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Transcript

Trump's TikTok Dance · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Jane Koston.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Jane, so great to have you.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Hello. Hello. It's wonderful to be here. It's good to
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: see you.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: New York Times and CNN contributor Jane Koston, guest host today.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: This is fantastic. It's good to have you back here.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I could not be more excited.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So on today's show, we are going to talk about
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the Republican House just passed a potential TikTok ban that
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump no longer supports. RFK Jr. has reportedly chosen
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: his running mate, and it could be Aaron Rodgers or
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Jesse Ventura. And we're going to talk about whether Republican politicians...
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: are too terminally online to win. But first, you might
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: remember that last month, the special counsel who investigated President
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Biden's handling of classified information concluded in his report that
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: there was insufficient evidence to bring charges, but then swerved
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: out of the way to call Biden, quote, a well-meaning
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: elderly man with poor memory. Well, House Republicans called Robert
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Herr to testify yesterday so they could yell at him
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: for not indicting Biden and generate some content for campaign ads.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Here's an example from Republican Representative Tom Tiffany.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: So I want to thank you for the work that
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: you did as far as you could. But unfortunately, you
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: are part of the Praetorian Guard that guards the swamp
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: out here in Washington, D.C., protecting the elites. And Joe
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Biden is part of that company of the elites.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: You are part of the guard who defends the swamp. Unfortunately,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: it was very polite the way he said it. Just
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: before the hearing, House Democrats released the full transcript of
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: her interview with Biden, which at one point showed the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: special counsel contradicting his own characterization of Biden's memory. Let's listen.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: I now want to turn you to the transcript and
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: day one, page 47. You said to President Biden, you
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: have appear to have a photographic understanding and recall of
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: the House. Did you say that to President Biden?
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: Those words do appear on page 47 of the transcript.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Photographic is what you said. Is that right?
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: That word does appear on page 47 of the transcript.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: Never appeared in your report, though.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Is that correct? The word photographic? That does not appear
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: in my report.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: Attorney Herr, Webster's dictionary defines senile as exhibiting a decline
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: of cognitive ability, such as memory associated with old age.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Mr.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: Herr, based on your report, did you find that the
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: president was senile?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I did not.
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: That conclusion does not appear in my report, Congressman.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Democrats also used the hearing to remind everyone that Trump
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: is much worse at both handling classified information and remembering
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: important things. Let's listen.
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: Unlike President Biden, Trump did not alert the National Archives
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: or DOJ of the documents, nor did he turn over
• 3:15
  Speaker 6: all the classified materials in his possession. He did not
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: agree to sit down for a voluntary interview with the
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: special counsel. He never consented to a search of his home.
• 3:24
  Speaker 6: On the contrary, Trump suggested that his attorney hide or
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: destroy evidence requested by the FBI and the grand jury.
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: Trump carefully instructed his aide to move boxes of classified
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: documents to hide them from the FBI. Trump tried to
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: delete incriminating security tape footage from Mar-a-Lago, and he got
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: his attorney to provide a false certification the FBI saying
• 3:49
  Speaker 6: he had produced all the documents in his possession.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Tough that he doesn't remember his anniversary.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess when you've had a couple of wives,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: it's sort of.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: It's not surprising. Exactly. I think that like at, at,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: at the very, you know, 30,000 foot view, it is
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: not ideal that we now have dueling depositions of two
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: presidential candidates and two presidents. Um, that's not good. I
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: will say as a side note, if I ever could
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: win anything, I would like to win the chance to
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: depose someone. Deposing someone just sounds super fun. Just being like,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: did you say this? And the person being like, apparently
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I did. That sounds great. I would go to law
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: school just to depose people. That's all I want to do.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And of course, when you're getting deposed, you are advised
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: by your lawyers, any good lawyer, to say that you
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: don't recall if you're not absolutely sure because otherwise you
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: could have perjury charges slapped on you.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: It's another classic example of how the good thing to
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: do doesn't sound good right like it's you know if
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: you are arrested you should not say anything to the
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: police however the police when they do your dateline episode
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: will be like yeah she lawyered up right away didn't
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: say anything which is the right thing to do but
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: when you're watching dateline later you're gonna be like she
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: killed all those people.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And that's what we're watching right now, Dateline. That is
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: what politics has become. I'm glad you're here to talk
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: about this because when we spoke yesterday, you said you
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: hadn't been following every detail of the hearing or the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Her investigation, which, you know what, makes you just like
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: most voters. So now that you're all read up on everything,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: what do you think?
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: I think that it is March of an election year.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: And so the relevance of these particular events remain to
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: be seen. I know that's not a very satisfying answer, but...
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I've been taking a break from social media for Lent,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: which has been great. It just also means that I
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: am not plugged in. Quite literally. But I am not
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: plugged in to literally everything that's taking place. And so
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: after going through the transcript of the hearing and reading
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: a bunch of write-ups from actual news outlets, my main
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: takeaway is, wow. everyone hates each other because you had
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: republicans yelling at her about how he's the praetorian guard
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: for biden which he is not and also i don't
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: know how the praetorian guard got involved here like me
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: neither yeah and but then you had democrats yelling at
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: her that he had smeared biden by referring to him
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: as elderly and talking about his memory issues um I
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: was very entertained because part of the transcript shows that
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Biden does remember going to Mongolia and having an awesome
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: time bow hunting, which sounds super fun.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Apparently, Biden excels at archery. How is that not?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: That's my takeaway. Archery is hard.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: From a trip to Mongolia 13 years ago, and he's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: remembering hitting the target. I don't even want to know
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: why that story came up, by the way.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: No, he wanted to talk about cars, and he wanted
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: to talk about how hot his wife is. So I
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, Joe Biden, elderly wife guy who remembers
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: elderly wife guy things. That checks out. But I think
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: the main... It was interesting how... rather than ask questions
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: that could show like, why didn't charges result from this?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Why did this not appear in the ultimate report that
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: you gave? Like what, you know, getting actual answers. Um,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: everyone involved decided this is a televised hearing. We must
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: do televised hearing things and yell at each other and
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: yell at him. Uh, this former special counsel who did
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: not ask for any of this, he's just there and
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: he was yelled at. But I think that, um, It
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: was interesting because a couple of the write-ups I saw
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: were like, this could have election ramifications. And I'm thinking
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: back to, do you remember four years ago? Do you
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: remember what was taking place roughly four years ago?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think we were home for quite a while.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we were home for quite a while. Some stuff
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: was happening. I believe we are now just over the
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: anniversary of when Rudy Gopare... caused the entire NBA to
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: shut down, which I will never move on from the
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: fact that as far as I'm concerned, it's all Rudy
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Gobert's fault. But we have no idea what is going
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: to happen in between now and November. It is not
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: ideal that Biden is in this situation. This report is
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: not good. This hearing was not good. But whether it
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: will be relevant to people voting in November, which is,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I don't, it's a while from now. A lot can happen.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: You can have an entire global pandemic between now and then.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: I would prefer we didn't. That happened four years ago.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: I was like, all right, goodbye, everybody. Taking my social
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: media break for a let. And I came back and
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: we were in the midst of a global pandemic. So
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I'm really trying not to like instigate that again. I'm
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: doing my very best. But I will just say, like,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know how relevant this is going to be.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to be at top of
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: mind for voters, especially because the opposition candidate, also has
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: apparently memory issues and a deposition and a host of
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: legal issues.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: A couple depositions at this point.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: He's been deposed a bunch of times.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And also had a whole classified documents scandal and
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: his classified documents were kept in various places in Mar-a-Lago
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: and now there are interviews with former Mar-a-Lago staffers saying like, yeah,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: we just move stuff around and it seemed weird. Like,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: that's not good. But again, I don't know what it
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: will mean for people voting in November.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, my takeaway is if you are truly
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: concerned about Joe Biden's memory or cognitive abilities, I would
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: urge you to Read or at least skim, it is
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: 159 pages, the full transcript of the interview. It paints
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: a much different portrait of Biden than Herr's report, in
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: which the special counsel very clearly cherry-picked, exaggerated, and editorialized
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: in a way that absolutely wasn't necessary in order to
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: explain why he chose not to bring charges. Just one example,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: in the report, Herr says Biden, quote, did not remember
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: even within several years when his son Beau died. Of course,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: what actually happened is that Biden was telling a story
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to her about why he started thinking about running for
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: president in 2017, 2018, which involved a promise to his
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: dying son. Biden said, what month did Bo die? Oh,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: my God, May 30th. And then a White House lawyer
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: interrupted to say 2015. And Biden said, was it 2015
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: he died? The lawyer said yes. And Biden said it
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: was 2015.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: So like.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: It's not like her was completely lying, but when you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: say he did not remember even within several years when
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: his son Beau died, you wouldn't know from that that
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: he immediately knew what date it was and just had
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to be corrected on the year as he was telling
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: a very, very long story about why he ran for president.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And especially because I think if anyone has
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: experienced tragedy, sometimes you remember every aspect of it like
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: it happened. It is still taking place. And sometimes little
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: things fade away. You might remember, I remember where I
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: was when I found out that this person had passed away.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I can tell you everything about it. I can tell
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: you what the weather looked like. But what year? Not sure.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Might need a moment. And so that was a moment
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: in which I think that, and I think Representative Raskin
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: also made the point that there seemed to be, I mean,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Republicans getting really upset about document handling seemed a little
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: bit of a, I'm giving a side eye. I'm aware
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: that side eye is not ideal for a podcast format.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: But I do think that there is a sense about
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: being like this hearing was not about documents. This hearing
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: was about Biden should be charged with crimes and removed
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: from the White House. And you know who should take
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: his place in the White House? Donald Trump, another person
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: with documents issues who actually has been charged with crimes.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And by the way, if you don't if you
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: don't think that Biden is going to be charged, which
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: none of them really think, because Robert said he's not
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: going to be. And now it doesn't look like they're
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: going to impeach him because they haven't found any evidence
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: that warrants impeachment. And it also and Ken Buck just retired.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: So now they barely even have a House majority, let
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: alone enough people to impeach him. So in case that's
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: not going to happen, Biden's old.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Biden's old and he's senile, even though Robert Herr just
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: said he wasn't senile. But anyway, that's what they were
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: trying to push. I don't think they successfully, I don't
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: think they successfully advanced the storyline about Biden's age in
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: this hearing.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. Because that's, I mean, politics so much is
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: about storylines and about introducing ideas into the media zeitgeist.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I am a part of the media zeitgeist. I do
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: zeitgeisty things on occasion. And there is an idea of like,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: if we talk a lot about how Biden is old,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: then the media will have to report that he is old.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And then they'll have to do like roundtable discussions about
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: how old is Joe Biden? He's so old that he
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: might remember Truman. I don't know. And like, that's the point.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: But I do think that the challenge is that like,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Trump is also old. I'm aware that that is not
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: a discussion that we have all the time. I think
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: that a couple of people, I think McKay Coppins, who's
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: a great writer for The Atlantic, has made the point
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: that so much of Trump's weirdness is baked in with
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: American voters and with the media that if you just
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: keep saying weird things Trump says, there's a certain moment.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: There's a sports writer, he owns The Ringer, Bill Simmons.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: He came up with this thing years ago called the
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Mike Tyson Zone. Which is that like Mike Tyson, if
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: you hear that Mike Tyson did anything, like Mike Tyson
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: jumped off the Eiffel Tower, you'd be like, yeah, probably.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Like there is a certain zone and like Donald Trump
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: is within the Mike Tyson zone of like, if I heard,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: if you told me that Donald Trump went on a
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: long rant about the Netflix revival of Gilmore Girls and
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: how terrible it was, I'd be like, yeah.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: That 100% checks out.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Not a surprise at all.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Nope, nope, nope. I'm like, now I'm going to incept
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: myself into believing that this happened. But like, this hearing
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: was an effort to put this conversation about Biden's age
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: back into media spaces and make the media talk about it.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: And I think that the media will continue to talk
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: about Biden's age because I do think it is relevant
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: for obvious reasons. Namely, he is elderly. Actuarial tables are
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: actuarial tables for a reason. But I also think that
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: on this particular issue, the documents issue, I don't think
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: that they got what they wanted out of it. It's
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: the same way that the Biden impeachment didn't go anywhere.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: You can bring a horse to water, but you cannot
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: make it into a document scandal, as the saying says.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I think part of their problem is that the hearing
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: came several days after a State of the Union where
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Biden appeared feisty, was a joyful warrior.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: And, you know, my take on the State of the
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Union is it's not going to be a game changer
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: since State of the Unions often aren't game changers. They
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: usually don't lead to any change in approval ratings or
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: bumps in the polls. But I do think it was
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: a blueprint for Biden for the campaign. Like if he
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: is like that out on the campaign trail or when
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: we see him in public from now until November, he's
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: going to be a lot better off. But what did
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: you think?
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that... how the state of the union
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: is perceived is always, it's always challenging because you are
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: asking people who already have a perception of the person
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: giving the state of the union. Like you cannot bring
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: in people who have literally never heard of Joe Biden
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: and be like, watch this speech. How do you think
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: this guy did? Like, that's not how this works. And
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: I do think like how his, I don't think it's
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: going to have any impact on polling, but I do
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: think that Republicans keep setting the expectations for Joe Biden
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: on the floor. We saw this in 2020, and we
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: have seen this over and over again, that Joe Biden
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: is supposed to be barely alive. He is supposed to
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: be unable to do literally anything. And then he will
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: do anything. He will appear to be a member of
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: the human race in good standing. And then Republicans are like, well,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: he was loud. He was very loud.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And he seemed annoyed. He seemed annoyed.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: And at a certain point, maybe set your expectations for
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden slightly above comatose. I think that that is
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: the challenge here. If you have baked in this idea
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: that Joe Biden is senile, and then Joe Biden does
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: things that make it obvious that he is not senile,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: I think that You are ignoring, if you're a Republican,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: things that are actually things you could go after Joe
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Biden on. You could go after Joe Biden on any
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: number of subjects. You could go after the withdrawal from
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Afghanistan or any number of actual policy issues. This is
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: me trying to make this election about policy while it
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: will not be about policy. I know that. I know that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: But like, I think that it just, it's so easy.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: It's so easy to just be like, oh, he's old
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and can't do anything. Whereas Donald Trump, not old, not
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: weird is, you know, this vital person, like a Ben
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Garrison comic and it keeps not working and they keep
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: doing it over and over and over again.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I remember, uh, during the, in the early months of
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the 2012 reelect, the Romney people sort of tried out
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: a line on Obama that was, um, you know, he's
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: a decent man who was a historic president and we're
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: so glad that he made history, but he just hasn't
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: been able to turn the economy around and we need
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: someone new. And we were much more afraid of that
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: line of attack than we were what they ended up
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: with by the end, which is like, you know, he
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: did Benghazi. Because once again, the Republicans let the fringe
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: take over the messaging and it's just not as... It's
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: not the... People had doubts about Obama, but they didn't
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: believe that he was some evil whatever that they painted
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: him out to be. And that is the same thing
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that the Republicans are doing with Biden.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Right. And I think that that's something, you know, 2012,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: like Mitt Romney wanted to talk about, like the economy
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: or like very specific issues that I think were tethered
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: to actual policies upon which you could actually criticize Barack Obama.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: whose actual polling numbers were not that great in 2011, 2012,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: due to any number of things. And the GOP media
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: base was like, no, Benghazi, slash Orly Tate, slash something
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: extremely strange. Like, oh, I will never forget about Orly Tate.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: You can't take that away from me. But, like, it
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: is interesting how, I mean, this is I mean, it's
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: a it's a cultural discussion. Biden's age is an easier
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: conversation to have that everyone makes sense of. When talking
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: about withdrawing from Afghanistan gets complicated because a lot of
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: people wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan and everyone was always
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: going to be mad at the person who actually did.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: People could be mad about the economy or about Bidenomics
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: or about inflation. But like all of that is a
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: little challenging to talk about. But like he's old. That's easy. Yeah.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: And he's senile. That's something that people kind of understand.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: It just happens that it keeps not necessarily being true.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And the truth is he's a well-meaning elderly man who
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: can remember just with mind-numbing detail all kinds of stories
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: from his 81 years on this earth and will tell
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: those stories to you like ad nauseum yeah yeah like
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and i have been it is the joe biden in
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that transcript is like the joe biden anyone who knows
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: joe biden who has been in meetings with joe biden
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: who has talked to joe biden like we have all
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: heard those kind of stories where he has a The
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: mental acuity, he is sharp, right? And he remembers a lot.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: He goes on at length. Right, right. And he tells
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: these stories. And some of the stories are a little kooky,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: might make you roll your eyes from time to time.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: But the guy is sharp. He is really sharp. Yeah.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So the House is on a real tear this week
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: on the heels of that very successful special counsel hearing.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: They just passed a bill 352 to 65 that would
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: ban TikTok from all U.S. app stores unless ByteDance, the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Chinese company that owns the social media platform, agrees to
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: sell TikTok to an American based owner within 165 days.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: The legislation passed overwhelmingly bipartisan support. It also has support
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: from President Biden. This is all based on assessments from
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the intelligence community and the FBI that TikTok poses a
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: threat to national security. They believe the Chinese government will
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: use or is using the app to spy on American users,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: spread pop propaganda and interfere in our elections. The bill
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: may or may not pass the Senate. We don't know yet,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: but it does have one brand new opponent, Donald Trump,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: who tried to ban TikTok when he was president, but
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: just changed his mind. recently after a fierce lobbying campaign
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: by people with financial ties to TikTok, including a billionaire
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: donor and Kellyanne Conway. Imagine that. All right, before we
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: get to the Trump of it all, what do you
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: think of the ban or the potential ban?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: So I think that there's, in a normal, objective conversation
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: about this, I think that the ban, that is not
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: really a ban, to be clear. Yeah. If we go
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: back to 2020, there's another app that's very popular and
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: occasionally lightly controversial that has this exact same issue. Grindr,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: which some of you might be extremely familiar with. And
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: some of you are like, what's Grindr? But you're also lying.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: You know what it is. So Grindr in 2020, owned
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: by a Chinese company, Kunlun, the U.S. forces the sale
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: of Grindr to San Vicente acquisition because of security concerns.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: And people are still grinding? Is that what? I'm not
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: going to ask. Someone will email me to tell me
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: what the verb is one uses.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Still grinding. Still grinding. Got the episode title.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I'm leaving that there. So there are examples for this.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: This is not no more TikTok ever. This is sell
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: it to an American subsidiary. Sell it to an American company.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Which is, I think, it seems to me, a reasonable ask.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: if you would like to continue having TikTok in the
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: United States. It's a thing that you can do, but
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: it's not about objectively what TikTok actually is. It is
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: about what TikTok means. If you're former Vice President Mike Pence,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: you believe it is digital fentanyl, which I don't entirely
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: understand what that means or what Mike Pence thinks fentanyl is,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: but that's neither here nor there. Uh, if you are
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Rand Paul, you believe that this is all deeply unfair.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: There are obviously a lot of libertarians with like, I
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: think on many issues, I agree with them with regard to, uh,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: attempting to ban TikTok or limit TikTok for like some
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: of the arguments against TikTok that I've seen from Republicans
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: seem to literally be like, it's poisoning our children with
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: liberal nonsense. Like the idea that in China, TikTok is like, ah,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: they watch orchestra performances and But in America, they watch
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: pornography on TikTok. No, that sounds stupid. If you have
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: actual security concerns with regard to the ownership of TikTok,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: that is different from TikTok is bad. Ban TikTok. No
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: more TikTok for anyone. Those are two different things. So
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I think that how people are thinking about this app
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: is actually how people are thinking about tech and this
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: type of tech. On the one hand, you have people
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: who I think are a smidgen too enthusiastic about it.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Some of them are being paid to be enthusiastic. Our
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: good friend of the Bowling Green Massacre, Kellyanne Conway. Some people,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: you know, there have been a host of TikTok influencers
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: who have been on Capitol Hill to talk to people.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you may have seen, others may
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: have seen, TikTok has had a big ad campaign in
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the United States to being like, you know, I'm able
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: to support my family. I'm educating toddlers. I'm making soap.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I'm the nicest person in the entire world and I'm
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: on TikTok. Nothing bad could happen here, which I'm like, fine.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: But I think that the conversation is less about what
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: TikTok is and more about what TikTok means, which is
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: about a social media platform that is confusing and loud
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: and sometimes filled with really bad stuff and sometimes filled
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: with really good stuff. And it is currently seemingly out
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: of control. And a lot of people don't like that.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: And a lot of people don't like that other people
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: don't like that.
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, my view on this is that most
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: social media platforms, as currently designed, do more harm than good.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: That's my own bias here. I think that functional democracies...
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: require a shared reality and and social media is not
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: in the shared reality business traps us in different realities
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: where we only see and hear now what we want
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: to even if it's not true makes rational debate impossible
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: makes it very easy to ignore what's going on in
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the world altogether and I think TikTok is maybe one
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: of the worst of all the platforms because the algorithm
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: is more determinative, right? There's very little choice involved. You're
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: just being fed video after video based on your own interests.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: But what if I really want to watch a llama
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: hopping to Party Up by DMX? That's my right. I
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: have the right to watch a llama hop to party
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: up by DMX. Don't take that away from me.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. All that aside, like I said,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of Twitter, even though I use
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: it and I'm addicted to it. I also have spent
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: an hour on TikTok, and then where did the hour go, right?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: But you're right. If you want to do that, great.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: But operating in a country where the government is actively
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: hostile to U.S. interests and looking for ways to spy
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: on us, not good. I don't think we would have
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: accepted during the height of the Cold War the Soviet
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Union owning NBC.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: That's something that would have been a problem for people. Right.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And, like, I think that it's difficult for people
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: to separate all of these pieces. It's like any hearing
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: you have on these issues with regards to the Chinese
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Communist Party or the Chinese government. obviously turns into rabid Sinophobia,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: which no one needs. But like, there is an actual
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: security concern here. There is a security concern that has
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: been raised by many people of both parties. People who
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I do not think are completely insane. I think that
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: that is worth hearing, especially because if TikTok is owned
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: by an American company, then you can continue to.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Watch TikTok Keep TikTok-ing.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Whatever. Yeah, you can keep on TikTok-ing or inventing TikTok dances,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: and please just don't film your TikTok in public because
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: you look insane. What is also of interest to me
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: is that Donald Trump, on this particular issue, who, as
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: you mentioned, wanted to ban TikTok in 2020, Donald Trump, occasionally,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: is accused or given the... Accused is too negative a term.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: He is.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Admired for his ability to do three, four, five-dimensional chess
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: on any number of issues. But Donald Trump is actually
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: the most easily influenced person in the history of time.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Ever.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Like, at any time. And on this particular issue, he
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: has been effectively influenced because there is a person that
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: he hates. That person's name is Mark Zuckerberg. That person
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: runs Facebook and a host of other entities. For years,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump has hated Mark Zuckerberg, hated him a lot.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: And so the brilliant people who are paid millions of
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: dollars to do this very thing go to Donald Trump
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: and are like, hey, you know what Facebook hates? TikTok.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: You know what your supporters love? TikTok. And your supporters
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: are free on TikTok. David Urban, who's a lobbyist, longtime
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: advisor to Trump, I believe he ran the Pennsylvania campaign
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: in 2016 for Trump, said that the app could be
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: a campaign tool. You've got Kellyanne Conway, who's being paid
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: by Club for Growth to defend TikTok, which is a
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: circle that I really wanna put a pin in to
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: have a conversation about later, because Club for Growth doing
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: this is weird to me, as someone who's been following
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: conservative politics for a long time. And then, I think
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: most importantly, you have Jeff Yass, who owns about 15%
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: of ByteDance. He's the biggest donor to Club for Growth,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: and thus Kellyanne Conway. And so all of a sudden,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, again, most easily influenced person in the history
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: of time. Like there are eight-year-old boys who are less
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: easily influenced than Donald Trump. Actually, eight-year-old boys are really
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: hard to convince of a lot of different things.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Not Donald Trump.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: So Donald Trump now is like, TikTok, whatever. But in
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: comparison to the evil Mark Zuckerberg, we got to keep TikTok.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it also goes to show people like Donald
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Trump will abandon. his position on literally any issue. He
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: will screw over literally anyone, his own family, if it
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: will help him politically or if he thinks it will
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: help him politically. That is the only thing he cares
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: about is Donald Trump. So he, I'm tough on China.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's going to, if coming out
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: against the TikTok ban is going to help him politically,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: whether it's whatever the issue is, he will abandon it
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: in a second if it's going to help him politically.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And I do think having said what I just did
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: about TikTok, that there is a good case to be
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: made that a TikTok ban that it, well, if this
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: legislation is signed into law and ByteDance doesn't sell and
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: TikTok is then banned in the United States and President
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Biden has signed that into law and Donald Trump is
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: out there opposing the ban, I think there's a very
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: good case to be made that this will politically benefit
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, especially with a group of voters, young voters,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: who are Joe Biden has been struggling with compared to
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: how he did in 2020. And so like all that said,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I'm like the political strategist in me. I'm like, yeah,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I might wait until after the election to do anything
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: about this legislation. Right.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Which I think that that that seemed to have been
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the path that was attempted four years ago. But I
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: will also say a couple of things. One, the TikTok
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: audience is older than anyone thinks it is. The TikTok
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: audience is actually generally people around my age. Because the
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: deeply elderly, people in our 30s, we are ancient. We
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: are struggling.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Well-meaning millennials.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: And I will also say that in other countries where
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: this has been attempted, TikTok basically just did what it
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: has already done in the United States, which is that
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: it became Instagram Reels. Instagram Reels are essentially repurposed TikToks.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: There are thousands. I don't actually have TikTok, but because
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: of Instagram, I feel like I do. And so it's
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: not as if like TikTok has broken contain. TikTok, like
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: the people who are on TikTok do not stay there.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: They are also posting their content on YouTube. But like
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: the content is there. The users are there. Like you
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: can't really attempting to limit. We are now in a
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: point of like kind of social media amalgamation now. in
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: which people who are on one platform don't just stay there.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Their content doesn't just stay there. It crosses over. But
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: I do think, I mean, if I'm ByteDance, I just sell.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: I just sell. I do it like Grindr. I just
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: sell to an American company.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: For whatever billions of dollars. But I guess the Chinese
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: government has a say here, right? If ByteDance is allowed
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: to sell. And they have previously said that they will
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: not allow a sale, which if you weren't worried about
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Chinese government influence on TikTok before... The fact that they
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: have been very opposed to a sale should raise some
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: red flags, people.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just, I mean, that does seem....
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: We're not letting go of this company. And also, by
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the way, the Chinese government that does not allow any
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: American social media platforms to operate in their country.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, and also has tight limits on their social media platforms,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: as has been found out 90 bazillion times over the
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: last five years. But I think, like, I am... I
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: am not sure what the political ramifications would be. I
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: will say that the polling indicates, and again, polling is
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: just a photograph in time. It does not tell you
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: how anyone will actually react to anything. The polling indicates
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: that most Americans are in support of a ban on TikTok. Now,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: why that is, we need to ask most Americans, and
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: neither of us have that kind of time. But like,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: how people think about this particular issue might be a
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: little more complicated. I mean, yes, I am fully convinced
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: that House members have been deluded with calls from young people,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: which I will say, it's kind of funny to me
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: that people are like, why aren't young people more politically active?
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: And then young people get politically active and then call
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: their representative about an issue that matters to them. And
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: people are like, whoa, stop it.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Brainwashed.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Stop it. Go away.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I'm like.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: They're doing the thing they're supposed to do.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go to break, and in case
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: you missed it, the Cricket Store just launched a no
• 35:12
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• 35:29
  Speaker 1: tour dates were just announced, and the Friends of the
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• 35:54
  Speaker 1: All right, so here's a New York Times headline that
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: made me throw my phone. Aaron Rodgers and Jesse Ventura
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: top RFK Jr. 's list for running mate. What a world. Apparently,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Kennedy has approached the New York Jets quarterback and the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: former professional wrestler about joining his independent ticket as vice
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: president and, quote, Two people familiar with the discussion said,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: The Washington Post then followed up with the report that
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Kennedy has, in fact, selected his running mate and will
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: announce his choice within two weeks. Kennedy's currently only on
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the ballot in four states, though his super PAC says
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: he has enough signatures to qualify in Georgia and Arizona
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: as well. Like Kennedy, Rogers and Ventura, both conspiracy theory guys,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Rogers spreads misinformation about covid. Ventura thinks the government did 9-11.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Going to be tough to choose between them, huh? Apparently
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Discovery Channel host Mike Rowe and Tony Robbins, yes, that
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Tony Robbins, are also in the mix. What do you think, Jane?
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I'm about to say words that I have never said before,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: but all credit to former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who has
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: apparently stopped having discussions about becoming vice president.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Too crazy for Tulsi.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: As had Senator Rand Paul. Which makes sense because the
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: idea of Rand Paul being anyone's vice president just seems unlikely,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: unworkable on a lot of things. With respect that is due,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Jesse Ventura did serve as governor of the great state
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: of Minnesota. That is a real thing that happened. Many
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: of us were there. Aaron Rodgers. Hang on, I need
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: to gather myself. So in January... I started out writing
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: about the NFL and college football. That is my first love,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: my true passion. And a quote went around a bunch yesterday.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: The absolutely fantastic ESPN commentator and reporter Mina Kimes shared
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: it as do a host of other people. So in January,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Aaron Rodgers, Jets quarterback, who played two plays for the
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Jets before tearing his Achilles, he told Pat McAfee on ESPN,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: because Aaron Rodgers had time, To call into Pat McAfee
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: anytime he wants. He loves it. He said the Jets
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: need to eliminate distractions, which it's a real guy in
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: hot dog costume asking, we're all trying to find who
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: did this. Aaron Rodgers, I want to talk at the
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: very micro about the football of it all, because this
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: is a rare opportunity in which I can do this.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I figured, yeah.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: So.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: he has a job. He has a job that for what? 30,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: 31 other starting quarterbacks. And like a ton of other
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: people is an all encompassing job. Being an NFL quarterback
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: is extraordinarily high pressure. Very difficult. People are mad at
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: you all the time. You are working all the time.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Aaron Rogers came over from the Packers, um, if you
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: watched Hard Knocks this year, which was excellent, Aaron Rodgers
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: came across as like a nice, interesting person with a
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: lot of strange views, but he didn't really talk about those.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: And he seemed kind of like, oh, you know, he
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: was going to make the team better. And he was
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: doing a lot with like team camaraderie and people got along.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: And then he gets hurt. And in normal people-ville, it
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: would have been like, you know, you would have just
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: seen a lot of like hashtag grind set posts on
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Instagram as he like works his way back from an
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Achilles chair, which is like the fact that you can
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: do that now, like an Achilles chair, in football or
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: in sports in general used to just be like, well,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: that's done. He was even hinting in December that like, oh,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: I could make a return. That was never going to happen,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: but he just likes to hear himself talk. Being an
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: NFL quarterback is a full-time profession. If you're an NFL quarterback,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: that's all you do. Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow has been
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: recovering from a hand issue. That's all he does. He
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: goes to physical therapy and recovers from his hand issue.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: He's not like, while we're here, I'm going to enter
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: the seminary and become a priest in my spare time.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of opportunities for part-time work when you're
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: an NFL quarterback.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: And do you know what's also a full-time job? I
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: don't know if you've heard this. Being a vice presidential candidate.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Being a vice presidential candidate. Which, just to really circle
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: things up here, the election that is going to take
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: place is in November. You know what else is taking
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: place in November. That's actually way cooler and better and
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: I like more than elections.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Football.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Football is taking place then. The fact that I saw
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: that headline in the New York Times. And for just
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: a second, I was like, this isn't like some of that,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: one of those like weird, you remember like early 2000s,
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: like internet scam stuff that was like political scams where
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: it's like, oh, you know, we fake the cover of
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: a magazine and it's supposed to talk about how this
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: is actually all about climate change or something like that.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Like for a second, I was like, wow, this is
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: a really involved fake. But no.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I did a double take as well. I did a
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: double take as well.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: It's a real thing. It's a real thing.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, I keep going back and forth on how
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: seriously to take RFK Jr. 's candidacy because he is
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: not quite a serious person, has proved himself to be,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: nor is Aaron Rodgers in his spreading COVID misinformation and random...
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: conspiracies about Jimmy Kimmel and Jeffrey Epstein that turned out,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: of course, not to be true. So, like, Aaron Rodgers,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: not a serious person at this point, nor is Jesse
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Ventura at this point, or arguably ever. A lot of
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: the other people on this list as well.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: But I actually, I want to jump in here for
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: a second. Aaron Rodgers is not a serious person. This
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: is something like the conspiracy stuff. He does conspiracy stuff
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: in the way that, like, it's interesting because it's the
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: one way in which I think Aaron Rodgers is a
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: very identifiable American because he does conspiracy stuff for fun.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Like this is, this is interesting and entertaining for him. Like,
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: it's like the guy you work with where you have
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: had approximately one beer with him and we're like, that
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: will never happen again because he just randomly started being like,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: so how do you think they fake the moon landing?
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: And you're like, Oh no, it's this person. Um, he
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: is like, Every time, I mean, and he always has
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: that plausible deniability about being like, I'm just, you know,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: I'm just thinking out loud, trying to think outside the system.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: But like, he does have, and should stay within, his
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: actual job. His actual job at which he is, let's remember,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: very good at. Multiple MVPs. He's won a Super Bowl.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: He has been very successful. And he just happens to
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: have this sideline of saying things that are fucking insane.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: RFK Jr. is actually a very serious person, which is
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: why he is of concern. Because he very seriously says
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: and does the things that he says and does. Like,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: this is not a sideline. He is a former environmental
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: attorney who has been spreading vaccine misinformation for years. Not
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: because it is fun for him. It actually seems like
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: it's not fun for him at all. He is very
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: serious about this. He really is. really believes that this
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: is not like a being contrarian thing or trying to
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: think outside the matrix. He is absolutely 100% convinced of it.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: That is not good. And I think too, I'm guessing
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: what you're thinking of like how, what role RFK will
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: play in the election. I think that the challenge is
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: going to be that each party believes that he is
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: going to be a problem solver at best for their opposition,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: at worst for them. And so for instance, there's been
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: talk about RFK joining the Libertarian Party ticket. I don't
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: think that is going to happen because I will say
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: this for the Libertarian Party. RFK is a very non-libertarian person,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: very non. The way is in which he wants to
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: wield the government on a host of issues, ranging from
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: environmental issues, which let's keep in mind, that is where
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: he started out. Like, not very libertarian. Now, he could
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: still attempt to run on that ticket, but I don't
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: think that the LP will permit that. I do think
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: that RFK can thread this very particular needle of being
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: someone that appeals to people who are conservative on social issues,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: but fairly liberal on economic issues with regard to the
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: welfare state, with regard to social security. You know, when
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: you have conservative influencers and pundits saying like, why should
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: anyone retire? Retirement will kill you. Just work forever, as
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Ben Shapiro implied, I believe, yesterday. A candidate who is
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: talking a lot about the need to build up the
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: welfare state while espousing the same kind of anti-corporate, anti-quote-unquote
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: big pharma attitudes that used to be something that lefties
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: talked about in the early 2000s. You have a candidate
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: who can appeal to people who think of themselves as
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: being conservatives while also sounding like somebody who would be
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: at the WTA protests in 1999. That's an interesting through line. However,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: I will also say... I think that that's a concern
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: also for Biden. Like you have someone who can, who
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: sounds this particular way, who can thread that particular needle
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: that I think that is a, that is a populace
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: that neither party is reaching out to or understands. That
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: is not to say that like everyone should be aiming
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: themselves at the vaccine skeptical conservative voter. Like that's, you know,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: that's not that big a population and also vaccines are
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: cool and good. But I understand why both parties are
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: concerned about this. And I think it is this list
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: of potential candidates really speaks to the I'm not socially conservative.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: The political middle, that political muddily middle of people who
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: are also vaccine skeptical. And really like state power, but
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: also don't want to be told what to do, which
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: is a large swath of people. Like, I think that
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: I understand this list of people as being representative of
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: that when you get like Tulsi and Rand and Aaron Rodgers. Like,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: I get why people are worried. I get that.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: It's anti-establishment, countercultural, and low trust at a time when
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: people do not have a lot of faith in institutions
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and are pretty cranky. So yeah, that's like a toxic mix.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Kennedy's campaign also has like an extremely online feel to it.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Heavy on conspiracy, grievance, fringe, weird. DeSantis campaign was also
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: very online. Didn't work out so well for him. You
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: wrote a piece that you and I talked about before
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: on the 2020 Trump campaign being too online. And it
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: does seem like the terminally online reactionary manosphere is the
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: real driving energy in at least some segment of Republican
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: politics right now. I know you've been thinking and writing
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: about this. What's your sense of what that's all about
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and sort of why it's bubbling up right now?
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that first, I think it's helpful to
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: explain what I mean by extremely or terminally online, which
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: is something, John, you understand.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Very well.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Being extremely online is not just being on the Internet.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: It is believing firmly and acting as if events that
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: take place online matter to everyone offline. And the 2020
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: campaign was a great example of this because Donald Trump
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: would routinely go on the stump and talk about things
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: that online conservatives were talking about all the time to
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: audiences in like Iowa or Nebraska who were like, what
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: in the fuck are you talking about? He went on
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: the stump or would tweet at the time and would
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: talk about how we need to repeal Section 230, the
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Communications Decency Act of 1997. Now, I love Section 230
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: of the Communications Act of 1997. That has to do
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: with how basically it says that if you post something
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: on Facebook, Facebook is not liable for the thing you post.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: If you post a comment on a website, the person
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: who runs that website, whether it's InfoWars or a recipe
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: website with two long descriptions at the top that you
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: have to scroll all the way through, they are not
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: liable for that. That's awesome. I love it. Donald Trump
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: does not. A lot of people do not. Most people
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: don't know what it is or care. And I think
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: that the online-ification of the right, which I think that
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: has been ramped up by the fact that X is
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: now a, what I would argue to be a conservative...
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: not conservative like William F. Buckley conservative, but like a
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: right-leaning social media outlet, and is still incredibly popular with
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: online conservatives and the people who care what they think.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: It means that you spend a lot of time fixated
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: by issues and talking about issues and hyping yourself up
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: about issues that only matter to other members of the
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: online right or the online left that hates the online right.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: And I think you saw this over and over again
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: in 2022, where you had a midterm election where Biden
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: did that speech about how this is about democracy. This
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: is about fighting against the forces that would end democracy.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: And the online right and like the super online left
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: make fun of him and talk about how he looked
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: like Hitler and how it was scary. And this is
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: actually going to be a red wave because you're transing
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: our kids and noms for liberty and libs of TikTok
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you might
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: recall there was no red wave.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: That's the problem with this, which is, like, this online
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: right-wing activism has now, like, infected and taken over a
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: lot of the party. I mean, it's a problem for them.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: I think for a Democratic strategist, it's to, like, lift
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: up these examples, right? And by the way, these aren't just, like,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: online influencers. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, he
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: monitors his grown son's porn consumption. He thinks there are
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: dinosaurs on the ark, on Noah's Ark. The guy that
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: they're running for governor in North Carolina thinks Black Panther
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: was a Jewish plot to scam black people. A bunch
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: of them are mad about recreational sex, but they also
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: want to ban all abortion, no exceptions, ban IVF, ban
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: gay marriage, ban books, ban no-fault divorce. They want to
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: replace it.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: With covenant marriage. But they're also very mad that women
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: aren't sexy anymore. There are all these AI things where
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: it's just showing, here's what the ideal woman looks like,
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: and also all of these ideal women happen to have
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: 11 children and amazing breasts.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Because that goes together. They think that Sidney Sweeney's breasts
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: are a victory against wokeism. I am so sorry, Sidney Sweeney.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: I am so sorry. This is all so weird.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: It is so weird, but that is the energy of
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: the party, and a lot of Republican politicians are just like,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: they have bought this now.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you see the host of defections coming from
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: people in Congress, because the online-ification of the right is
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: happening in Congress, too, where you have people who are...
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: The online nature, and I will say also that this
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: is a problem, and this was a problem for Democrats
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: as well, because everybody has their weirdos you keep locked
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: in the political closet. That's a thing you have. You
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: got to keep them locked in. In 2020, you had
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: a host of people who were talking about how rioting
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: was great. and how this is awesome. And then you
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: had a lot of people looking at actual voting numbers
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: from including like from working class African-Americans who were like, no,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: it's not, not cool at all. And Joe Biden notably
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: won the Democratic primary out of what, 85 people? How
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: many people ran for president among Democrats in 2020? I
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: believe it was 85 people. And he is, and to
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: his credit, he is very not online. Like absolutely 100%
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: not online. I know he now has a TikTok now,
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: but like that is run by nice people who were
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: like 25 years old. That's fine. This is a person
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: who like in the State of the Union was like,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: I was born during the Second World War. I don't
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: remember it, but I think about it a lot. And
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, you do. Of course you do. But
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: like that is something that is adjacent to reality. And
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: I think for the online rape, The challenge is that
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: they are not adjacent to reality and that reality will
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: take place. And they are so put off by reality
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: that they retreat even more into the loving embrace of
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: the online right.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: But this is why I think that Republicans have been
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: very good, especially over the last couple of years, of
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: picking out, like you said, sort of the craziest anecdotes
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: on the far left and highlighting them.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Not picking.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: It's what you do.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: And I do think that... For us to do that
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: to them, we don't have to pick some random conservative
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: activist online or someone here or there. There's plenty of
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: politicians that they're running for national office that are doing
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: all these.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: CPAC is it.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: CPAC.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Partying with literal Nazis at CPAC.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Like actual Nazis. And then they're like, no, we weren't.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: And then it's like, no, there's Jared Taylor. Like, yeah,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: actual real Nazis of Potomac or whatever.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: So I do think it's going to be a big
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: issue to harp on in the fall for Democrats.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: Again, because it's not just going to be about Trump.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: It's going to be like, look at all these freaks
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: they nominated. All these weirdos.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so, Jane, thank you so much for joining
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America. This was a lot of fun.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. Anytime. You know,
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: if Aaron Rodgers does get this VP spot, you've got
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: to bring me back.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: We'll bring you back.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, no.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: We're going to have a whole episode on that. We're
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: going to have content for weeks if that happens. All right, everyone.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: We will be back with another episode Friday morning. Take care. Bye, Jane.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 54:50
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• 54:53
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  Speaker 1: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 55:16
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• 55:19
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• 55:23
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• 55:26
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• 55:28
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• 55:32
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• 55:35
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• 55:38
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