decides not to run, or he's indicted,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: or God knows what. I mean, he's an older guy.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Who knows? Things can happen.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Or they raise their profile ahead of 2028.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's not, a lot of them think there's no
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: downside to running, I think.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: So President Biden is still the only Democrat expected to
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: run in 2024, and he seems to be having a
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: great time calling out Republican politicians who've proposed or voted
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: for plans that would cut Social Security and Medicare. criticism
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: he's been repeating since last week's State of the Union
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: that Republicans are furiously trying to back away from. Let's listen.
• 21:14
  Speaker 8: I know that a lot of Republicans, their dream is
• 21:17
  Speaker 8: to cut Social Security and Medicare.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: Well, let me say this. If that's your dream, I'm
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: your nightmare.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It's truly a legal Ponzi scheme.
• 21:27
  Speaker 7: I kind of look at Social Security the way I
• 21:29
  Speaker 7: would at the Department of Defense and our defense spending.
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: We're never going to not fund defense. But at the
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: same time, every single year, we look at how we
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: can make it better.
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: That's not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan.
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: The Republican plan, as I pointed out last fall, if
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: we were to become the majority, there were no plans
• 21:52
  Speaker 6: to raise taxes on half the American people or to
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: sunset Medicare or Social Security.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: So that was Ron Johnson, once again, calling Social Security
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Ponzi scheme, which of course was after Biden's State of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the Union. Mike Rounds, Senator Rounds, who was saying that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: we should look at it, look at Social Security every year.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that would go well in Congress. And then unmistakably,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the voice of Mitch McConnell calling it the Rick Scott plan.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Were you surprised how much Mitch McConnell seems to absolutely
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: despise Rick Scott?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, Rick Scott is an incredible gift. I'm so
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: glad he exists in this world and the Biden team
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: is going after him. You have to remember, too, that
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Rick Scott was the CEO of a company that was
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: fined $ 1. 7 billion for Medicare fraud, one of the largest
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: fraud settlements in the history of the country. And now
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: this guy is like, trust me to keep Social Security
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: and Medicare solvent through this absurd proposal. A Congress that
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: can't even pick a speaker of the House amongst just Republicans.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: We're going to reauthorize every spending bill of every five years.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: It's the worst idea I've ever heard. But the best
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: part about Rick Scott is he is so arrogant. that
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: he refuses to back down. He takes offense at hearing
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: things he said read back to him. He argues with
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: TV anchors and gets it wrong. And so, no, I'm
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: not at all surprised that Mitch McConnell hates him. McConnell,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: he can read a poll and he knows that 8%
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: of voters think it's a good idea to cut funding
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And this is a
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: terrible fight for them to take on.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Terrible fight.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I think what was most interesting, and I don't know
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: if we got this part in the clip that we
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: just played, but Like McConnell could have stopped at, that's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the Rick Scott plan. That's not happening. McCarthy and I
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: are going to make sure that doesn't happen. Don't worry
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: about that. That's his plan. It's dumb. He then goes
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: on to say, and I think Rick Scott's going to
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: have a problem when he runs for reelection in 2024
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: in Florida, where there's a bunch of senior citizens.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is the truly wild thing about this.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: He represents Florida of all the places to be just
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: absolutely psyched about cutting social security.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Florida is the worst possible option.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: But it's wild to me that McConnell took the extra
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: swing because McConnell is still going to be a minority
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: leader in 2024. He's going to have some influence over
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the Senate race there. He wants to become majority leader.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And I wonder if that was just frustration I wonder
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: if he's like signaling that he would like someone else
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: to primary Rick Scott.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I mean they hate each other and it goes back
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: to Scott's tenure at the NRSC remember there was that
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: big fight over Mitch McConnell's super PAC raising lots of
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: money versus the NRSC raising money how Rick Scott was
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: spending money Rick Scott was running ads nationally with his
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: own face in them and so after the election the
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: When it's recrimination season, you have like on the record
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: quotes from the little McConnell stooges, the little like pint-sized
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: lobbyists versus the Rick Scott team.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: And there's a going after each other by name. That's great.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: I love every minute of it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: We've talked about all this in the context of the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: debt ceiling fight, but both Biden and Trump seem eager
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to make this a big issue in 2024. What do
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you think about that strategy in the Republican primary and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: then in the general?
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Well, let's start with the Trump part because A lot
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: of people are like, oh, I mean, I think rightly like, oh, interesting.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Trump has a plan. They're going to dig up these old,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: you know, DeSantis non-binding votes.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: To raise the retirement age and go after him on
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: social security. But every Trump budget included cuts to social
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: security and Medicare. So I'm like a little, I'm struggling
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: to see how this is a clean shot of strategic genius.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I was wondering that too. I think that Trump probably
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't care. I think he's just going to plow through
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: anyway and say, I'm going to protect these. And I
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: think it is a huge problem for DeSantis. I mean,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the interesting thing is, so DeSantis, he voted for Paul
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into vouchers, supported a plan
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: that would raise the retirement age of Social Security and
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Medicare to 70, and has voiced support for privatizing both
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Social Security and Medicare. Other people who voted for Paul
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Ryan's dumb plan, Haley, Pompeo, Scott, Kristi Noem when they
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: were all in Congress. Pence supports privatizing Social Security. So
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: they're all out.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: There on this.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: This is not just like Rick Scott and his crazy
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: plan now, you know? And I do think that it's
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: interesting that DeSantis' office and DeSantis himself have said nothing
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: about Social Security, Medicare tax. And I don't know if
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: that's because he's getting ready to like, you know, disavow
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: his former position or what, but I think they're all
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: fucking scared shitless of this. Yeah.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, Biden is definitely in the right place here.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think Biden has endorsed raising the payroll
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: tax cap on upper earners to expand the social security
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: payments and make it solvent. It's currently solvent, I think,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: through 2035 to make it solvent longer. That seems like
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: the obvious play, both morally, economically, politically. And so I
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: think Biden's just psyched to fight it out on this.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And usually.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: This is the kind of conversation that you'll see in
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: a lot of paid media, but it's really hard to
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: get earned media around because it's just like not seen
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: in Washington as a sexy fight. But when you start
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: getting heckled by members of Congress and the State of
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: the Union and Rick Scott takes the bait on every
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: TV program he can possibly book himself on, it's an
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: amazing gift.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: And it's also a gift. So the debt ceiling fight
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: will keep it in the headlines potentially. Yeah. Republicans, if
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Trump goes after DeSantis on this, and this becomes a
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: point of contention in the primary, even if, as you said,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Trump's got his own problems on this, then it's going
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to be talked about in the Republican primary. That'll keep
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: it in the headlines. And then Biden will use it
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: in the general. And I think you cited the polling
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: that only 8% of people want cuts. But it's not
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: just that it's unpopular. It's that this is an issue
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that really matters to people. When you ask for issue priority,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: it's way up there at the top. Democrats ran almost
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: as many Social Security and Medicare ads as abortion in
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: these 2022 midterms, certainly more ads than they did about
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the threat to democracy. They destroyed Blake Masters over this
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in Arizona because Blake Masters has a fucking video of
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: him saying he'd love to privatize Social Security. That might
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: have been as effective as an ad talking about how
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Blake Masters said that he thinks the Unabomber has his
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: good views. I mean, that's how much people fucking hate
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the idea of privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's unpopular even among Republican voters. Did you see
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: this other thing that Mike Pompeo has been trotting out,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: which is to make the case that you shouldn't vote
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: for Trump because he would be term-limited out after four years,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: and that you want to pick someone who can lead
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: for eight years?
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Hey, high-class problems, Mike Pompeo. You wish. Mike Pompeo's worried
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: about his second term?
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Listen, man, Mike needs any argument he can find.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: He's struggling. He's pointing his gun at the sky, pretending
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: he's shooting down Chinese balloons.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: It is wild imagining all these... former trump officials on
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: stage with him like pence haley pompeo don't they know
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that like donald trump's gonna look at all and be
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: like oh y'all served in my cabinet what was the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: problem there.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: You worked for me that's it yeah yeah he's gonna
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: be like you kissed my ass you worked for me
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: you did my bidding what are you talking about mike pompeo.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Wild it's wild all right uh when we come back
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: uh adam shift stops by to talk about his bid
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: for california senate Joining us now is one of our
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: favorite hometown members of Congress. He's just announced that he's
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: running for California Senate. We are thrilled to have him
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: here in studio. Congressman Adam Schiff, welcome back to the pod.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: Thank you. It's great to be with you.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Also, my congressman. That's right. You were originally my congressman,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: then I moved, and I just... got right into Ted
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Lieu's district, and I just moved last week, just down
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the street. You're my congressman again.
• 29:47
  Speaker 8: Oh, well, that was an excellent move, although I'm hoping, frankly,
• 29:50
  Speaker 8: to be your representative wherever you live in the state.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Because you're moving around too much. I can't keep up
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: with it.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who knows? Who knows where I'm going to go next?
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: So you said you're running for Senate to continue the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: fight to preserve our democracy. You've waged that fight very
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: effectively in the House. What made you think you could
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: wage it even more effectively in the Senate?
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Well, a couple of things.
• 30:13
  Speaker 8: First, I think that the issues around our democracy are
• 30:18
  Speaker 8: are part and parcel of the broader fight for an
• 30:20
  Speaker 8: economy that works for everyone. I think one of the
• 30:23
  Speaker 8: reasons we're so vulnerable right now, and not just in
• 30:27
  Speaker 8: this country but around the world, is the way the
• 30:29
  Speaker 8: economy has changed where so many millions of people are,
• 30:33
  Speaker 8: if they're in the middle class, struggling not to fall out.
• 30:35
  Speaker 8: If they're working families, hoping, struggling, falling short of making
• 30:42
  Speaker 8: it into.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: The middle class.
• 30:45
  Speaker 8: We have almost half the people who are homeless here
• 30:47
  Speaker 8: in Los Angeles. are working full time. Those structural problems
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: in the economy, um, leave people ready to consider alternatives
• 30:55
  Speaker 8: like a demagogue who comes along and promises that he
• 30:57
  Speaker 8: alone can fix it. So for me, these issues are
• 31:01
  Speaker 8: really intertwined. And I think I've demonstrated a leadership, uh,
• 31:06
  Speaker 8: capability in the house, uh, to, uh, push back against
• 31:10
  Speaker 8: these extreme MAGA forces that want to make the problem
• 31:13
  Speaker 8: even worse. Um, it's made me a lot of powerful enemies, but, uh,
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: As Roosevelt once said, sometimes you can judge a person
• 31:20
  Speaker 8: by the enemies they make. I'd rather be known by
• 31:22
  Speaker 8: my friends, but I'll take it in this case. And
• 31:26
  Speaker 8: I think some of these most important fights in the
• 31:28
  Speaker 8: next few years will take place in the Senate.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Over economy, over democracy.
• 31:34
  Speaker 8: And having been in the center of these fights in
• 31:36
  Speaker 8: the House, I think it'd be even more effective representing–
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: you know, the largest, most important state in the union.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: That's right. You've taken on a lot of fights, introduced
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of bills during your years in the House.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: What would be your top legislative priorities in the Senate? Like,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you know, top three bills you might introduce out of
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the gate?
• 31:57
  Speaker 8: You know, I introduced a package of our own post
• 32:01
  Speaker 8: Watergate reforms, something I worked on for years called the
• 32:05
  Speaker 8: Protecting Our Democracy Act, I view it as an adjunct
• 32:09
  Speaker 8: to HR1 and the John Lewis voting rights legislation as well.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: It would have a whole host of.
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: Reforms that would codify things that were norms that we
• 32:21
  Speaker 8: thought you couldn't violate in our democracy, which it turns
• 32:23
  Speaker 8: out you can violate with impunity. It would expedite enforcement
• 32:28
  Speaker 8: of congressional subpoenas. It would do away with this practice
• 32:32
  Speaker 8: of temporary Senate appointments to avoid confirmation of It would
• 32:39
  Speaker 8: strengthen the independence of inspector generals, put up a better
• 32:42
  Speaker 8: wall between the Justice Department and the White House so
• 32:45
  Speaker 8: you don't have the White House interfering in specific criminal cases,
• 32:50
  Speaker 8: and many other reforms. That would be at the top
• 32:52
  Speaker 8: of my list to reintroduce if we don't get it
• 32:54
  Speaker 8: done this session. And frankly, with the crazy people running
• 32:58
  Speaker 8: the House, that's not very likely. That would be a
• 33:01
  Speaker 8: top priority. Voting rights will be a top priority for me.
• 33:06
  Speaker 8: Reinstatement of the expanded child tax credit. That tax credit lifted,
• 33:12
  Speaker 8: as you know, 40% of the kids out of poverty.
• 33:16
  Speaker 8: And when the Republicans allowed it to expire over our opposition,
• 33:20
  Speaker 8: a lot of families fell back into poverty. And this
• 33:23
  Speaker 8: is what I was referring to before when I talked
• 33:26
  Speaker 8: about the economy not working. The fact that with a
• 33:30
  Speaker 8: simple change of the tax code, we can lift so
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: many millions of kids out of poverty should tell us
• 33:36
  Speaker 8: that this isn't rocket science on the one hand, and
• 33:39
  Speaker 8: it is a policy choice we're making, and it's the
• 33:41
  Speaker 8: wrong policy choice. So these are some of my top priorities.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: You mentioned homelessness. You obviously represent a district here in
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles where there's quite a bit of homelessness. I
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: noticed when I was doing focus groups for this other podcast,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I do the wilderness podcast, Every group of voters, whether
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: it's young voters in Orange County, black voters in Atlanta,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: no matter who it was, I asked them what issue
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: was most important to them. They said housing. And I
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: can't afford rent or I don't think I'll ever be
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: able to afford a home. Obviously, both homelessness and housing,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: huge issues here in California. How much do you think
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: that will be central to your campaign and what do
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you think we can do about it on a federal level?
• 34:26
  Speaker 8: It's very central and central in a couple of ways.
• 34:29
  Speaker 8: Central to my campaign in that it's an acute chronic
• 34:35
  Speaker 8: emergency right now. So we need solutions that are going
• 34:39
  Speaker 8: to have an immediate impact in helping people move off
• 34:42
  Speaker 8: the streets. I just sat down with Karen Bass a
• 34:45
  Speaker 8: couple of weeks ago to talk about what we can
• 34:47
  Speaker 8: do to offer to be her federal point person. I'd
• 34:52
  Speaker 8: like to help in any way I possibly can. I've
• 34:55
  Speaker 8: already been and have for years been bringing millions home
• 34:59
  Speaker 8: to my district to support community-based solutions, as well as
• 35:03
  Speaker 8: introduce legislation to create tax incentives, to allow public housing
• 35:07
  Speaker 8: agencies to acquire property, be able to compete with often
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: foreign investors who will pay cash on the dollar and
• 35:13
  Speaker 8: they just.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Can't compete with that.
• 35:16
  Speaker 8: But I would say perhaps even more importantly, this too
• 35:20
  Speaker 8: gets back to that structural issue I mentioned with the economy.
• 35:24
  Speaker 8: At the end of the day, if people are working
• 35:27
  Speaker 8: full time and still can't afford the basic necessities, it
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: doesn't matter how much we try to do to attack
• 35:37
  Speaker 8: the problem in and of itself, just focused on homelessness.
• 35:42
  Speaker 8: If we don't attack the broader problem that people's incomes
• 35:45
  Speaker 8: aren't increasing along with costs, then no matter what we do,
• 35:50
  Speaker 8: the flow of people onto the streets is going to
• 35:53
  Speaker 8: outpace the our ability to take people into good housing.
• 35:58
  Speaker 8: So we have to attack that structural problem in the economy.
• 36:02
  Speaker 8: And I also think that as Democrats, we have to
• 36:06
  Speaker 8: be willing to look at what works and what doesn't work.
• 36:11
  Speaker 8: And if things don't work, then we need to try
• 36:14
  Speaker 8: other approaches. The taxpayers are generous, and they are Los
• 36:20
  Speaker 8: Angelinos and Californians. They want to be compassionate, are compassionate,
• 36:27
  Speaker 8: but they also want to make sure that money's not
• 36:29
  Speaker 8: being wasted, that what we're doing is effective and cost-effective
• 36:34
  Speaker 8: and humane. And we have to be willing to look
• 36:37
  Speaker 8: at these things with eyes wide open and say, okay,
• 36:39
  Speaker 8: this is working. We need to put more resources into it.
• 36:42
  Speaker 8: This is not working. This is unsustainable. Just seeing, for example, BART,
• 36:48
  Speaker 8: the Bay Area Rapid Transit, spent almost a million and
• 36:50
  Speaker 8: a half dollars on a program to address homelessness and
• 36:54
  Speaker 8: ended up helping a single person.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: That's not sustainable.
• 37:01
  Speaker 8: And so I think it really requires us to take
• 37:04
  Speaker 8: a hard look at what works and what doesn't and
• 37:05
  Speaker 8: invest in what does.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: It feels like housing supply is a bit of an
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: issue too, because even when people are getting ahead and
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: have an income to sort of afford other things in life,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the cost of housing itself is so high and you
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: can't find any affordable housing around. Do you think that
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: there needs to just be, on the supply side, just
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: a lot more housing built and a lot more places
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: in California?
• 37:27
  Speaker 8: I think we do need a lot more housing, and
• 37:29
  Speaker 8: I think that we can explore any number of ways
• 37:32
  Speaker 8: to create tax incentives to produce more affordable housing. One
• 37:38
  Speaker 8: of the approaches that I used in legislation I introduced
• 37:41
  Speaker 8: a few years ago is to say that, let's say
• 37:44
  Speaker 8: you have a property and you want to sell it
• 37:47
  Speaker 8: to a public housing agency but you're getting cash offer
• 37:52
  Speaker 8: from someone else, or you're getting even more than what
• 37:54
  Speaker 8: a public housing agency can do. And often for the
• 37:56
  Speaker 8: public housing agencies, they have regulatory loops to jump through
• 38:00
  Speaker 8: and it takes time. The bill that I introduced some
• 38:03
  Speaker 8: time ago would say, look, we'll give you the same
• 38:06
  Speaker 8: tax treatment, favorable tax treatment that we would give you
• 38:09
  Speaker 8: if your property had been condemned. So we'll create an
• 38:13
  Speaker 8: incentive for you if you if you care about these
• 38:18
  Speaker 8: issues and you want to help, here's a way you
• 38:20
  Speaker 8: can do it and you'll get a tax benefit as
• 38:22
  Speaker 8: a result. There are innumerable ways we can use the
• 38:25
  Speaker 8: tax code to help people. And, you know, my Republican
• 38:31
  Speaker 8: colleagues like to think that whether people are homeless or
• 38:35
  Speaker 8: they can't afford health care or they're super rich, it's
• 38:38
  Speaker 8: all the result of Adam Smith's invisible hand and the
• 38:42
  Speaker 8: intrinsic merit of whoever does well. The reality is, It's
• 38:47
  Speaker 8: not Adam Smith and it's not an invisible hand. It's
• 38:49
  Speaker 8: often the hand of a very visible person with a
• 38:52
  Speaker 8: lot of influence. I mean, that we treat the carried
• 38:56
  Speaker 8: interest of hedge fund managers as a capital gain rather
• 38:59
  Speaker 8: than ordinary income is not Adam Smith's invisible hand at work.
• 39:04
  Speaker 8: You know, they have a powerful person advocating and many
• 39:07
  Speaker 8: powerful people advocating for that. So we ought to use
• 39:11
  Speaker 8: the tax code to help bring those costs down. I
• 39:15
  Speaker 8: think local governments need to work with state governments, which
• 39:18
  Speaker 8: need to work with the federal government to make sure
• 39:21
  Speaker 8: that there aren't artificial impediments in the way of producing
• 39:24
  Speaker 8: more affordable housing. Because you're right, it's also an issue
• 39:29
  Speaker 8: of supply and demand.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: One of the new responsibilities you'd have as senator is
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: confirming judges, including possibly Supreme Court justices. Obviously, trust in
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court right now is at an all-time low
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: among the public. What are your thoughts on Supreme Court reforms,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: either changing the number of justices on the court, term limits,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: or potentially other reforms?
• 39:55
  Speaker 8: I'm joining Hank Johnson and Jerry Nadler to once again
• 39:59
  Speaker 8: introduce legislation to expand the size of the court. I
• 40:03
  Speaker 8: have to tell you, this is not a solution I
• 40:04
  Speaker 8: would have embraced six or eight years ago. But Mitch
• 40:10
  Speaker 8: McConnell so successfully gamed the system by withholding an appointment
• 40:14
  Speaker 8: to from Barack Obama under the false pretext that, well,
• 40:20
  Speaker 8: the election is coming up in about a year. We
• 40:22
  Speaker 8: can't possibly interfere with the choice of the voters. And then,
• 40:26
  Speaker 8: of course, forced Amy Coney Barrett down her throat while
• 40:28
  Speaker 8: people were literally voting for Joe Biden. Votes were literally
• 40:32
  Speaker 8: being cast in the most chokingly hypocritical fashion. The result
• 40:37
  Speaker 8: is we have two justices who, you know, quite separate
• 40:40
  Speaker 8: apart from others who don't belong in the court because
• 40:43
  Speaker 8: they're their reactionaries, don't belong in the court because they
• 40:48
  Speaker 8: shouldn't be there but for the gaming of the system.
• 40:51
  Speaker 8: And so my view is McConnell and Trump have stacked
• 40:54
  Speaker 8: the court.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: It ought to be unstacked.
• 40:57
  Speaker 8: And that's not going to happen in the next half
• 41:01
  Speaker 8: century unless we expand the court. And I've got two
• 41:04
  Speaker 8: kids in their 20s. I'm not content with the idea
• 41:08
  Speaker 8: that they should live their whole adult life under this
• 41:11
  Speaker 8: reactionary court. I also frankly support term limits for the court,
• 41:16
  Speaker 8: which I think meet the constitutional requirements if when a
• 41:21
  Speaker 8: judge hits that term limit, they're not removed from the bench,
• 41:24
  Speaker 8: but they are then assigned to work, for example, on
• 41:28
  Speaker 8: the Court of Appeals or the district court. So these
• 41:33
  Speaker 8: are necessary, I think, because the Supreme Court is now
• 41:37
  Speaker 8: the least representative body in the country.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: But I also think we need to look at other
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: structural reforms.
• 41:44
  Speaker 8: A big part of why our democracy has been in trouble, too,
• 41:47
  Speaker 8: is the fact that with the gerrymander in the House,
• 41:50
  Speaker 8: the minority party often controls a majority of seats in
• 41:53
  Speaker 8: the House.
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: That shouldn't be the case.
• 41:55
  Speaker 8: Because of the overweighting of rural areas in the Senate,
• 41:59
  Speaker 8: minority of Americans generally control the Senate. Because of the
• 42:04
  Speaker 8: Electoral College, minority Americans often choose the president over And
• 42:09
  Speaker 8: now the Supreme Court is the least representative. And at
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: a certain point, we have to say, if the majority
• 42:17
  Speaker 8: of Americans aren't making policy because of these structural impediments,
• 42:21
  Speaker 8: then how long can our democracy really thrive or survive?
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: This is obviously going to be a very tough and
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: competitive race, partly because there are a lot of Democrats
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: and A lot of our listeners who really like you,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: really like Katie Porter, really like Barbara Lee, who's reportedly
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: set to announce soon as well. I know that, you know,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you want to be respectful and only speak to your
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: record and qualifications. But for people who are having trouble
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: making up their minds and want to know, what are
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the big differences in this race? What are the big
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: differences between the candidates? What would you say?
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: And you're right. I don't want to.
• 42:59
  Speaker 8: I don't say anything even by comparison that doesn't reflect
• 43:04
  Speaker 8: positively on my colleagues because I think my colleagues are great.
• 43:08
  Speaker 8: And this is a situation of rivals under the same flag.
• 43:13
  Speaker 8: But let me just speak to my own record. You know,
• 43:17
  Speaker 8: through this decade, I don't think they're in the House
• 43:20
  Speaker 8: apart from Speaker Pelosi, who is the champion of all champions. um,
• 43:25
  Speaker 8: has been anyone more in the center of the fight
• 43:27
  Speaker 8: to preserve our democracy, to create an economy that works
• 43:30
  Speaker 8: for people, uh, to protect our rights than I have.
• 43:34
  Speaker 8: And I've been very proud to be in the center
• 43:36
  Speaker 8: of those fights. Um, uh, you know, I, I will
• 43:41
  Speaker 8: acknowledge that part of why I was in the center
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: of those fights is because of the fortuity that those
• 43:46
  Speaker 8: fights ended up in, oddly enough, the intelligence committee. But, um,
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: But I took on a very important leadership role that
• 43:55
  Speaker 8: taught me a lot of things about our Constitution, about
• 43:57
  Speaker 8: our colleagues, about how to use a position of influence
• 44:02
  Speaker 8: to protect the people I represent. All of those skills
• 44:06
  Speaker 8: I would bring to the Senate. And I also have
• 44:10
  Speaker 8: a demonstrated ability to get things done on behalf of
• 44:14
  Speaker 8: the people I represent. I think Speaker Pelosi's endorsement of
• 44:18
  Speaker 8: me last week along with the endorsements of about 20
• 44:22
  Speaker 8: of my California House colleagues, current and past, is not
• 44:28
  Speaker 8: any adverse reflection on my colleagues, who I think that
• 44:33
  Speaker 8: is the two other candidates running or about to run,
• 44:36
  Speaker 8: but rather an acknowledgement of the fact that I get
• 44:40
  Speaker 8: things done. We're all progressives, but I have a track
• 44:44
  Speaker 8: record of getting things done and delivering for people.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: And And that's part of what I'll be running on.
• 44:52
  Speaker 8: For those who'd like to learn more, they can go
• 44:54
  Speaker 8: to adamschiff.com. That's adamschiff.com.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: You've been calling yourself a progressive. You supported very progressive legislation,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: Green New Deal, Medicare for All. What made you decide
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: to join the more moderate New Democrat coalition as opposed
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: to the Congressional Progressive Caucus?
• 45:12
  Speaker 8: You know, I actually hoped to join the Progressive Caucus.
• 45:15
  Speaker 8: And I had talked to Pramila. She was very encouraging
• 45:18
  Speaker 8: of my joining. last session and I thought about the
• 45:21
  Speaker 8: session before and wanted to. Then I got caught up
• 45:24
  Speaker 8: in having to impeach the president and then further caught
• 45:28
  Speaker 8: up in having to investigate an insurrection. Now I'm no
• 45:32
  Speaker 8: longer the chairman of the committee. I can get more
• 45:34
  Speaker 8: involved in caucuses and I'm looking forward to it. You know,
• 45:38
  Speaker 8: I was attracted to the New Democratic Caucus also and
• 45:41
  Speaker 8: there are members who are in both the Progressive Caucus
• 45:43
  Speaker 8: and the New Dems, as I would be. Because they
• 45:47
  Speaker 8: are willing to look at new solutions to things. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 8: if problems, you know, the existing solutions aren't working, they're
• 45:56
  Speaker 8: open to entertaining things that are. And so I find
• 46:00
  Speaker 8: it a useful incubator for new ideas.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: This is a race in very blue California. It's possible
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the race ends up, because of the jungle primary, a
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: race between two Democrats in the general. So there'll be
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of discussion about the Democratic Party in the future,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. And seeing that we were just talking
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: about that, Progressive Caucus and the New Democrat Coalition. What's
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: your overall critique of where you think the Democratic Party
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: has fallen short in recent years?
• 46:26
  Speaker 8: Well, I want Democrats to be part of a durable
• 46:30
  Speaker 8: majority that is one that lasts and lasts, not one
• 46:34
  Speaker 8: that takes the majority when we win a wave election
• 46:37
  Speaker 8: and then hangs on for dear life as long as
• 46:39
  Speaker 8: we possibly can.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: So how do we get there?
• 46:42
  Speaker 8: And I think the answer is, We're going to have
• 46:44
  Speaker 8: to start winning in places that we have not been winning.
• 46:47
  Speaker 8: We're going to have to start winning in a lot
• 46:50
  Speaker 8: of rural America. We're going to have to start winning
• 46:52
  Speaker 8: in areas in the South and in the West and Midwest.
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: And I think at the end of the day, what
• 47:00
  Speaker 8: that most requires is a laser-like focus on the economy
• 47:06
  Speaker 8: and what's working and what isn't working. Showing respect to
• 47:09
  Speaker 8: people in every part of the state of California, every
• 47:13
  Speaker 8: part of the country. it requires us to be there
• 47:17
  Speaker 8: to make the case. Neither taking for granted anyone who's
• 47:20
  Speaker 8: traditionally part of our base, nor assuming that people who
• 47:23
  Speaker 8: aren't traditionally part of our base are unwilling to consider us.
• 47:27
  Speaker 8: They're unwilling to consider us if we don't make the case.
• 47:31
  Speaker 8: In 2016, as Trump was running in the primary and
• 47:35
  Speaker 8: then the general, there were a lot of more than
• 47:39
  Speaker 8: dog whistles to racism. There were some direct appeals to racism.
• 47:42
  Speaker 8: But there were also a lot of economic arguments, some
• 47:46
  Speaker 8: of which resonated with people. When he talked about the
• 47:49
  Speaker 8: forgotten people and said we had Bush as president before,
• 47:53
  Speaker 8: we had Clinton as president before, and they were still struggling. Now,
• 47:58
  Speaker 8: of course, he did nothing to help them and so
• 48:01
  Speaker 8: much of what he did hurt them. That tax cut
• 48:04
  Speaker 8: for rich people and corporations just stripped the country of
• 48:08
  Speaker 8: resources that might have been used to help people. But
• 48:11
  Speaker 8: the economic pain people are feeling is real. And the
• 48:15
  Speaker 8: anxiety and people seeing their quality of life in parts
• 48:18
  Speaker 8: of the country is less than their parents. And the
• 48:21
  Speaker 8: fears they have for their children are real. And if
• 48:25
  Speaker 8: we want to be a durable majority, we need to
• 48:29
  Speaker 8: be addressing those very real economic challenges. And this is
• 48:33
  Speaker 8: one of the reasons why I thought Biden was absolutely
• 48:35
  Speaker 8: brilliant in the State of the Union speech. Because first
• 48:39
  Speaker 8: of all, what he and we Democrats have done in
• 48:42
  Speaker 8: the last two years, uh, have been the most significant
• 48:45
  Speaker 8: strides of dealing with those economic issues, um, uh, of
• 48:49
  Speaker 8: any Congress or presidency, I think in a, uh, in
• 48:53
  Speaker 8: a generation, uh, the inflation reduction act and the bipartisan
• 48:57
  Speaker 8: infrastructure bill and the chips and science act. And so
• 48:59
  Speaker 8: many more are going to really help people around the country.
• 49:03
  Speaker 8: I loved it when Biden said that, uh, We're going
• 49:05
  Speaker 8: to be doing lots of ribbon cuttings with this infrastructure bill,
• 49:07
  Speaker 8: and I will see you there. And he looked over
• 49:10
  Speaker 8: the Republican side of the aisle when he said it,
• 49:11
  Speaker 8: because they will show up even though they voted against it.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: They've been doing that for a decade now.
• 49:16
  Speaker 8: But I guess I would say in the way of criticism.
• 49:20
  Speaker 8: sort of self-reflection about our party, that we haven't worked
• 49:24
  Speaker 8: hard enough to win over people. A lot of working
• 49:28
  Speaker 8: class families that we've lost that we shouldn't lose, that
• 49:32
  Speaker 8: we need to win back.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's a policy issue? Do you think
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: it's just purely not showing up in rural America? Do
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: you think it's the way we talk?
• 49:42
  Speaker 8: I think it's a combination of things. I think it's
• 49:46
  Speaker 8: not showing up because we don't think we can compete.
• 49:49
  Speaker 8: And in fact, when we do compete, we find we
• 49:51
  Speaker 8: can actually win in many of these parts of the country.
• 49:55
  Speaker 8: I think it's a sense that uh, is, you know,
• 50:01
  Speaker 8: sort of fostered by the, the poison Trump and others, uh,
• 50:05
  Speaker 8: put in the body politic that, um, the Democrats look
• 50:09
  Speaker 8: down on other people, uh, in other parts of the country. Um, we, uh,
• 50:15
  Speaker 8: we do, and we need to show respect to people, uh,
• 50:17
  Speaker 8: people that, that agree with us or disagree with us.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: Uh, there are, are.
• 50:21
  Speaker 8: Wonderful people in every state of the union in every
• 50:23
  Speaker 8: part of our golden state. And so I think it, it's, um,
• 50:29
  Speaker 8: the need to be there, the need to show respect, uh,
• 50:31
  Speaker 8: and the need to, um, powerfully make the case of
• 50:35
  Speaker 8: why what we're offering could really improve the quality of
• 50:38
  Speaker 8: people's lives. Um, that, that to me is the core.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Katie Porter says she's the only candidate in this race
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: to have never taken a dime of corporate PAC money.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I know you've sworn off corporate PAC money for this race.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: What made you sort of shift on this issue or
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: is it a shift?
• 50:54
  Speaker 8: Um, you know, for years I've had a leadership position
• 50:57
  Speaker 8: in the democratic party. Um, For the last four or
• 51:00
  Speaker 8: six years, I've been either the frontline finance chair for
• 51:03
  Speaker 8: the DCCC or the battleground finance chair responsible for all,
• 51:07
  Speaker 8: both candidates and incumbents like Katie Porter. And so I
• 51:12
  Speaker 8: was raising money to compete with Republicans and I was
• 51:14
  Speaker 8: giving it to people like Katie Porter and they were
• 51:17
  Speaker 8: happy to get it.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: And I was happy to give it. Now I don't
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: have to do that.
• 51:23
  Speaker 8: I'm no longer the battleground finance chair, the frontline chair.
• 51:26
  Speaker 8: I've given up my DCCC responsibilities because I frankly won't
• 51:29
  Speaker 8: have time to do them as I'm running for the Senate.
• 51:32
  Speaker 8: I will still continue to help others. And in the
• 51:35
  Speaker 8: last several years, again, apart from the speaker and the
• 51:38
  Speaker 8: DCCC chair, I don't think there's anyone in the Democratic
• 51:41
  Speaker 8: caucus who did more to elect people to the House
• 51:44
  Speaker 8: and Senate than I did. But I don't have that responsibility.
• 51:49
  Speaker 8: Do you think.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: The DTRIP and some of these committees should swear off
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: corporate PAC money?
• 51:55
  Speaker 8: That's a tough question because we're competing with Republicans that
• 51:59
  Speaker 8: are raising it.
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: And, you know, I frequently.
• 52:04
  Speaker 8: Hear from Democrats, I'm sure you've heard from them, maybe
• 52:08
  Speaker 8: you've even been one of them, that we have to
• 52:11
  Speaker 8: fight harder. We have to, you know, be more like
• 52:15
  Speaker 8: the Republicans. Well, I don't want to be more like
• 52:16
  Speaker 8: the Republicans.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:19
  Speaker 8: But I think we should move in the direction of,
• 52:23
  Speaker 8: as a party, not relying on corporate contributions by strengthening
• 52:29
  Speaker 8: our grassroots support. But again, as a party, we're already
• 52:37
  Speaker 8: hamstrung because in blue states like California, we did the
• 52:41
  Speaker 8: right thing. We have an independent commission that eliminated the gerrymander.
• 52:45
  Speaker 8: In the red states, they use the gerrymander. We're already
• 52:49
  Speaker 8: at a tremendous disadvantage because the Republicans have so many
• 52:54
  Speaker 8: billionaire donors making dark money contributions. So I think we
• 53:01
  Speaker 8: move in that direction. But we have to be mindful
• 53:05
  Speaker 8: that it's one thing in a Democrat and Democratic primary
• 53:08
  Speaker 8: where both sides swear off corporate PAC contributions as we have.
• 53:13
  Speaker 8: It's another when we're competing for the majority of the Congress.
• 53:18
  Speaker 8: And that's a harder decision.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: What do you think is taking Merrick Garland so long?
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: I think it's a couple things.
• 53:25
  Speaker 8: And I've been, as you know, very openly critical of
• 53:28
  Speaker 8: the Justice Department, how slow they've moved on the investigation
• 53:30
  Speaker 8: of January 6th. I think, first and foremost, Garland is
• 53:38
  Speaker 8: responding to what a terrible Attorney General Bill Barr was
• 53:42
  Speaker 8: and how badly he politicized the Justice Department.
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: Now, Barr.
• 53:46
  Speaker 8: He's trying to reinvent himself as some great defender of
• 53:49
  Speaker 8: democracy because he finally found a line he wouldn't cross.
• 53:53
  Speaker 8: But I should remind people, he crossed a hell of
• 53:55
  Speaker 8: a lot of lines before he got there.
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I know.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: It's a revisionist history here.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 54:00
  Speaker 8: I mean, he intervened in specific criminal cases to make
• 54:03
  Speaker 8: them go away like Mike Flynn or to reduce the
• 54:06
  Speaker 8: sentence like Roger Stone of people who are lying to
• 54:08
  Speaker 8: cover up for themselves and Donald Trump in a way
• 54:12
  Speaker 8: that we hadn't seen since Watergate. But I think Merrick Garland,
• 54:16
  Speaker 8: having seen the department so badly politicized, wants to move
• 54:20
  Speaker 8: the department completely away from politics, reestablish its reputation for independence.
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: And that's laudable. But I think.
• 54:32
  Speaker 8: In an effort to avoid even the appearance of any partiality,
• 54:38
  Speaker 8: you can, if you go too far, confer a kind
• 54:43
  Speaker 8: of immunity. on the former president and his enablers. And
• 54:50
  Speaker 8: the Justice Department, while it moved with great swiftness to
• 54:53
  Speaker 8: go after those who broke into the Capitol, who assaulted
• 54:56
  Speaker 8: and beat police officers, it has moved with a snail's
• 55:00
  Speaker 8: pace when it came to those who incited them, as
• 55:05
  Speaker 8: well as the other multiple lines of effort to overturn
• 55:08
  Speaker 8: the election. And so exhibit A for me has always
• 55:11
  Speaker 8: been Georgia. Donald Trump on the phone demanding 11,780 votes
• 55:16
  Speaker 8: from the Secretary of State that didn't exist. Anyone else
• 55:19
  Speaker 8: would have been long under investigation or under indictment by now.
• 55:23
  Speaker 8: And yet the Fulton County District Attorney in Georgia has
• 55:27
  Speaker 8: been so far ahead of the Justice Department in its investigation.
• 55:31
  Speaker 8: That just should not be the case. So I think
• 55:35
  Speaker 8: it's probably natural caution on Merrick Garland's part.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: I think it's part.
• 55:41
  Speaker 8: Reestablishing the department's reputation after four horrible years under Sessions, Barr, Whitaker,
• 55:47
  Speaker 8: and other jokers.
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: But I think.
• 55:57
  Speaker 8: The most dangerous thing is not to be perceived as
• 56:02
  Speaker 8: being somehow partial.
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: That is a danger.
• 56:05
  Speaker 8: But the more dangerous thing is to give an unscrupulous
• 56:09
  Speaker 8: former president immunity. And tell future presidents that they can
• 56:13
  Speaker 8: act with impunity. Yeah, the founders would have never countenance
• 56:17
  Speaker 8: such an idea.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Before Kevin McCarthy kicked you off the Intel committee because
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: you made Trump sad You obviously spent a couple years
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: seeing all kinds of scary intelligence What uh, what keeps
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: you up at night of all the threats to our
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: national security? What's what's the thing that really? Gets you going.
• 56:39
  Speaker 8: Well At the moment, I would say the potential of
• 56:43
  Speaker 8: a nuclear use by Russia in the war in Ukraine.
• 56:47
  Speaker 8: And I also lose sleep over the lesson that China
• 56:54
  Speaker 8: may take from Ukraine if McCarthy and others go soft
• 56:58
  Speaker 8: on the knees when it comes to supporting Ukraine vis-a-vis Taiwan.
• 57:04
  Speaker 8: Probably the conflict most risky in terms of pulling the
• 57:11
  Speaker 8: United States in would be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
• 57:16
  Speaker 8: And China's watching carefully whether Russia can get away with
• 57:19
  Speaker 8: invading its neighbor. And so there's a lot riding on
• 57:23
  Speaker 8: the success of Ukraine. It's a test case for a
• 57:28
  Speaker 8: fellow democracy and an ally, but it also has a
• 57:32
  Speaker 8: lot of autocrats watching and wondering, hey, with Erdogan in Turkey,
• 57:37
  Speaker 8: can we invade our neighbor? with Aliyev in Azerbaijan, who
• 57:42
  Speaker 8: already has invaded his neighbor. It's a dangerous world in
• 57:48
  Speaker 8: that respect. Continue to have grave concerns about Iran's nuclear program,
• 57:54
  Speaker 8: and then you can't rule out North Korea acting completely irrationally.
• 58:02
  Speaker 8: So those are some of the national security threats that
• 58:05
  Speaker 8: keep me up.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: That's a fun group.
• 58:11
  Speaker 8: But, but, you know, I would tell you this, um,
• 58:14
  Speaker 8: what worries me even more in this, this, I had
• 58:17
  Speaker 8: two terrible, at least two terrible epiphanies during the Trump years.
• 58:21
  Speaker 8: The first seems pretty self-evident now, but at the time
• 58:23
  Speaker 8: it was kind of a radical idea, which was that
• 58:28
  Speaker 8: the predominant threat to our country, to our democracy came
• 58:31
  Speaker 8: from within. Um, I still think that's the case. Um,
• 58:36
  Speaker 8: So I'm more worried about the threat from within than
• 58:39
  Speaker 8: I am from without. The second epiphany was that so
• 58:43
  Speaker 8: many of the people I worked with on the Republican
• 58:46
  Speaker 8: side of the aisle who I respected because I believed
• 58:49
  Speaker 8: that they believed what they were saying turned out not
• 58:51
  Speaker 8: to believe it at all.
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: None of it really mattered.
• 58:53
  Speaker 8: And it caused me to appreciate even more the Liz
• 58:58
  Speaker 8: Cheney's and the Adam Kinzinger's, although it also caused me
• 59:03
  Speaker 8: to recognize just how few they are. And how many
• 59:07
  Speaker 8: more are the Kevin McCarthy's, the Elise Stefanik's, people, you know,
• 59:11
  Speaker 8: craving enough to do anything to take power or keep power.
• 59:16
  Speaker 8: And then the nut jobs they rely on, the Matt Gaetz's. Oh,
• 59:20
  Speaker 8: can I tell you actually one other thing now that
• 59:22
  Speaker 8: I think about it? Because I think you're a Lebowski fan, right?
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen the movie a couple times.
• 59:26
  Speaker 8: First of all, I will say this to distinguish myself
• 59:28
  Speaker 8: from anyone else running.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: No one is a bigger Lebowski fan than I am.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I hear this.
• 59:32
  Speaker 8: So if that's the criteria, it may be for many
• 59:35
  Speaker 8: of your listeners, then there's just no choice in this race.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: You got it, yeah.
• 59:38
  Speaker 8: But I have to share with you, one of my
• 59:41
  Speaker 8: staff sent me a line from The Big Lebowski that
• 59:43
  Speaker 8: I had never seen so perfectly applied, and it's one
• 59:46
  Speaker 8: of my favorite lines from the movie that has sort
• 59:48
  Speaker 8: of a political connotation. She sent it to me while
• 59:52
  Speaker 8: Matt Gaetz was just ripping into Kevin McCarthy. So I'm
• 59:55
  Speaker 8: sitting on the house floor, I'm watching Matt Gaetz rip
• 59:58
  Speaker 8: into Kevin McCarthy, And I'm agreeing with what he's saying.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 8: So it's kind of a weird thing to be agreeing
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 8: with anything Matt Gaetz has to say.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Worst person you know has made a good point.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 8: So my staff sends me this quote, which is, you're
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 8: not wrong. You're just an asshole.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: That's good. That's apt.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: I tell you.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 8: If anybody was wondering what I was laughing at on
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 8: the house floor in that moment when I showed them
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 8: the laughing, that was it.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, this brings me to my last question on
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: a lighter note. I noticed in your Twitter bio, it
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: says you're a sometimes comic.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: What's up with that?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: How did I not know that?
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 8: I do an annual comedy night. We take over the
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 8: Comedy Store or the Improv or the Ice House in Pasadena.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: I do some stand-up.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: When is that this year?
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: Dana Carvey was our opener last year.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Are you doing that this year, even though you're a
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Senate candidate?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 8: I'm going to do it again this year, although I
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 8: live in continual fear that it's going to get recorded.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I saw that and I started Googling around
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: because I'm like, is there video of Adam Schiff's stand-up
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: that I've missed somehow?
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: I hope not.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: No, believe me, there's not.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: I tried.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 8: Last year I did a top 10 connections between the
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 8: Trump administration and Hollywood, which I introduced because the day
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 8: that we had our comedy night was the day that
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 8: Steve Bannon was convicted.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 8: So I began by saying, Steve Bannon was convicted today,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 8: which got applause and laughter, you know.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: Even without my saying it.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an easy one, yeah.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 8: And I said that, you know, Steve Bannon actually was
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 8: a producer on Seinfeld.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: Which is actually true.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 8: The next part is not true, but I said, in fact,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 8: he was responsible for one of the show's most iconic
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 8: episodes when he asked writer Larry David to create an
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 8: episode about his two favorite things, soup and Nazis.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: That's good. That's good. I like that. Well, I hope
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: you do the comedy at least once during the Senate race,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: whether it's recorded or not. I'll show up for sure.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: You could go on Love It or Leave It and
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: just do a quick.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 8: I would be happy to do that.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: I will set that up. I'll have to work on
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: my routine.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks for stopping by. Good luck in the Senate race
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: and come back again. I know it's going to be
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: a long race, so you'll have to stop in and
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: tell us how it's going.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: I look forward to it.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: All right, take care.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: All right, we're back.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Before we go, Elijah Cohn has returned for another round
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: of Take Appreciator. Elijah, take it away.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: Hey, guys.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: Welcome back to the Take Appreciators. Tommy, did you catch
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: the rule change from the last time that we played?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: It was on a Thursday pod.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: No. What's the rule change?
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: All right, so as usual, we're going to share some takes.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: The producers have seen them.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: You've not.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: John and Tommy have not seen them. You guys will react.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: You'll rate them on a scale of one to four
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 5: politicos or four being the worst. We're going to now
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: guess the author after we respond to the piece and
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: talk about its politico ranking. Does that make sense?
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: You know, it keeps it fresher.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: In the mind.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: People were like, all right, get on with it.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, whatever, Roger Goodell. You just change the rules whenever
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: you want. It's fine.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: The guessing the author is kind of for sickos, people
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: who really are.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: You got to be deep in this shit if you're
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: guessing these names.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: True sickos.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: Well, we're sickos, so. All right, let's jump into it.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: I'm glad.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: So you guys, the audience has heard Adam Schiff, but
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: we just finished talking about this. The first take is
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: from this morning's Politico playbook. It's a little bit of
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: a bank shot, but I think this works. It's from
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: a section titled, Foiled again, playbook breaks down how Biden
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: and the team have been attacking Republicans for their past
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: remarks about repealing Social Security and Medicare. Then we get
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: to this, and I quote, But some Democrats say the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: White House needs to strike a balance between confident and cocky.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: And then they quote an anonymous former White House aide,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: quote again, The Biden administration has a lot of things
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: going their way, and unfortunately, they have reason to be overconfident.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: It doesn't nullify the other side's determination to, you know,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: embarrass the White House in whatever way they can. Guys,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: what do we think of that analysis?
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: They're overconfident? Look, you got me. Because few things trigger
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: me more than anonymous Democratic sources unburdening themselves to a
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: reporter about their anxiety over whatever. Like, the idea that
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: there's a voter out there who would be like, ah,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: I'm with Joe Biden on this Medicare Social Security fight,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: but you know what? He's been a little cocky about it.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: He's measuring the drips.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Now he might want to privatize. I might want to privatize.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: He's a little cocky.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: On the one hand, I like to be able to
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: pay my bills. On the other, he seems to be
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: feeling himself.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I'm so worried about this that
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: I should go tell Political Playbook, but not attach my name.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: I don't have to exercise, but are we ranking now? Oh,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: we could have done the ranking. No, we're not doing
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: the blind ranking. That would have been good. I liked that,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: by the way.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: I have no idea who this is.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: I think it's an anonymous source.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: It's an anonymous source, yeah.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm going to give it three. I'm going to
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: give it three.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: I'm annoyed.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: I'm more of a one. To me, that's just par
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: for the course right there.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: Wow, Tommy, I'm surprised. I knew John when I saw
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: the anonymous.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: You know what? It was probably Tommy.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't read that, so I was surprised by it.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, next up we have Tommy Vitor in the Newer Times.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 5: We'll move on. Like I said, that was anonymous, so
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 5: we can't guess that person. We've got a three and
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: a one.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: Got it, got it.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: This next one is from the Wall Street Journal. John
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: actually sent this to me. It is titled, Joe Biden
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: is Bernie Sanders. I'm going to read that title again
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: because it's a purebred take. Joe Biden is Bernie Sanders.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: This piece argues that the State of the Union was
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: not meant for the general American public, but instead it
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: was meant to appease the Democratic base ahead of Biden's
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: 2024 re-election campaign. Here's a quote. President Biden's State of
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: the Union speech was an overdue act of transparency. When Mr.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: Biden finally announces his re-election bid, he will be running
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: as a Democratic socialist.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: Guys, what do you think? Oh, God. These people.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: That's why when I listened to that speech, I thought,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: what a socialist.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: Trying so hard to make something stupid stick.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Fucking socialist trying to crack down on resort fees and
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: airline fees. Talking about the middle class.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: Two politicos for whoever this right-wing writer is. I have
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: no time for this foolishness. I'm going three again. That's just,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: that's just ridiculous. Bernie Sanders. No, also like no one
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: believes that.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: No one believes that, that Joe Biden is fucking Bernie Sanders.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: Bunch of hedge fund guys passing that article around.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: I feel like if there's people who are mad about it,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: probably like from the left, like, no, he's not like people.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I'm sure. Absolutely.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sure.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: For sure. Yeah.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: I'm sure.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: Do you guys want to take a crack at who
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: wrote it? This one does have an author.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: Was it just the Ed Board?
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: It was not the Ed Board. Always a good guess
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 5: with the Wall Street Journal.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: Karl Rove.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 5: No, but I will say our PSA producer's text had
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: no idea who this guy was.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: Who do we got?
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 5: Daniel Henninger.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: I don't really know that person.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: He's a Yahoo.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, clearly. I just appreciate a title like that. That
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: was a very purebred take.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 8: All right.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: Next up, we have a piece for the New York
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: Times titled, What liberals can learn from Ron DeSantis? That's
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: another one I got sent a lot. There's a lot
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: of potential things to pull from this piece, but I
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: enjoyed this section on education. Here's some quotes. DeSantis' maverick
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: approach to primary, secondary, and higher education has brought widespread
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: condemnation from Democrats, particularly from their more progressive wings. And
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 5: then a little bit later, if ideological conformity has taken
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: root in American universities, the Democrats are the ones with
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: the knowledge, experience, and record to attend to the problem.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: It's on liberals to check the excesses of a liberal
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: orthodoxy's rampant among those on its far left wing. Guys,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: I have more context if you wanted about what's going
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 5: on in Florida, but what do you think of the take?
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think it's a maverick move. to scapegoat
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: young kids in order to advance your own political career.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: That's what I think. It's a real maverick move.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to think about who this was.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know who this is.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Was that Pamela something?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Pamela Paul.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: It's a Pamela Paul joint.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: PPM.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: This was hot on Twitter. People were mad about this one.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll upgrade my two to a three for this one.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: I just thought it was just ferociously stupid.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: So it's like hard. Sometimes they're so dumb, I don't
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: get mad.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: That's how I sort of feel. I'm almost... I'm like
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: two and a half for this one. I don't want
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: to give her just the two, but it's like, she's
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: getting a little cut and paste in her columns now.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Like she's doing the same exact thing to trigger the
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: libs and it's just not as exciting anymore.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah. She called another potential quote to pull from it.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: She said, uh, DeSantis had an unorthodox approach to COVID-19.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I, Technically, that's true, I guess. That's true.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: It was unorthodox.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: Spot the lie.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: Letting people die.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: Guys, we went through that really fast. Just a little
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: potential conversation about behind the scenes here for that Bernie Sanders,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden take. John texted it to me at like
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: 7 a.m. Pacific time. And within one minute, friend of
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: the program, Brian Tyler Cohen, also texted it to me. No,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 5: I was driving and I pulled over because I just
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: saw a text from both of them. I thought someone
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: had like tweeted something terrible from the Pod Save America
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 5: account that I had to like take down. No, but
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 5: it was just a take from the Wall Street Journal.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: It's just the Wall Street Journal.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Do we think that says more about me and BTC,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: or do we think that says more about Elijah, that
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: he's the repository for these bad days?
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: I think you and BTC.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: Just want to make sure that we were up at
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: 7 a.m. on a weekend texting Wall Street Journal.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: Elijah's doing his job.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 5: I was relieved, and then I started laughing. I think
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: it reflects badly on everyone involved.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that's right. Yeah, that's right. Elijah,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: thank you as always for another great round of Take Appreciator.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: And thank you to Adam Schiff for stopping by. And
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: we hope to book you on Love It or Leave
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: It so you can do your stand-up routine with Love
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: It on the Road.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: There were jokes in this interview. I've not heard it yet, obviously.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: There's a joke. Okay, great.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: I'm excited. He's funnier than Love It, you're saying?
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah. By a lot. Low bar.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: Bye, everyone. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: Andy Gardner Bernstein. Our producers are Hayley Muse and Olivia Martinez.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: Charlotte Landis sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Ari Schwartz, Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: videos at youtube.com slash podsaveamerica.