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Epstein Files: Worse Than You Thought · Pod Save America

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Speaker 1: There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America.
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Speaker 1: I'm Jon Favreau.
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Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
1:47
Speaker 1: Tommy Vitor. On today's show, millions of Epstein files have
1:50
Speaker 1: finally been released, so we're going to talk about why
1:52
Speaker 1: the revelations are just as bad, if not worse, than
1:55
Speaker 1: you thought. We also have some stunning new corrupt dates
1:58
Speaker 1: to talk about. The status of Trump's so-called de-escalation in Minnesota,
2:02
Speaker 1: his arrest of Don Lemon and other journalists slash protesters,
2:06
Speaker 1: and some good news, a surprise Democratic special election win
2:09
Speaker 1: in a deep red part of Texas. And then Tommy
2:11
Speaker 1: talks to musician Bobby Pulido about why he decided to
2:14
Speaker 1: jump into politics and run for Congress in Texas. Just
2:18
Speaker 1: a ton of news to talk about, as there always is,
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3:36
Speaker 1: All right. Let's start with the Justice Department's congressionally mandated,
3:40
Speaker 1: though very delayed release of another three million pages of
3:43
Speaker 1: Epstein related documents, which were dumped online Friday afternoon in
3:47
Speaker 1: a fairly haphazard manner, so much so that the documents
3:50
Speaker 1: accidentally included dozens of nude photos of victims, and in
3:53
Speaker 1: some cases, full names and other information that could be
3:56
Speaker 1: used to identify them. The biggest takeaway, though, was that
3:59
Speaker 1: a bunch of very rich, famous, and powerful people were
4:02
Speaker 1: close to Epstein, you may even call it a cabal,
4:05
Speaker 1: and seemed to know both who they were dealing with,
4:08
Speaker 1: and in some cases, what he was up to. People
4:10
Speaker 1: like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Peter Thiel, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates,
4:15
Speaker 1: Prince Andrew, and of course, Donald Trump, whose name appears
4:18
Speaker 1: more than 5,000 times in different contexts. Here's what Trump
4:22
Speaker 1: had to say for himself on Monday in the Oval.
4:24
Speaker 5: The problem is that it's turning out to be the
4:26
Speaker 5: Democrats that were with and conspired with Epstein. They were
4:32
Speaker 5: working together to try and help me lose the election.
4:36
Speaker 5: And frankly, the DOJ, I think, should just say, we
4:39
Speaker 5: have other things to do because that whole thing has
4:41
Speaker 5: turned out. I mean, other than Bill Clinton and Bill
4:44
Speaker 5: Gates and lots of people that have There are a
4:47
Speaker 5: lot of questions about it, but nothing on me. When
4:49
Speaker 5: Epstein was alive, like 10 years ago, nobody cared about him.
4:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:54
Speaker 2: Busy, too busy.
4:56
Speaker 1: Whoever cared about Epstein before Trump was president anyway? Let's listen.
5:00
Speaker 2: On day one, roll out the black book.
5:03
Speaker 1: And not just that.
5:03
Speaker 2: On day one, roll out all of the text messaging
5:06
Speaker 2: communications we were told were deleted.
5:08
Speaker 1: We need to release the Epstein list. That is an
5:10
Speaker 1: important thing. Just a couple of libs there. Yeah, classic. Obviously,
5:14
Speaker 1: three million pages. A lot to get through, but I
5:17
Speaker 1: know you guys have both gotten through about 95, 97%
5:20
Speaker 1: of them. What jumped out at you in the files? Tommy,
5:25
Speaker 1: you want to go first? Sure.
5:26
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I just want to start by saying
5:27
Speaker 4: I'm completely red-pilled on this stuff. I thought Jeffrey Epstein
5:32
Speaker 4: was a scummy guy who did bad things and then
5:34
Speaker 4: used connections to avoid accountability. The web of connections that
5:38
Speaker 4: this man actually has, the clear evidence of trafficking that's
5:41
Speaker 4: in these files is stunning. It's like QAnon was right.
5:45
Speaker 4: They just look to the wrong direction.
5:47
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
5:47
Speaker 4: It's like, it's mind boggling. So Kash Patel, there's another
5:52
Speaker 4: clip for him when he was saying he testifies before
5:55
Speaker 4: Congress that there's no evidence that Epstein trafficked other women
5:59
Speaker 4: to other individuals. Like he should be held in contempt
6:01
Speaker 4: just for that. Things that jumped out at me, Steve
6:04
Speaker 4: Bannon is all over the Epstein files. They are really
6:06
Speaker 4: good friends. Bannon is helping him rehab his image. They're
6:09
Speaker 4: working on projects together. Like it's, he's helping him. Epstein's
6:13
Speaker 4: helping Bannon fund his stuff and, Um, that that's a
6:16
Speaker 4: lot more we should learn there. You mentioned the Trump piece.
6:19
Speaker 4: I mean, it's, he's in 5,300 files. There's 38,000 references
6:24
Speaker 4: to Trump. Some of those are duplicative, but like he's everywhere.
6:26
Speaker 4: And in this clip, it's like, we've finally gotten the files.
6:29
Speaker 4: And now Trump is saying like, ah, who even cares
6:31
Speaker 4: about this guy? It's been a long time. He's ready
6:32
Speaker 4: to move on. And there's one email where Epstein specifically
6:36
Speaker 4: talks about whether to call Trump about Virginia Dufresne.
6:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:40
Speaker 4: That was one, an Epstein victim, uh, who wrote a
6:42
Speaker 4: book about her experience, who died by suicide recently. We
6:45
Speaker 4: need to learn more about that. Elon Musk is a scumbag.
6:49
Speaker 4: He has a social relationship with Epstein. He clearly knows
6:51
Speaker 4: what's going on. He says, like, I want to go
6:53
Speaker 4: to your island for the wildest party. Now, we don't
6:55
Speaker 4: know if he ever went there, but he is all
6:58
Speaker 4: over these files. There's multiple NFL owners in these things.
7:01
Speaker 1: Steve Tisch.
7:02
Speaker 4: Steve Tisch, Giants owner, worst offender. I don't know how
7:05
Speaker 4: he survives this. Jeffrey Epstein got permanently banned from Xbox Live.
7:08
Speaker 4: Did you guys catch this one?
7:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard about that. Again, it's one of those
7:12
Speaker 2: things where in our kind of postmodern post-truth world is
7:16
Speaker 2: that unbelievable and true or unbelievable and.
7:18
Speaker 4: False it's true i think a lot of people thought
7:21
Speaker 4: it was because he was like talking shit the teenagers
7:23
Speaker 4: on fortnight and it might be a new thing we
7:24
Speaker 4: learned about him i think it's because he's registered as
7:26
Speaker 4: a sex offender i also like i i was also
7:28
Speaker 4: just stunned by how truly global the scandal is like
7:31
Speaker 4: the crown princess of norway was buddies with epstein um
7:36
Speaker 4: uh in the uk they got peter mendelsohn who recently
7:39
Speaker 4: was the uk's ambassador to the us gave jeffrey epstein
7:42
Speaker 4: a heads up on uh the government's response to the
7:46
Speaker 4: EU debt crisis before it happened.
7:48
Speaker 1: I guess he resigned, huh? Market-sensitive information. He resigned.
7:51
Speaker 4: Ehud Barak is all over these files. There's audio of
7:54
Speaker 4: Jeffrey Epstein telling Ehud Barak about Palantir for the first time.
7:56
Speaker 1: So it's just- Slovakia's prime minister's national security advisor just
8:01
Speaker 1: resigned as well. Great. Another one. You could do a
8:04
Speaker 1: whole episode of Pod Save the World on this.
8:06
Speaker 4: Ben and I are going to do this tomorrow. But
8:08
Speaker 4: the scope of it is amazing. Just last thing, like
8:10
Speaker 4: you said, love it. Like, The fake news problem is
8:13
Speaker 4: so exacerbated in a situation like this because you have
8:17
Speaker 4: 3 million files dumped onto the internet. There's stuff all
8:20
Speaker 4: over Twitter. You have no idea what's real and what
8:22
Speaker 4: is fake. It's so easy to slip something fake into
8:25
Speaker 4: the kind of social media ecosystem right now.
8:27
Speaker 1: It's just really terrible. Yeah, so.
8:31
Speaker 2: There's all the kind of who's in it, what does
8:34
Speaker 2: it mean, and we don't know, right? There's a reason
8:38
Speaker 2: traditionally you don't just release millions and millions of files
8:40
Speaker 2: that were kind of part of different aspects of an investigation.
8:43
Speaker 1: Without context. Without context.
8:45
Speaker 2: And by the way, like, you know, everyone was clamoring
8:48
Speaker 2: for why, you know, for DOJ to release these documents
8:51
Speaker 2: and why they had missed the deadline. And I actually
8:53
Speaker 2: see why they took them this long and probably should
8:56
Speaker 2: have honestly taken them longer because there's tons of mistakes
8:58
Speaker 2: throughout this. If you just search, do a keyword search,
9:01
Speaker 2: you will find an email where the names are redacted
9:03
Speaker 2: every place except one. But if you missed one, well,
9:05
Speaker 2: it didn't matter that you redacted. The other ones, there's
9:07
Speaker 2: all kinds of other names of people unrelated to this
9:09
Speaker 2: that are inside of here with personal information.
9:12
Speaker 1: The other challenge is, by the way, in the names,
9:14
Speaker 1: and this is like, you know, why Trump's name is
9:16
Speaker 1: in there so many times. It appears that someone sent
9:18
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein like news clips regularly.
9:21
Speaker 6: Yeah.
9:21
Speaker 1: So there are so many names in the OC files
9:25
Speaker 1: that are just part of the news clips that he received,
9:27
Speaker 1: which is tough.
9:28
Speaker 2: But then like, You do see this, and it's too
9:31
Speaker 2: many people for a cabal, John. I think it's fully
9:34
Speaker 2: fledged a ring, this ring of elites.
9:37
Speaker 3: And it's why?
9:38
Speaker 2: Why around this man? What was the pull that this
9:40
Speaker 2: man had?
9:42
Speaker 3: And I do.
9:42
Speaker 2: Genuinely believe a lot of the men connected through this
9:46
Speaker 2: were not necessarily directly involved in sex crimes, though he
9:49
Speaker 2: was a registered sex offender who had a terrible and
9:52
Speaker 2: well-known reputation. So these people are all despicable for getting
9:55
Speaker 2: this close to him. But he had these connections. He
9:57
Speaker 2: could get things done. He could get you to a
9:59
Speaker 2: country club. He could connect people from here. And where
10:01
Speaker 2: did that power came from? And that power came from
10:04
Speaker 2: for some subset of these people. He was a vehicle
10:07
Speaker 2: for access to women, girls, and to a kind of
10:11
Speaker 2: licentiousness that was appealing to them for them to step
10:14
Speaker 2: out of their lives. In 2010, Peggy Siegel, who is
10:18
Speaker 2: a publicist, was helping Epstein regain entry into society. And
10:23
Speaker 2: she was telling him, I have no idea what the
10:25
Speaker 2: reaction will be to your reentry into society, but take
10:27
Speaker 2: it slow and stay quiet. Your friends are there for you.
10:30
Speaker 2: And at least the house is drop-dead gorgeous. Every fag
10:33
Speaker 2: decorator with an immediate interest in Israel, charming, will be
10:36
Speaker 2: begging for a look. This was about him bringing together
10:39
Speaker 2: military people, intellectuals, and scientists to have these dinners.
10:43
Speaker 3: And he did it.
10:44
Speaker 1: And you know what?
10:44
Speaker 2: It fucking worked. So Peter Atiyah, who is a doctor
10:48
Speaker 2: that was recently, like a longevity guy, who was recently
10:51
Speaker 2: brought up.
10:51
Speaker 1: Extremely popular book.
10:52
Speaker 3: Extremely popular book.
10:54
Speaker 1: Outlived, right?
10:54
Speaker 2: Actually, like, you know, I didn't know that he was
10:56
Speaker 2: in the fucking Epstein files. Like, I've seen clips from him,
10:58
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, that's interesting. How real is
10:59
Speaker 2: this guy? And then I saw an interview where he was, like,
11:01
Speaker 2: proudly referring to the second derivative as if it was
11:03
Speaker 2: a scientific term, and I was like, I'm skeptical.
11:05
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical.
11:06
Speaker 2: You're trying to seem smart in a way that I'm
11:08
Speaker 2: not trusting. He had to put out a statement today
11:10
Speaker 2: explaining how he was in these emails with Epstein even
11:13
Speaker 2: after he was a registered sex offender. And he said,
11:16
Speaker 2: everything about him seemed excessive and exclusive, including the fact
11:19
Speaker 2: that he lived in the largest home in all of Manhattan,
11:21
Speaker 2: owned a Boeing 727 and hosted parties with the most
11:24
Speaker 2: powerful and prominent leaders in business and politics. In retrospect,
11:27
Speaker 2: the presence and credibility of such venerable people in different
11:29
Speaker 2: orbits led me to make assumptions about him that clouded
11:32
Speaker 2: my judgment in ways it shouldn't have.
11:34
Speaker 1: I thought the other thing interesting about that statement too
11:37
Speaker 1: is he basically says like, so obviously I knew that
11:41
Speaker 1: he had had a a prostitution charge, right? But because
11:45
Speaker 1: it was like, he served a year and it was like,
11:48
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it was a prostitution charge and he
11:50
Speaker 1: didn't know the age of the girl and he was
11:52
Speaker 1: soliciting process, you know? And then it's what you just said,
11:55
Speaker 1: which is no, that knowledge combined with, well, he's famous
11:59
Speaker 1: and rich and has all these connections and everyone else
12:02
Speaker 1: who's rich and powerful likes him. So he can't be
12:05
Speaker 1: that bad. It really like shines a light on just
12:07
Speaker 1: how fucking like corrupt he and broken and gross the
12:11
Speaker 1: system is that like the entire culture around him can
12:15
Speaker 1: make someone think like, I'm not going to do my
12:17
Speaker 1: due diligence on this guy because you know, it must've
12:20
Speaker 1: just been a little mishap.
12:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. If people from the fucking Aspen, if people I
12:24
Speaker 2: met at the Aspen Ideas Festival would jump off a bridge,
12:27
Speaker 2: why wouldn't I? And, and so like he kind of
12:31
Speaker 2: is able to get his reputation back. And by the way,
12:34
Speaker 2: It was a strategy to only have that be what
12:37
Speaker 2: was publicly known about the charges. And now in this release,
12:40
Speaker 2: you find that Acosta, when he was the prosecutor, had
12:43
Speaker 2: a whole bevy of other potential charges involving crimes and
12:46
Speaker 2: abuse and rape of girls.
12:48
Speaker 1: The draft indictment that's in here of 32 counts.
12:53
Speaker 1: From the Southern District of Florida that also includes three co-conspirators.
12:56
Speaker 1: The draft that was never, you know, because he got
12:58
Speaker 1: the sweetheart deal from Acosta, so it never went forward.
13:00
Speaker 1: But that to me is a very fascinating document.
13:03
Speaker 4: That deal remains kind of like the original sin of
13:06
Speaker 4: the second act of Jeffrey Epstein. If that deal is just,
13:11
Speaker 4: is about reality, about what he really did, the scope
13:13
Speaker 4: of it. I mean, I think there's no way this
13:15
Speaker 4: guy gets back into the world, but I do think
13:16
Speaker 4: he did exactly what you said, which is like, look, Yes,
13:19
Speaker 4: I solicited a prostitute. One of them was 17 or
13:21
Speaker 4: something like that. And these guys were like, just bought it.
13:23
Speaker 1: Yep.
13:23
Speaker 2: I also just, a lot of how we've been looking
13:27
Speaker 2: at the scandal has been around who's involved with it, right?
13:30
Speaker 2: And like, what did these big name people do and
13:33
Speaker 2: what didn't they do?
13:33
Speaker 1: I think that's important.
13:34
Speaker 2: And I think we still don't have all the answers
13:36
Speaker 2: and we should be fighting to get more answers. But
13:38
Speaker 2: when you dig into it, you also just find these
13:41
Speaker 2: little like artifacts of how he was actually manipulating people
13:46
Speaker 2: his situation, including the girls and women that were involved.
13:49
Speaker 2: And you can't, again, there are these little kind of,
13:54
Speaker 2: I don't know, snippets, these sort of disentangled little bits
13:59
Speaker 2: of information you can't fully understand. But you see these
14:02
Speaker 2: sort of vicious back and forths with people whose names
14:04
Speaker 2: you don't know, where he's saying things like, you had
14:08
Speaker 2: an apartment, you had money, you had an agreement, many
14:11
Speaker 2: agreement promises, you broke them all. You're acting like a
14:13
Speaker 2: spoiled child who thinks the world owes them a living.
14:15
Speaker 2: sleeping all day, not helping, not dancing. There are these
14:19
Speaker 2: little bits of the evil at the very core of it.
14:21
Speaker 2: And you see the emails he wrote to himself, little ideas,
14:25
Speaker 2: little things that came to him. And at the core
14:27
Speaker 2: of this whole enterprise was this disgusting man, this vicious
14:32
Speaker 2: monster that had built all these layers around him to
14:36
Speaker 2: seem respectable. And the fact that even now we still
14:41
Speaker 2: don't really totally understand a lot of what actually happened
14:45
Speaker 2: because It's now being released in this haphazard and confusing
14:50
Speaker 2: way where you don't know what's real and you don't
14:52
Speaker 2: know what's not. I still think that whether it's the
14:57
Speaker 2: Democrats in Congress, whether it's a Democratic presidential candidate calling
15:01
Speaker 2: for some kind of hearing and investigation, we need to
15:03
Speaker 2: have public hearings about this, just to get the truth
15:08
Speaker 2: about it, including getting the participants in it, force them
15:12
Speaker 2: to speak in front of the country about what happened.
15:14
Speaker 2: Because I still think we're going to live in this
15:16
Speaker 2: sort of like semi-true kind of understanding because of the
15:20
Speaker 2: way they release these documents.
15:22
Speaker 1: To that point, the Epstein law that passed says that
15:25
Speaker 1: the DOJ needs to turn over their internal memos, deliberations,
15:30
Speaker 1: notes on who they charged, why, why didn't they make
15:33
Speaker 1: certain charging decisions. They have not done that yet? So
15:36
Speaker 1: they are just in violation of the law still by
15:39
Speaker 1: not doing that. And usually the Department of Justice would
15:41
Speaker 1: never turn over those notes. But that's what the law
15:44
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump signed into law and Congress just passed said.
15:48
Speaker 1: So I do think that can shine a light on
15:50
Speaker 1: some of this. Because also to your point about Kash Patel,
15:52
Speaker 1: like I can't tell. Clearly it was dishonest what he
15:56
Speaker 1: said in front of Congress. But I don't know if
15:58
Speaker 1: you've seen anything in any of the emails I haven't
16:00
Speaker 1: that show that like clearly there were other men involved.
16:03
Speaker 1: who trafficked underage women with Jeffrey Epstein. I don't think
16:07
Speaker 1: any of the emails say that. Kash Patel says there's
16:09
Speaker 1: no evidence, none. If there were, I would bring the
16:11
Speaker 1: case yesterday that he, Epstein, trafficked to other individuals. It
16:14
Speaker 1: seems like the Steve Tisch case, seems like that's exactly
16:16
Speaker 1: what happened there. Now, maybe they were of age, but
16:18
Speaker 1: did we investigate that?
16:19
Speaker 3: I don't know.
16:20
Speaker 4: It seems like there's a lot of smoke here, but
16:23
Speaker 4: we'll find out. I mean, it's clear the FBI fell down.
16:25
Speaker 1: On the job here. They just didn't do what they
16:26
Speaker 1: should have done. It seems like there's three levels of
16:29
Speaker 1: Epstein connections here that you see in these emails. The
16:31
Speaker 1: first level is new Epstein was friendly with him and
16:35
Speaker 1: was just in the social circles and thought he was
16:37
Speaker 1: a great guy, you know? Then there was new Epstein,
16:41
Speaker 1: friendly with him, and was discussing, like, girls with him in, like,
16:45
Speaker 1: they were fucking objects in the most grossest sort of manner.
16:48
Speaker 1: And then there were, like, the Tish stuff, which is like, yes,
16:51
Speaker 1: I have girls for you, basically, which is like... Helping
16:53
Speaker 1: him find you. Yeah, and they were, yeah. And Trump
16:56
Speaker 1: in here, by the way, is... through some uncorroborated allegations,
17:01
Speaker 1: but like including some witness interviews with the FBI and
17:03
Speaker 1: other things, is like somewhere in between the discussing girls
17:07
Speaker 1: in a gross, lewd manner and potentially like around him
17:11
Speaker 1: when there were girls being, you know.
17:13
Speaker 4: Trump is saved because he does not use email.
17:15
Speaker 1: Yes.
17:16
Speaker 4: Like if we had audio of Donald Trump's conversation with
17:19
Speaker 4: Jeffrey Epstein, I bet jaws would be on the floor
17:21
Speaker 4: and we wouldn't believe it. The other sort of process thing,
17:23
Speaker 4: I'm glad you brought this up, that I'm seeing a
17:24
Speaker 4: lot out there is like, Joe Biden could have released
17:28
Speaker 4: all of this. Why didn't he, you fell down on
17:30
Speaker 4: the job. It's like, actually, no, this is not how
17:32
Speaker 4: the department of justice is supposed to work. And I
17:34
Speaker 4: think we're seeing that play out.
17:36
Speaker 1: Like it's awful.
17:37
Speaker 4: Like, I hope there's accountability for the, the, the abused.
17:41
Speaker 4: I hope that people did bad things, go to jail,
17:43
Speaker 4: but like, Jesus Christ, like the releasing all these victims, names,
17:46
Speaker 4: the images, the, like the random people like this is,
17:50
Speaker 4: this is actually not good. And like, no, you don't
17:53
Speaker 4: want Joe Biden to be digging through DOJ files. to
17:55
Speaker 4: try to destroy his political opponents, guys, like this is,
17:58
Speaker 4: there should be a bigger principle here.
18:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:00
Speaker 2: I asked like the process of the redacting and not redacting,
18:03
Speaker 2: are they being, are they just haphazard and like injudicious?
18:08
Speaker 2: Are they being kind of making choices with what names
18:11
Speaker 2: are showing or not showing at times? I have no idea.
18:14
Speaker 2: Also doing this in these giant, rare, rare, huge dumps
18:18
Speaker 2: of information when inside of it, you know, is a
18:22
Speaker 2: personal and like information about victims of crime. So some
18:27
Speaker 2: of this is just the incompetence in the way it's
18:29
Speaker 2: being executed. But I do, I actually, one thing I
18:32
Speaker 2: was just, when I was looking through it, I really struck,
18:34
Speaker 2: like I was over the weekend, just the kind of
18:37
Speaker 2: the wash of comments about it, the way we were
18:39
Speaker 2: learning about it through random people posting things, you didn't
18:41
Speaker 2: know what it was true. And like, all of it
18:43
Speaker 2: kind of, some of it sort of silly and then
18:45
Speaker 2: all of it relating to monstrous crimes.
18:47
Speaker 1: Some of it was fake on Twitter. Some of it
18:48
Speaker 1: was fake. A lot of it was fake.
18:49
Speaker 2: I really, the sort of terror, it was, it really
18:51
Speaker 2: gave us like a sick feeling just about where we're
18:53
Speaker 2: at and how, like the, the, because we're DOJ, you
18:58
Speaker 2: can't rely on them. You can't trust them. The, the,
19:01
Speaker 2: the social media has been kind of taken over by
19:04
Speaker 2: Elon and others in a way that makes it impossible
19:06
Speaker 2: to know what's true or not true. And, and this
19:09
Speaker 2: all feeds, like, even the fact that we're in this
19:12
Speaker 2: mess is like a of like getting the information this
19:14
Speaker 2: way as a product of our kind of conspiratorial mindset.
19:16
Speaker 2: And yet I'm glad for the most, like, I do
19:19
Speaker 2: think that this was necessary. I think like what that,
19:22
Speaker 2: that Kana and Massey were able to get this through
19:24
Speaker 2: was like ultimately the right thing to do, given what
19:26
Speaker 2: we're learning, like we would never know any of this.
19:29
Speaker 2: And I'm glad that we do for the most part.
19:30
Speaker 4: Good for them that they, that they wrote this law
19:33
Speaker 4: and did it the right way and got every member
19:35
Speaker 4: of Congress, but one to vote for it. I just
19:37
Speaker 4: like the people are saying like Joe Biden should have
19:39
Speaker 4: unilaterally taken this step through his DOJ. It's like, It's
19:42
Speaker 4: a lot of collateral damage there I think we know
19:44
Speaker 4: for sure.
19:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
19:55
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22:15
Speaker 1: case the Epstein revelations didn't make you mad enough, we
22:18
Speaker 1: also got more news over the weekend about Trump's mind-blowing,
22:21
Speaker 1: absolutely crazy, shameless corruption. The Wall Street Journal reported that
22:25
Speaker 1: just days before Trump was inaugurated, an Abu Dhabi royal
22:28
Speaker 1: known as the Spy Sheikh, who's the United Arab Emirates
22:31
Speaker 1: National Security Advisor and runs the country's sovereign wealth fund,
22:35
Speaker 1: bought a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the Trump
22:38
Speaker 1: family's crypto venture, for $ 500 million, with an upfront payment
22:42
Speaker 1: of $ 187 million going right to, quote, Trump family entities.
22:47
Speaker 1: In a complete coincidence, the Trump administration then gave the
22:50
Speaker 1: Spy Sheikh what the UAE had long wanted, but hadn't
22:53
Speaker 1: been able to get access to when Biden was president,
22:55
Speaker 1: half a million of America's most advanced AI chips. I
22:59
Speaker 1: guess the Emiratis just really believed in Eric Trump's business
23:02
Speaker 1: plan and his crypto expertise, huh? Is that what we think?
23:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, for a company that was, I don't think they
23:09
Speaker 4: had a product at the time. And the 49% stake
23:13
Speaker 4: that they purchased actually didn't get you access to the
23:15
Speaker 4: future revenue on the only thing they were selling at
23:17
Speaker 4: that moment. So yeah, no, definitely that's what happened. First
23:19
Speaker 4: of all, I just want to say, shout out to
23:21
Speaker 4: the Wall Street Journal for getting this scoop. Like, thank
23:23
Speaker 4: God liberal billionaire Rupert Murdoch is using his power for good, right?
23:28
Speaker 4: While all these other, you know, right-wing assholes like Jeff
23:31
Speaker 4: Bezos just turtle and buy Melania documentaries.
23:34
Speaker 1: I mean, so, by the way, before this story, what
23:36
Speaker 1: we knew.
23:36
Speaker 4: About this UAE AI chips deal was that an Emirati-backed
23:40
Speaker 4: investment fund called MGX last spring made a $ 2 billion
23:44
Speaker 4: investment into a crypto company called Binance. And they did
23:46
Speaker 4: it using the Trump family's stablecoin, their new cryptocurrency, USD1,
23:50
Speaker 4: which is from World Liberty Financial, the same company. So
23:53
Speaker 4: that came out of nowhere. It instantly made USD1 one
23:55
Speaker 4: of the most highly circulated stable coins in existence, and
23:59
Speaker 4: then reportedly makes the Trump family $ 80 million a year
24:02
Speaker 4: in passive income. Then right after that, the Trump agrees
24:07
Speaker 4: to provide the UAE with these chips. So we already
24:09
Speaker 4: knew that there was like a totally corrupt drug deal,
24:11
Speaker 4: but this report is even crazier. Like they just bought
24:14
Speaker 4: this company outright. There was no disclosure. $ 187 million goes
24:18
Speaker 4: to the Trump family.
24:20
Speaker 1: Another tranche of the money.
24:21
Speaker 4: Goes to Steve Witkoff's son, who, remember, as this is
24:26
Speaker 4: all happening, Steve Witkoff is named the kind of emissary
24:28
Speaker 4: for everything.
24:29
Speaker 1: He's going around the world.
24:30
Speaker 4: He goes to a crypto conference in the UAE, and
24:33
Speaker 4: then two weeks later, the contracts to make this purchase
24:36
Speaker 4: just magically appear. And so this confirms what we know,
24:40
Speaker 4: which is that Trump and Steve Witkoff, they're running around
24:41
Speaker 4: the globe, they're talking to autocrats, and they are steering
24:45
Speaker 4: money into their family's pot. And Jared Kushner's gotten a
24:48
Speaker 4: bunch of money from the Emiratis. Um, we also know
24:51
Speaker 4: the Emiratis were pushing Trump to, uh, pardon the Binance CEO.
24:56
Speaker 4: This guy's CZ. That obviously will help your $ 2 billion
24:59
Speaker 4: investment if, you know, that company gets right with regulators
25:02
Speaker 4: in the US. So it's like, what do you fucking
25:04
Speaker 4: do with this?
25:06
Speaker 1: This is corruption. You need to remove the president.
25:08
Speaker 6: Yeah.
25:09
Speaker 4: It's corruption like nothing we've ever seen in this country.
25:11
Speaker 4: And it's like a one day story.
25:14
Speaker 1: Well, and it is a great example of why impeachment
25:17
Speaker 1: is the only remedy because John Roberts and his court
25:22
Speaker 1: would say that the giving them the chips was official business,
25:28
Speaker 1: which it was. Right. But obviously, we know that there
25:31
Speaker 1: is a personal stake there. And so what Roberts and
25:33
Speaker 1: the court would say in that opinion is, well, impeachment
25:36
Speaker 1: is the remedy if you think it was if it
25:38
Speaker 1: was a conflict. And the Republicans are just like, no, no, no.
25:40
Speaker 1: It's totally fine for your family to take half a
25:44
Speaker 1: billion dollars and then to literally sell America out. And
25:50
Speaker 1: one of the reasons, by the way, they didn't want
25:51
Speaker 1: to give the UAE, these very advanced AI chips, aside
25:55
Speaker 1: from the fact that it's a foreign government. But wasn't
25:57
Speaker 1: there a concern that they were doing deals with China?
25:59
Speaker 1: They're super tight.
26:00
Speaker 4: The Sheik's company in particular, I think it's called G42,
26:03
Speaker 4: was supposed to get one-fifth of the 500,000 of these
26:06
Speaker 4: NVIDIA chips. They're super tight with a bunch of Chinese companies,
26:08
Speaker 4: including one called Huawei, which provides telecom infrastructure. And the
26:13
Speaker 4: United States has spent decades telling other countries to get
26:16
Speaker 4: Huawei the fuck out of their countries, places like the U.K.,
26:19
Speaker 4: because there's concern that you could do create like backdoor
26:22
Speaker 4: infrastructure to spy on them, which is why there was
26:24
Speaker 4: concern in the Biden administration about selling these chips.
26:27
Speaker 1: To the Emiratis.
26:28
Speaker 4: And by the way, these are not, these are like
26:30
Speaker 4: the Blackwell series chips, like the best of the best
26:32
Speaker 4: Nvidia chips that no other countries can really get unless
26:35
Speaker 4: you're like a super close ally and partner of the
26:37
Speaker 4: U S and yeah.
26:38
Speaker 1: Or, or own a almost half of world Liberty financial Greece,
26:41
Speaker 1: the right guy.
26:42
Speaker 3: Yeah.
26:43
Speaker 2: It's also, there's something struck me that it was the
26:46
Speaker 2: right before the inaugural, right. That, that, before he'd even
26:49
Speaker 2: taken office for a second time, he had already decided
26:53
Speaker 2: that he was going to be the most corrupt president
26:55
Speaker 2: in American history. And even saying that is an understatement, really.
26:58
Speaker 2: He was going to be as corrupt as the most
27:00
Speaker 2: corrupt autocrats in the history of the modern world, that
27:04
Speaker 2: he was already going to be a Putin-level corrupt figure.
27:07
Speaker 2: And what would happen in a normal time, in a
27:11
Speaker 2: functioning civil society? Yes, of course, there'd be impeachment hearings
27:16
Speaker 2: and his removal, but Even maybe before that, there would
27:19
Speaker 2: be a Department of Justice investigation. There would be congressional hearings.
27:22
Speaker 2: There would be outrage that would continue that would be bipartisan.
27:25
Speaker 2: There would be Republicans going up to the White House
27:27
Speaker 2: to say that it's time to step down because the
27:28
Speaker 2: country can't survive having a president this corrupt. Those are
27:31
Speaker 2: the normal things that you could imagine happening, how this
27:34
Speaker 2: would have worked even in the previous Republican administrations. We've
27:38
Speaker 2: never had anything this bad. When I was a kid,
27:42
Speaker 2: I would obviously struggle with deadlines. I would hit a deadline,
27:45
Speaker 2: but if I missed it, I would never, just simply
27:47
Speaker 2: would never do the work, right? If I had a
27:48
Speaker 2: paper due on a Monday and I missed the Monday,
27:50
Speaker 2: it was like it never happened. Weeks, months, it would
27:52
Speaker 2: be a disaster.
27:53
Speaker 1: I would do that too.
27:53
Speaker 2: Because once you're through the, once you're on the other
27:55
Speaker 2: side of the mistake, what's the point? And I do
27:57
Speaker 2: feel like with, that's where we're at with the Republicans.
28:00
Speaker 2: They've sort of, they have their one, impeachment is the
28:03
Speaker 2: mechanism or any kind of accountability. And because that is impossible,
28:07
Speaker 2: we are kind of through that and now Trump can
28:09
Speaker 2: do anything. There's nothing they can't look past because they've
28:12
Speaker 2: looked past so much already. And like, We talk about
28:16
Speaker 2: this all the time. It's so gobsmacking. It's so crazy.
28:19
Speaker 1: He should be impeached and removed. That is obvious.
28:21
Speaker 2: That's what should happen, but it can't. And so we
28:23
Speaker 2: sort of live in this world where there's no accountability yet.
28:27
Speaker 1: It's also, it's just like, you can't write something this
28:32
Speaker 1: outrageously corrupt. Like you can't make something like this up.
28:34
Speaker 1: It's like a Middle Eastern autocrat who also maybe does
28:38
Speaker 1: deal with the Chinese government for like an American asset
28:44
Speaker 1: That has like incredible national security implications that you're selling
28:47
Speaker 1: out for half a billion dollars for the president.
28:49
Speaker 2: Like what? Yeah, those chips are how we make pictures
28:53
Speaker 2: of women with six boobs. We can't have the Chinese
28:56
Speaker 2: get control of that technology. Next thing you know, it'll
28:59
Speaker 2: be saying things. Terrible, mediocre writing.
29:03
Speaker 4: I mean, the thing is the Emiratis, like they have
29:06
Speaker 4: a bit of a DC halo because they're They throw
29:09
Speaker 4: a lot of money around to think tanks. They hire
29:11
Speaker 4: a lot of former generals to come give speeches or
29:14
Speaker 4: consult for their military. They have an ambassador who's been
29:17
Speaker 4: around for a long time, hosts a lot of events
29:19
Speaker 4: at Cafe Milano, a bit of a man about town.
29:23
Speaker 4: But this is also a country that has been funding
29:26
Speaker 4: the other side of a absolutely devastating civil war in
29:30
Speaker 4: Sudan for the better part of two years. They're funding
29:32
Speaker 4: this group called the RSF that is leading to the
29:34
Speaker 4: worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet right now. So I
29:37
Speaker 4: do think it's just worth thinking about like the foreign
29:39
Speaker 4: policy of the people that trump did this deal with
29:42
Speaker 4: because it is really gross when you kind of get
29:45
Speaker 4: past the bullshit and the glitterati fucking you know appetizer
29:48
Speaker 4: course at cafe milano and see what's actually happening i don't.
29:51
Speaker 1: Know the foreign policy of any of the governments he's
29:54
Speaker 1: done deals with that he likes that is a good
29:56
Speaker 1: foreign policy Any good bribes? Yeah, who's he doing deals
30:01
Speaker 1: with around the world and for governments that they're not either,
30:05
Speaker 1: you know, repressing their own people or others or causing
30:08
Speaker 1: conflict as a type, doesn't he?
30:09
Speaker 2: The tensions are with Canada and NATO and the like.
30:15
Speaker 2: The connection to me between the Epstein story and this is, like,
30:20
Speaker 2: these people are buying their credibility with their conferences and their,
30:24
Speaker 2: you know, and comedy festivals in Saudi Arabia, all the
30:26
Speaker 2: people that Trump is doing deals with. they're investing in
30:30
Speaker 2: the kind of appearance of polite society to lend them credibility.
30:34
Speaker 1: And it works.
30:35
Speaker 2: People make the trip. They take the money and they
30:39
Speaker 2: use their wealth to kind of hide the monstrousness.
30:42
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys saw that Trump's also
30:44
Speaker 1: looking to steal another $ 10 billion from us, the American taxpayers.
30:48
Speaker 1: He earned it. President is suing the IRS for $ 10
30:52
Speaker 1: billion with a B and damages over the leaking of
30:55
Speaker 1: his tax returns in 2019 and 2020. You might remember
30:59
Speaker 1: he's also suing the Justice Department for $ 230 million in damages.
31:03
Speaker 1: Seems like small potatoes now. Over the investigations that led
31:06
Speaker 1: to multiple grand juries indicting Trump on multiple criminal charges.
31:11
Speaker 1: And since the DOJ now does whatever Trump tells them
31:13
Speaker 1: to do, you can imagine that they may settle this
31:15
Speaker 1: case favorably for the president. Trump basically acknowledged the conflict
31:21
Speaker 1: on Saturday night when he was talking to reporters, though
31:23
Speaker 1: he seemed to just find the whole thing rather amusing.
31:25
Speaker 1: Take a listen.
31:26
Speaker 6: I have to work out some kind of a settlement.
31:28
Speaker 6: I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself. I
31:31
Speaker 6: think what we'll do is do something for charity. You know,
31:35
Speaker 6: we're thinking about doing something for charity. We're going to
31:37
Speaker 6: give money to charity. We can make it a substantial amount.
31:40
Speaker 6: Nobody would care because it's going to go to numerous,
31:44
Speaker 6: very good charities.
31:45
Speaker 2: So he's going to steal $ 10 billion from the federal
31:48
Speaker 2: government and claim he's going to give it to charity.
31:49
Speaker 2: That's what he's saying right now.
31:50
Speaker 1: But do the press conference on it in black tie. Yeah.
31:52
Speaker 1: Because that's fitting, I think. He was at the alfalfa
31:55
Speaker 1: dinner Saturday night, which was a bunch of elites just
31:59
Speaker 1: fucking cracking jokes.
32:01
Speaker 4: Cracking jokes.
32:03
Speaker 1: Monopoly.
32:03
Speaker 2: How many people in that room were in the fucking files?
32:06
Speaker 1: It's crazy. I realize that the corruption isn't quite as,
32:10
Speaker 1: maybe it's not as brazen or as big of a
32:11
Speaker 1: deal globally as the UAE thing that we just talked about.
32:15
Speaker 1: But just taking $ 10 billion from the treasury for yourself.
32:19
Speaker 3: It's just lazy.
32:19
Speaker 1: It's just lazy. I mean, talk about things that will...
32:23
Speaker 1: I think that would piss Americans off. Yes, yes. $ 10 billion.
32:26
Speaker 1: You know how much a one-year extension of the Affordable
32:29
Speaker 1: Care Act subsidies cost? $ 30 billion. That is a third
32:32
Speaker 1: of the extension that they said that we apparently cannot afford.
32:34
Speaker 1: 20 million people are seeing their premiums go up, and
32:37
Speaker 1: yet he wants to pay $ 10 billion out of the
32:39
Speaker 1: Treasury to himself just so he can promise to give
32:43
Speaker 1: it to many good charities. Could have hired more ICE
32:45
Speaker 1: guys with this.
32:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, many other possibilities. The President of the United States...
32:50
Speaker 2: is filing frivolous lawsuits against the United States.
32:55
Speaker 1: So he can use his position to settle them favorably.
32:59
Speaker 2: It's, again, he should be impeached and removed from office.
33:03
Speaker 2: We're just watching it unfold. I was watching all this,
33:07
Speaker 2: the Epstein files and all the involvement of all these
33:10
Speaker 2: people inside the Trump administration. We didn't talk about, like,
33:12
Speaker 2: Lutnick's in there. A lot of people are in there.
33:15
Speaker 2: And then you look at, like, the UAE case, this lawsuit, uh,
33:20
Speaker 2: There was a, CBS got their hands on a memo,
33:23
Speaker 2: and if you saw this, of the Capitol, the insurrection
33:26
Speaker 2: prosecutors wrote a memo to congressional leaders, do you see this?
33:29
Speaker 2: Where they recommended what Congress can do, because DOJ will
33:35
Speaker 2: obviously not do anything, to investigate the immigration abuses, to
33:39
Speaker 2: investigate ICE and detention center abuses and other things. And
33:42
Speaker 2: they laid out all these things that Congress could do,
33:44
Speaker 2: which would be about preserving records in the case of
33:46
Speaker 2: inevitable prosecutions in the future, and The point they made
33:50
Speaker 2: is there are FBI agents and federal prosecutors who have
33:52
Speaker 2: left because they're disgusted with the politicization and the sort
33:55
Speaker 2: of the capture of these bureaus that would be available
33:58
Speaker 2: to do these kinds of investigations. And whether it's as
34:01
Speaker 2: part of the midterms or whether it's a part of
34:04
Speaker 2: a kind of a presidential campaign, I do think talking
34:06
Speaker 2: about how Democrats are going to declare war on corruption
34:11
Speaker 2: and put a real program of like, I think it
34:14
Speaker 2: should be primetime hearings and 9-11 commission-like law that kind
34:17
Speaker 2: of says, here's how we're going to investigate this, abuses
34:19
Speaker 2: of the power to capture the Department of Justice, the
34:23
Speaker 2: theft by the president, the corrupt acts by the president,
34:26
Speaker 2: and create like a kind of framework for how we're
34:29
Speaker 2: going to be treating this like a really big deal
34:30
Speaker 2: in the future, whether it's while Trump is in office
34:34
Speaker 2: or after. And as part of that, bringing on prosecutors,
34:37
Speaker 2: bringing on law enforcement to help kind of lead a
34:39
Speaker 2: true kind of credible investigation through Congress.
34:45
Speaker 3: I think is one thing.
34:45
Speaker 1: You think Bob Mueller's up too?
34:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get that guy out of the fucking mothballs.
34:50
Speaker 2: Him and Mueller can, him and Garland can team up
34:53
Speaker 2: and it'll be a, won't they or won't they?
34:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:57
Speaker 4: Like a hundred years they'll get the case. Yeah, you
34:59
Speaker 4: mentioned Howard Letnick. We should just mention he said he'd
35:01
Speaker 4: cut Jeffrey Epstein off in 2005. He told a really
35:03
Speaker 4: detailed story about how he and his wife walked into
35:05
Speaker 4: the house, saw a massage table, thought it was gross,
35:07
Speaker 4: never spoke to him again. Turns out he went to
35:09
Speaker 4: the island in 2012. So good job, Mr.
35:11
Speaker 1: Letnick.
35:12
Speaker 4: I do enjoy Trump suing the IRS for these documents
35:15
Speaker 4: getting disclosed as he's having his handpicked goon, Bill Pulte,
35:20
Speaker 4: use his authority at the Federal Housing Authority to dig
35:23
Speaker 4: through mortgages and try to prosecute people that Trump doesn't like.
35:25
Speaker 1: That is kind of chef's kiss.
35:27
Speaker 4: Like in some sense, in the narrow sense, Trump has
35:29
Speaker 4: a case in this instance because you can sue the
35:33
Speaker 4: government for breaches of privacy when it comes to IRS data.
35:36
Speaker 4: Of course, he should have released his taxes when he
35:38
Speaker 4: ran for office. Of course, $ 20 billion is.
35:40
Speaker 1: An absurd amount.
35:42
Speaker 4: Apparently, he's saying the $ 10 billion figure is a $ 1, 000
35:46
Speaker 4: per disclosure level that's specified in the law multiplied by
35:49
Speaker 4: an estimate of the number of times that Trump's tax
35:52
Speaker 4: information was published or broadcast. That's how they did the
35:54
Speaker 4: math that got them to the clean $ 10 billion. Beloved,
35:57
Speaker 4: I was trying to think similar to your point about Congress.
36:01
Speaker 4: Doing this just suggests you've given up on political considerations
36:05
Speaker 4: in any way because nothing could be more popular than
36:07
Speaker 4: suing yourself. for $ 10 billion, pursuing the taxpayers for $ 10
36:11
Speaker 4: billion and being on both sides of the transaction. He
36:13
Speaker 4: just clearly is so greedy that he does not care.
36:16
Speaker 1: Yes, I think he doesn't care. And I think, you know,
36:19
Speaker 1: this is like, they feel like they're throwing so much
36:22
Speaker 1: stuff at us every single day. I mean, this was
36:25
Speaker 1: like Bannon, you know, at the beginning, he's like, oh,
36:27
Speaker 1: you do three horrible things a day. And the first
36:31
Speaker 1: two You know, they can only people can only pay
36:33
Speaker 1: attention to one and the other two go under the radar.
36:35
Speaker 3: Right.
36:36
Speaker 1: And I do think you're right. Like a lot of
36:37
Speaker 1: Democrats should make a huge deal of this. I think
36:39
Speaker 1: it should be the challenge with the hearings and the
36:41
Speaker 1: investigations is the the country. Most people want, you know,
36:47
Speaker 1: what's on their mind. Most of us like, what are
36:48
Speaker 1: you going to do for me? Are you going to
36:49
Speaker 1: help me? And like, you know, do I want a bunch?
36:51
Speaker 1: I would just be like, we're getting all your money back.
36:53
Speaker 1: He stole a bunch of money from the country from you. He's,
36:57
Speaker 1: and he tried to sell out a bunch of the
36:59
Speaker 1: country as well. And we're getting it all back. So
37:01
Speaker 1: we're getting your money back for you.
37:02
Speaker 2: I think that's good.
37:03
Speaker 1: I think that's good. We're going through the couch cushions
37:05
Speaker 1: and all the people who've gotten hurt too. You're going
37:08
Speaker 1: to be able to, that the government is hurt under
37:10
Speaker 1: Donald Trump because he broke the law. We're going to
37:13
Speaker 1: make you right as well. Yeah, I think that's right.
37:16
Speaker 2: I think you'd have to tie it back to the
37:17
Speaker 2: ways in which this was ultimately about pursuing his own
37:19
Speaker 2: interests at the expense of the country. I do think
37:21
Speaker 2: any broad investigation into Trump corruption will ultimately lead to
37:25
Speaker 2: tariff decisions. and the higher cost people paid. But I,
37:27
Speaker 2: and then I, and I do think you'd have to
37:28
Speaker 2: then like really make it clear that it's about not
37:32
Speaker 2: just sort of looking back, but about the reforms you
37:34
Speaker 2: would need.
37:34
Speaker 3: Right.
37:34
Speaker 2: Because you would, and, and you know what, some of
37:38
Speaker 2: this is not going to be like top polling message.
37:41
Speaker 2: I think there'll be popular programs, but no, not everything
37:43
Speaker 2: we're going to have to do to fix our democracy
37:44
Speaker 2: is going to be able to tie back to affordability.
37:46
Speaker 2: But like, we got to figure out some kind of
37:48
Speaker 2: return to independent council. There are reasons that was allowed
37:51
Speaker 2: to expire, but man, what a different world we'd be
37:53
Speaker 2: living in right now with three judges. could appoint an
37:56
Speaker 2: independent counsel to investigate crimes by the president. Now, I
38:00
Speaker 2: don't know if the Supreme Court, which is now believed
38:03
Speaker 2: that the president is above the law and the unitary executive, like,
38:08
Speaker 2: I don't know what happens now.
38:09
Speaker 1: Would it be held up.
38:12
Speaker 2: By, like, the vast majority of judges last time it
38:14
Speaker 2: was in front of the Supreme Court? Would that happen again?
38:16
Speaker 1: I don't know.
38:16
Speaker 2: But constitutional amendments around the pardon power, stepping up congressional
38:22
Speaker 2: oversight of the administration, like a lot of steps that
38:24
Speaker 2: we should be talking about that are forward-looking about preventing
38:27
Speaker 2: this kind of thing from happening again and attacking the
38:29
Speaker 2: ways in which Trump abused his office. One other just,
38:33
Speaker 2: you know, talking about inherent contempt is too late when
38:37
Speaker 2: the person who you're trying to get is already not reporting.
38:40
Speaker 2: I would like to start hearing congressional leaders start talking
38:42
Speaker 2: about the fact that whatever we do to investigate the
38:44
Speaker 2: Trump administration, that they will use, if necessary, inherent contempt
38:48
Speaker 2: and to arrest and detain people who do not participate.
38:51
Speaker 2: We need to, like, Congress needs to start asserting it's
38:54
Speaker 2: Article I. It's first on the list. They need to
38:56
Speaker 2: start reasserting their authority and make clear that they will,
39:00
Speaker 2: if necessary, enforce subpoenas and hold people in contempt and
39:04
Speaker 2: make them testify.
39:06
Speaker 6: Yeah.
39:07
Speaker 1: And then it'll be Congress's goons versus the federal government's
39:11
Speaker 1: goons facing off. Yeah.
39:14
Speaker 3: And look, I don't know what.
39:16
Speaker 1: I just.
39:17
Speaker 2: I feel like we can't play chicken with them. And
39:20
Speaker 2: I just, we have to, and by the way, like,
39:22
Speaker 2: do I worry about that power being in the hands
39:23
Speaker 2: of Republicans? Of course I do.
39:25
Speaker 1: Of course I do.
39:25
Speaker 2: But we have to assume that we can use the
39:27
Speaker 2: power effectively and make a case to American people if
39:29
Speaker 2: we are able to win the Congress.
39:32
Speaker 1: Tommy, to your point of Trump not caring about the politics,
39:36
Speaker 1: we got a, he talked more this weekend about the
39:38
Speaker 1: gigantic new commemorative arc, arch.
39:41
Speaker 3: Arch, it would be an arch.
39:42
Speaker 1: Arch, right? I think an arc would be a box.
39:44
Speaker 1: Arc would be a, I'm thinking of the arc. We've
39:46
Speaker 1: got the golden arc. That's a French word, yeah. So
39:48
Speaker 1: it's a new arch he's constructing on the Virginia side
39:51
Speaker 1: of the Potomac. The Washington Post reported over the weekend
39:54
Speaker 1: that the latest plan is for the monument to be
39:56
Speaker 1: 250 feet tall. Of course, that's for America's 250th anniversary,
40:02
Speaker 1: of course. Happy birthday, America. That's tall. That's a big arch.
40:06
Speaker 1: It's 150 feet taller than the Lincoln Memorial, only 40
40:11
Speaker 1: feet smaller than the Capitol, the U.S. Capitol. The Lincoln
40:15
Speaker 1: Memorial will sit in the shadow of this, of the
40:18
Speaker 1: Trump arch. Fucking, imagine what an eyesore. The one in St.
40:25
Speaker 4: Louis is 630 feet tall. That's, this one sounds kind
40:30
Speaker 4: of lame.
40:31
Speaker 2: Is this a good place to say that I also
40:32
Speaker 2: think they fucked up the World War II Memorial?
40:34
Speaker 1: Okay. No, it's not. It's not the place for this.
40:36
Speaker 2: I just think, I just think like it's, you know
40:38
Speaker 2: what it is? It's too fucking literal.
40:40
Speaker 1: Okay.
40:41
Speaker 3: Yeah.
40:41
Speaker 1: You're one of the, yeah, here we are. It's just,
40:43
Speaker 1: just living through this emergency, but let's go back and
40:46
Speaker 1: talk about that. He also announced that he's going to
40:48
Speaker 1: be closing the Kennedy Center, whose board he now controls,
40:51
Speaker 1: for two years for a complete renovation. Who knows? Maybe
40:54
Speaker 1: it has to do with the fact that no one
40:56
Speaker 1: wants to perform there anymore. So he's like, no one's
40:59
Speaker 1: coming here?
41:00
Speaker 3: You know what?
41:01
Speaker 1: Then it's closed. That's it. It's done.
41:03
Speaker 2: My birthday party is canceled.
41:05
Speaker 1: Right, exactly. One Kennedy Center event that did still take
41:08
Speaker 1: place last week, the world premiere of Melania, the documentary,
41:13
Speaker 1: Great box office numbers. You guys see that? I had fun.
41:15
Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty entertaining. I saw it twice.
41:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to say on the arch.
41:20
Speaker 4: It doesn't bother me because the next Democrat is going
41:23
Speaker 4: to shut this stupid thing down, right?
41:25
Speaker 1: This is not going to get built. Well, if it's
41:26
Speaker 1: built by then, we're going to bulldoze the whole arch?
41:28
Speaker 1: How fast can you build a fucking giant arch? I
41:30
Speaker 1: have no idea. That's a good point. Maybe it's fast.
41:31
Speaker 1: It would have to go up, especially one that's... I'm sorry.
41:34
Speaker 1: Taller than the Lincoln Memorial? We're making it bigger than
41:36
Speaker 1: Lincoln Memorial? Come on. This is crazy. Matches as you go.
41:39
Speaker 3: I care less.
41:41
Speaker 2: about Trump building arches that we can perhaps tear down
41:44
Speaker 2: or stop if they don't get finished. Obviously, he says
41:45
Speaker 2: he's gonna finish everything in a snap. I don't know
41:48
Speaker 2: how the East Wing ballroom's going, but it seems to
41:51
Speaker 2: be slower than originally predicted. I am worried about the
41:54
Speaker 2: Kennedy Center. In the grand scheme of Trump abuses, if
41:58
Speaker 2: he fucks up the Kennedy Center, it's a building, we'll
42:00
Speaker 2: be okay. But, you know, they have this obsession with
42:04
Speaker 2: like neoclassical architecture, architecture that evokes like the Greeks and
42:08
Speaker 2: the Romans and the sort of classic forms and sort
42:12
Speaker 2: of a vaguely fascist mindset. But the Kennedy Center is
42:15
Speaker 2: a beautiful place that I'm sure they don't appreciate. And
42:17
Speaker 2: then he's talked about wanting to build a bigger entertainment complex.
42:20
Speaker 2: Have you seen this? In one of his posts, he said,
42:22
Speaker 2: not only are we going to renovate the Kennedy Center,
42:23
Speaker 2: we're going to build a bigger and more beautiful entertainment complex.
42:26
Speaker 1: And like, That's a beautiful building. It's going to have
42:28
Speaker 1: a fucking UFC cage match vibe.
42:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so I worry about them fucking that up
42:34
Speaker 2: because it's harder to fix it.
42:35
Speaker 1: Oh, you worry about it? You don't think they're going
42:37
Speaker 1: to nail it?
42:37
Speaker 2: Well, I just think, yeah, I don't think that the
42:40
Speaker 2: architects are there.
42:41
Speaker 1: It's a little too Rococo for me. When I see
42:45
Speaker 1: what they did to the East Wing colony, I can't imagine.
42:48
Speaker 2: You know, as they said in Beauty and the Beast,
42:52
Speaker 2: it's not Baroque, don't fix it.
42:53
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
42:55
Speaker 2: No, he's going to fuck up the Kennedy Center for sure.
42:57
Speaker 2: I do prefer him focusing on architecture than on the
43:01
Speaker 2: destruction of democracy. Yeah, if he woke up every day
43:04
Speaker 2: for the next three years and just focused on the
43:05
Speaker 2: arch and the ballroom.
43:06
Speaker 1: Blueprints, hard hats. And like nothing else.
43:09
Speaker 2: Ribbon cuttings.
43:10
Speaker 1: That's fine.
43:10
Speaker 2: Anything like that is great.
43:12
Speaker 1: I agree.
43:12
Speaker 2: I agree with you.
43:13
Speaker 1: Melania, biggest grossing documentary in a decade?
43:17
Speaker 4: Highest for a non-music domestic doc. They're very couched.
43:22
Speaker 1: Because Taylor Swift's Ares Tour doc opened up at 10
43:25
Speaker 1: times that. Also, when you spend $ 75 million, 40 for
43:28
Speaker 1: the doc, 35 on the marketing... And you make back
43:34
Speaker 1: $ 8 million in the opening weekend. You don't make that much.
43:36
Speaker 1: You net $ 3.
43:37
Speaker 4: 5 because half goes to the theaters. I mean, yeah,
43:40
Speaker 4: all it took was $ 35 million in marketing and relentless
43:42
Speaker 4: promotion from the most famous person in the world and
43:44
Speaker 4: current president, Donald Trump, to get, you know, it sounds
43:48
Speaker 4: like a bunch of old people in Trump areas went
43:50
Speaker 4: inside this documentary.
43:51
Speaker 1: Women over 55 were like 70% of the audience.
43:54
Speaker 4: And they also, you know, those people got to say
43:56
Speaker 4: we're sticking it to like liberal Hollywood because people had
43:59
Speaker 4: started making fun of what was expected to be a
44:01
Speaker 4: low open.
44:02
Speaker 1: We feel stuck.
44:03
Speaker 4: Trump fans parting with their money to please him, no
44:06
Speaker 4: longer a surprise to me.
44:07
Speaker 1: I just, it's a bribe.
44:09
Speaker 2: I found it just so, like, all the, there was
44:13
Speaker 2: a couple people that all, like, they pride themselves on
44:15
Speaker 2: being kind of free speech warriors, sort of like tech bros,
44:17
Speaker 2: finance guys, praising the eight million, saying gotcha libs. And
44:21
Speaker 2: it's like, I get that, like, you didn't like, like, wokeness,
44:25
Speaker 2: because you thought it was about the feelings of people
44:27
Speaker 2: that you're not fans of. But your entire operation here
44:30
Speaker 2: seems to be at the feelings of Donald Trump. Because
44:33
Speaker 2: you seem to be involved in business. Is 75 million
44:36
Speaker 2: for a movie that makes eight good business? Or is
44:39
Speaker 2: that a bribe in every fucking theater?
44:41
Speaker 1: It is funny because none of them are saying like, wow,
44:43
Speaker 1: what a great doc. And like our first lady is
44:45
Speaker 1: wonderful because they only care about being able to own
44:48
Speaker 1: the libs with the documentary.
44:50
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure Melania had Final Cut. I mean, she
44:52
Speaker 4: was like an EP on the project. It would all
44:55
Speaker 4: apparently look staged.
44:56
Speaker 1: Of course she did.
44:57
Speaker 4: The spend coincided with Amazon firing 16,000 people this year, 14,000
45:01
Speaker 4: more last year. But for Jeff Bezos, again, what is
45:06
Speaker 4: the point of having fuck you money if you never
45:08
Speaker 4: say fuck you? What are you doing, man?
45:10
Speaker 1: I mean, he does say it to the Amazon workers
45:12
Speaker 1: all the time. That's true. Actually, big fuck you to
45:15
Speaker 1: the Washington Post as well. He's saying a lot of
45:16
Speaker 1: fuck yous. Yeah, well, I guess it's... Just not to
45:18
Speaker 1: anyone powerful, I guess.
45:19
Speaker 4: To all of society when we all got to see
45:20
Speaker 4: the Brett Ratner photos spill out of the Epstein files.
45:25
Speaker 4: The director of Melania was all in the press this
45:27
Speaker 4: weekend for another reason, too.
45:28
Speaker 1: Another one. Another one. Part of the cabal. Was welcoming.
45:31
Speaker 2: Was it Pete Hex out today? Sort of a big
45:33
Speaker 2: kind of welcoming. He's sort of saying.
45:35
Speaker 1: Welcoming for what?
45:36
Speaker 2: I think he was getting a visit to, I don't know,
45:39
Speaker 2: wherever he sends up those penis rockets, I think. But
45:43
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. Check the facts on that. But yeah,
45:45
Speaker 2: there's sort of a despicable lack of kind of moral
45:50
Speaker 2: courage on the part of our wealthiest elites, something that
45:53
Speaker 2: has come up several times during this program. Pod Save
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48:10
Speaker 1: That's HIMS.com. It's been a week since Trump told reporters
48:13
Speaker 1: that his paramilitary squads would, quote, de-escalate a little bit
48:15
Speaker 1: after they killed two American citizens in Minneapolis. Since then,
48:39
Speaker 1: the president has called Alex Pretty an insurrectionist whose, quote,
48:43
Speaker 1: stock has gone way down and told reporters that he
48:46
Speaker 1: actually won't be pulling back the operation in Minnesota. A
48:49
Speaker 1: federal judge there also just declined to block Operation Metro Surge,
48:52
Speaker 1: at least for now. ICE, which had issued guidance earlier
48:56
Speaker 1: last week saying that they'd be returning to targeted enforcement operations,
49:00
Speaker 1: issued a new internal memo on Friday giving agents the
49:03
Speaker 1: green light to arrest people without a warrant. Then on Saturday,
49:07
Speaker 1: Trump was asked about his announcement that federal agents would
49:09
Speaker 1: only respond to protests in Democratic-led cities if they ask
49:13
Speaker 1: for help. Here's what he said. What did you mean
49:17
Speaker 1: when you said people will suffer an equal or greater consequence?
49:21
Speaker 6: If they do anything bad to our people, they will
49:25
Speaker 6: have to suffer.
49:27
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
49:28
Speaker 6: They will get taken care of in at least an
49:32
Speaker 6: equal way.
49:33
Speaker 5: You see it, the way they treat our people.
49:36
Speaker 6: And I said, you're allowed, if somebody does that, you
49:38
Speaker 6: can do something back. You're not going to stand there
49:41
Speaker 6: and take it.
49:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think they already know that. That's not
49:43
Speaker 1: how the justice system works. Yeah, they did murder two
49:46
Speaker 1: people in public. So I think they know that they
49:49
Speaker 1: can do whatever they want. I think you're thinking of
49:50
Speaker 1: the original. Yeah, that's the original.
49:52
Speaker 2: That's like, you know, that's justice classic.
49:59
Speaker 4: Old Testament justice. Another book he has not read, but yes.
50:02
Speaker 1: How are you guys feeling about the de-escalation? Or were
50:07
Speaker 1: you de-escalated?
50:07
Speaker 4: I interpret everything through the prism of Donald Trump his
50:11
Speaker 4: personal reaction to seeing things on cable TV that he
50:14
Speaker 4: does not like, uh, to the extent there are changes,
50:17
Speaker 4: it is to discourage that from happening again. Hopefully there's, uh,
50:21
Speaker 4: it creates improvements on the margins for communities affected, but
50:24
Speaker 4: I just, I have no hope for the underlying policy
50:26
Speaker 4: as long as Trump and Stephen Miller run in the show, unfortunately.
50:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
50:30
Speaker 2: We have Holman said there will be a reduction in forces.
50:32
Speaker 2: There's an objective way to know if they are pulling
50:34
Speaker 2: back and that's getting some of these people out of, uh, Minneapolis.
50:39
Speaker 2: And regardless, like I do think whatever they were planning
50:43
Speaker 2: to do after Minneapolis, I have to think that what
50:46
Speaker 2: has happened there and then Twin Cities has changed what
50:48
Speaker 2: was going.
50:49
Speaker 1: To happen next. Right. Because I mean, they did cancel Maine.
50:51
Speaker 1: They canceled Maine. They need that Senate seat, even though
50:53
Speaker 1: they all hate Susan Collins.
50:54
Speaker 2: And so Susan Collins got that word from Nome that
50:58
Speaker 2: they were going to pull out of, which they called,
50:59
Speaker 2: by the way, it was called catch of the day.
51:01
Speaker 6: Yeah.
51:01
Speaker 1: Disgusting.
51:02
Speaker 2: But whether there were rumors about them going to Philly
51:05
Speaker 2: and other places, we don't know. But it does seem
51:08
Speaker 2: like it has at least, whatever Trump says in the moment,
51:11
Speaker 2: as Tommy said, it's like they are at least aware
51:15
Speaker 2: that they need to change.
51:16
Speaker 1: The images on screen. Also, Kristi Noem just announced body cams.
51:21
Speaker 1: Everyone's going to get body cams. It's a good thing.
51:23
Speaker 1: They're trying to get ahead of this now that they've
51:26
Speaker 1: negotiated an extra two weeks over DHS funding. And one
51:31
Speaker 1: of the demands was body cams. Look, on the body
51:33
Speaker 1: cams thing, I'm like, great, fine, but... we have a
51:36
Speaker 1: lot of these, uh, we, a lot of this violence, um,
51:39
Speaker 1: killing and, uh, all kinds of other lawlessness by ice
51:43
Speaker 1: on video. And it doesn't seem to be working all
51:45
Speaker 1: that well. Um, since, uh, we barely got an investigation
51:49
Speaker 1: into Alex Preddy's death and, uh, the federal government has
51:53
Speaker 1: refused to open an investigation into Renee Good's, uh, death. So, uh,
51:57
Speaker 1: not great, but yeah, I mean, I think that, I
52:00
Speaker 1: think to me, this is like, keep up the pressure.
52:02
Speaker 5: Yeah. Right.
52:03
Speaker 1: Because they are, They are not going to do any
52:06
Speaker 1: of this on their own. When you do pressure them
52:09
Speaker 1: and you do make a big deal out of this,
52:11
Speaker 1: you do start getting some improvements on the margins and
52:15
Speaker 1: you can't let up because if you let up, they
52:17
Speaker 1: will just go right back to doing what they do. And,
52:20
Speaker 1: you know, all the pressure in the world is still
52:22
Speaker 1: not going to solve the problem, but at least it's
52:24
Speaker 1: going to make some improvements.
52:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also would say that body cams are also
52:29
Speaker 2: on when, would be on in places where people no
52:34
Speaker 2: longer have their phones. And so there was a report
52:38
Speaker 2: out of the Twin Cities about somebody that was brought
52:41
Speaker 2: to a hospital. He had terrible injuries to his face
52:45
Speaker 2: and injuries to his brain, like multiple fractures. And the
52:50
Speaker 2: federal agents claimed that he had run into a wall.
52:53
Speaker 2: The nurses and health providers denied that, didn't think that,
52:59
Speaker 2: or at least felt that seemed not credible, including someone else.
53:03
Speaker 2: They had not kept their story straight. And so we
53:05
Speaker 2: just have no idea what's going on behind closed doors.
53:08
Speaker 2: A lot of reports about what's happening in these detention
53:10
Speaker 2: facilities that are awful. And so, you know, look, body cams.
53:15
Speaker 4: Well, the body cams, you need like mandatory activation of
53:18
Speaker 4: the body cameras. You need some sort of like clear
53:21
Speaker 4: rules around retention of the footage and access to it.
53:25
Speaker 4: So like there's a lot of ways to kind of
53:26
Speaker 4: just slap a body cam on someone for it to
53:28
Speaker 4: mean nothing. I think that the results are mixed regardless,
53:31
Speaker 4: but At least there's transparency, hopefully, if done right.
53:34
Speaker 2: Well, to your point, no amount of reform, no protections
53:39
Speaker 2: will work if the federal agents know that their bosses
53:45
Speaker 2: will protect them even when they break the law, which
53:47
Speaker 2: is why you have them lying and why you can't
53:49
Speaker 2: trust what's coming out of ICE. You can't trust Nome. So, yeah,
53:53
Speaker 2: the main problem is, well, one major problem, regardless of
53:56
Speaker 2: what we get through law, is the fact that their
53:58
Speaker 2: leadership will defend these people, even if they commit terrible
54:00
Speaker 2: crimes against people.
54:02
Speaker 1: One piece of good news out of Minnesota is that
54:05
Speaker 1: five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian are back
54:08
Speaker 1: home with their mother and brother after a federal judge
54:11
Speaker 1: ordered them to be immediately released from a Texas detention
54:14
Speaker 1: facility in a scathing ruling that accused the government of cruelty, lawlessness,
54:18
Speaker 1: and traumatizing children. Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro, who had visited
54:22
Speaker 1: Liam and Adrian last week, personally accompanied them home. Unfortunately,
54:26
Speaker 1: Liam's case is in no way isolated. The New York
54:29
Speaker 1: Times reports over the weekend that at least 3,800 children
54:33
Speaker 1: under 18, including 20 infants, were arrested and detained by
54:37
Speaker 1: federal agents last year. Since March of last year, more
54:40
Speaker 1: than 1,700 children have been stuck in detention centers. What
54:44
Speaker 1: did you guys make of the judge's ruling and whether
54:46
Speaker 1: all of this might help other children who are being
54:48
Speaker 1: detained under just horrific conditions right now?
54:52
Speaker 4: I mean, I think all of us felt like this
54:55
Speaker 4: is one of the more sickening stories you've seen in
54:56
Speaker 4: a while. I thought Locals say ICE tried to use
54:59
Speaker 4: this kid as a bait. DHS was like attacking his
55:01
Speaker 4: father repeatedly. These are pending asylum claim. It sounds like
55:04
Speaker 4: these people are trying to come to the country the
55:06
Speaker 4: right way. Like Liam is out, thank God, because of
55:08
Speaker 4: a massive outcry and because of attention to his case.
55:11
Speaker 4: Like shout out to Congressman Castro. That's incredible what he did.
55:14
Speaker 4: Like exactly how you should be using your power in
55:17
Speaker 4: this moment to draw attention to issues and also like
55:19
Speaker 4: get change at the margins. But we can't replicate that
55:22
Speaker 4: in all these cases. And, you know, there's horror stories
55:25
Speaker 4: of people in detention centers. ICE or CBP detention in
55:27
Speaker 4: places all across the country. It's so fucked up that
55:30
Speaker 4: like they were picked up in Minnesota. They take them
55:33
Speaker 4: to Texas. Then they just, there's been releasing people in
55:35
Speaker 4: Texas who have no connections there. Like how the hell
55:38
Speaker 4: are you supposed to get back home?
55:39
Speaker 1: You're just a migrant. You have no money. You have
55:40
Speaker 1: no connections. You don't know anyone there. Maybe you don't
55:42
Speaker 1: have their phone. So I don't know.
55:44
Speaker 4: Like I, it's, I'm glad to see this little kid
55:46
Speaker 4: is out. God knows what trauma he's you know, will
55:51
Speaker 4: stick with him for life.
55:52
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, when Congressman Castro visited last week,
55:56
Speaker 1: his report after visiting to everyone was that Liam was depressed.
56:00
Speaker 1: He was sleeping the whole time he was there. He
56:02
Speaker 1: was sick. And now we find out that the Dilley
56:06
Speaker 1: Immigration Center in Texas, where Liam was being held, there's
56:09
Speaker 1: now a measles outbreak there. So it's real HHS and
56:13
Speaker 1: DHS really working together to fuck up the country on
56:16
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah.
56:17
Speaker 2: When Trump did family separation, like they never successfully reunited
56:22
Speaker 2: with hundreds of lots of kids, uh, uh, with their families.
56:26
Speaker 2: Like a lot of the stories we're hearing are from
56:29
Speaker 2: citizens whose spouses are non-citizens and they can, they're safely
56:32
Speaker 2: in the country. They can call lawyers, they can get help,
56:35
Speaker 2: but there are people that have no connections once they're
56:37
Speaker 2: picked up and they are just in the system silent.
56:39
Speaker 2: We have no idea what's going on with them. And, and,
56:41
Speaker 2: and we know that they're making mistakes, that they're, losing
56:45
Speaker 2: track of people, that they're not able to keep the records.
56:47
Speaker 2: I mean, they're standing up a mass deportation program as
56:50
Speaker 2: quickly as they can with a bunch of incompetent doofs
56:53
Speaker 2: on the ones and twos. So it's just an absolutely
56:55
Speaker 2: kind of, it's a mix of kind of cruelty and
56:57
Speaker 2: like the malevolence of it combined with just a kind
56:59
Speaker 2: of gross incompetence across the board, knowing that they will,
57:02
Speaker 2: that as long as the Republicans are in power, they
57:03
Speaker 2: will never face accountability for it.
57:05
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys caught the Star Tribune
57:06
Speaker 1: story about the conditions inside the Federal Attention Center in Minneapolis.
57:10
Speaker 1: I think it's Whipple. Whipple, yeah. You guys visited, right?
57:13
Speaker 1: But there are reports of one meal a day, overflowing toilets,
57:17
Speaker 1: denial of medical care, cells so crowded that people had
57:19
Speaker 1: to take turns lying down because it wasn't a room
57:21
Speaker 1: for everyone to sleep. And, you know, the Trump administration
57:24
Speaker 1: continues to try to ban lawmakers from surprise visits to
57:29
Speaker 1: detention centers. A judge once again just blocked that policy.
57:33
Speaker 1: Judges keep saying, no, the law says that they can
57:35
Speaker 1: go whenever they want. They're members of Congress and the
57:37
Speaker 1: Trump administration just pretends it's not the law. Because for
57:41
Speaker 1: what we were saying earlier, right, like There's no cameras
57:43
Speaker 1: inside there, right? No one's filming with their phones. There's
57:46
Speaker 1: no body cam. So we don't know what's happening in
57:48
Speaker 1: the detention centers. They're also buying up new warehouses all
57:51
Speaker 1: across the country because they want to build more of
57:53
Speaker 1: these detention centers. They're treating people like absolute fucking dog
57:56
Speaker 1: shit in there. I mean, I think 32 people died
57:59
Speaker 1: in ICE custody last year. 17 in Customs and Border
58:04
Speaker 1: Patrol custody. And in January alone of this year, six
58:06
Speaker 1: people have already died.
58:07
Speaker 2: There was that other case where the administration was claiming
58:09
Speaker 2: it was a suicide, but the evidence suggests it might
58:11
Speaker 2: not be a suicide.
58:15
Speaker 1: The coroner, right? The autopsy.
58:16
Speaker 2: The autopsy, yeah, that it wasn't a suicide. So we're
58:19
Speaker 2: not getting the truth out of these places. They want
58:21
Speaker 2: the notice because it's like a Jesus come and look
58:23
Speaker 2: busy situation. They want to have a chance to be
58:26
Speaker 2: ready for any inspections. And I just wonder if To
58:30
Speaker 2: people that would defend the administration on this, what if
58:32
Speaker 2: Cheesecake Factory announced that they'd only allow health inspectors with
58:35
Speaker 2: a week notice? Do you think that you would want
58:37
Speaker 2: to go eat there? No.
58:37
Speaker 4: And corporations are making a lot of money. I mean,
58:39
Speaker 4: the Financial Times reported that companies including Palantir and Deloitte
58:42
Speaker 4: have collectively made more than $ 22 billion in contracts at
58:47
Speaker 4: the heart of the ice crackdown.
58:49
Speaker 1: I think, like you said, Castro going, more Democrats should
58:53
Speaker 1: visit these detention centers. I think that is a good
58:56
Speaker 1: use of your power right now. So we haven't had
58:58
Speaker 1: a chance to talk about Trump's DOJ arresting Don Lemon
59:00
Speaker 1: on Friday, along with another independent journalist named Georgia Fort
59:04
Speaker 1: and several activists, all of whom were charged in connection
59:06
Speaker 1: with the January 18th anti-ice protest at a Minnesota church.
59:10
Speaker 1: You'll remember that both a magistrate judge and a federal
59:13
Speaker 1: judge refused to sign off on the government's initial attempt
59:16
Speaker 1: to get an arrest warrant for Lemon and his producer,
59:19
Speaker 1: with a federal judge ruling, quote, there is no evidence
59:22
Speaker 1: that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired
59:25
Speaker 1: to do so. But here we are. How big of
59:27
Speaker 1: a deal is this?
59:29
Speaker 2: When the Department of Justice is arresting people for doing journalism,
59:36
Speaker 2: using a kind of specious application of a law because
59:42
Speaker 2: the attorney general is a tool of the president. And
59:46
Speaker 2: regardless of whether the case is upheld, just trying to
59:48
Speaker 2: get a good news cycle to stay in his good graces.
59:50
Speaker 1: Like we are in.
59:52
Speaker 2: Such a dangerous place. Pam Bondi is just such an
59:56
Speaker 2: empty vessel. What a complete, like, moral evacue with just
1:00:00
Speaker 2: an empty, empty shell of a human being. And so
1:00:04
Speaker 2: you just look at what Pam Bondi is willing to
1:00:05
Speaker 2: do and just don't think there's a bottom. I think
1:00:07
Speaker 2: she's worried about public embarrassment. I think she's worried about
1:00:09
Speaker 2: what Trump thinks. I think she's worried about bad headlines.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: But she has no ethical compunctions. Nothing will stop her from.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: Doing something like this. Just like her friend and colleague,
1:00:18
Speaker 1: Kristi Noem. Yeah. He takes off. Steven Miller.
1:00:22
Speaker 4: That's why you pick a bunch of middling incompetent fucking
1:00:26
Speaker 4: mediocrities to run your I think it's a huge deal.
1:00:29
Speaker 4: Don Lemon might get out. A judge might toss this case.
1:00:33
Speaker 4: It's an obvious First Amendment violation, but the process is
1:00:36
Speaker 4: the punishment.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: It's scary. It's expensive. It's intimidating.
1:00:39
Speaker 4: And it's not happening in a vacuum. The feds raided
1:00:41
Speaker 4: a Washington Post reporter's house recently. They took our devices.
1:00:45
Speaker 4: The Pentagon is forcing its press corps to basically try
1:00:48
Speaker 4: to get them to sign rules that said they'd run
1:00:50
Speaker 4: stories by them before reporting. He's suing half the press corps.
1:00:55
Speaker 4: He's intimidating people to make better coverage. I mean, now
1:00:58
Speaker 4: the TikTok U.S. operations are owned by a bunch of
1:01:00
Speaker 4: Trump lackeys. Like, the state of the free press in
1:01:04
Speaker 4: this country is going in a bad direction.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: The indictment is ridiculous, too, because it's like, you know,
1:01:09
Speaker 1: basically what they have to prove, because they're charging the
1:01:11
Speaker 1: FACE Act, which says that you, it was originally for
1:01:15
Speaker 1: abortion clinics, for protesting outside abortion clinics, but it's also
1:01:17
Speaker 1: for churches as well, right? Like, you can't, and it says,
1:01:20
Speaker 1: it makes it a crime to use forced threats or
1:01:22
Speaker 1: physical obstruction to intentionally interfere with anyone seeking to exercise
1:01:25
Speaker 1: their right of religious freedom at a house of worship.
1:01:27
Speaker 1: or to intentionally damage the property, right? And so it's
1:01:31
Speaker 1: not trespassing, right? Like you have a trespassing case. If
1:01:34
Speaker 1: you say, okay, this is a private church. People came
1:01:36
Speaker 1: into the church. We told them to leave. They wouldn't leave. Trespassing.
1:01:38
Speaker 1: That's not what they're charging here. They're charging this, the
1:01:41
Speaker 1: face act, right? And so to make that stick, you
1:01:43
Speaker 1: have to, you can't say that Don Lemon just came
1:01:45
Speaker 1: into the church with the protesters. You have to say
1:01:48
Speaker 1: that Don Lemon was threatening and obstructing and all this
1:01:51
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And so they have these, the indictment
1:01:53
Speaker 1: reads like, and then he just starts like, peppering the
1:01:56
Speaker 1: pastor with questions, threateningly with the questions.
1:01:59
Speaker 2: He like menacingly puts his hand out.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: And the right, you know, I saw fucking Scott Jennings
1:02:03
Speaker 1: treated this, but he was like, oh, so Democrats position
1:02:06
Speaker 1: now is that if you are holding your phone up
1:02:09
Speaker 1: and filming something that you can break any law, because
1:02:11
Speaker 1: then you just call yourself a journalist. It's like, no. Oh,
1:02:14
Speaker 1: come on, man. That is so stupid. They were like,
1:02:17
Speaker 1: he shouldn't have just, he shouldn't have charged into the church.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: And it's like, again, there's like a, There's lesser charges
1:02:22
Speaker 1: and there's lesser things to do to someone who walk
1:02:23
Speaker 1: into a church who is clearly interviewing the pastor, the
1:02:27
Speaker 1: other people, everyone else. Just covering the protest. He was
1:02:30
Speaker 1: physically obstructing and threatening them.
1:02:32
Speaker 2: It's such a ridiculous defense because if Pam Bondi had
1:02:36
Speaker 2: not charged on them with this, it wouldn't be like
1:02:38
Speaker 2: he was on the outside being like, Pam Bondi should
1:02:40
Speaker 2: charge him with this. It would never have occurred to
1:02:41
Speaker 2: anyone a million years. Well, and the other thing is
1:02:43
Speaker 2: how many departments of justice, right? When a magistrate judge
1:02:47
Speaker 2: refused to issue the criminal warrant, And then it gets
1:02:50
Speaker 2: kicked up to a federal judge. First of all, what
1:02:53
Speaker 2: Department of Justice would say, oh, the magistrate judge said
1:02:55
Speaker 2: no arrest warrant? We really want to get this person.
1:02:58
Speaker 2: So we're going to go up and we're going to
1:03:00
Speaker 2: appeal it. So then they appeal it to a federal
1:03:01
Speaker 2: judge and the federal judge is like, no, there's no
1:03:03
Speaker 2: evidence for this whatsoever. And then the Department of Justice
1:03:06
Speaker 2: is like, fuck that federal judge. We're going to a
1:03:08
Speaker 2: grand jury where.
1:03:09
Speaker 1: We know we can get an indictment much easier because
1:03:12
Speaker 1: the defense doesn't have to– offer any kind of evidence whatsoever.
1:03:16
Speaker 1: You're not there for it. There's no judge there at all.
1:03:18
Speaker 1: So we'll go that route. Like that is the authoritarian
1:03:21
Speaker 1: nature of what they're doing, right? Like continuing to look
1:03:24
Speaker 1: for ways to arrest Don Lemon, even after multiple judges
1:03:27
Speaker 1: and federal prosecutors have quit over this, too. There's another
1:03:30
Speaker 1: eight federal prosecutors, by the way, who just broke before
1:03:33
Speaker 1: we recorded, who were in the Minnesota office who are
1:03:37
Speaker 1: quitting as well.
1:03:37
Speaker 2: It's the core. It's the core distinction. You find a
1:03:40
Speaker 2: crime and then you look for the person who perpetrated it.
1:03:43
Speaker 2: You don't find a person and then look for the
1:03:44
Speaker 2: crime that they committed. That is what they do. That
1:03:46
Speaker 2: is Pam Bondi's main role. I think it might have
1:03:48
Speaker 2: something to do with why the DOJ is having to
1:03:51
Speaker 2: recruit on Twitter now because every time they try to
1:03:54
Speaker 2: do one of these things, a bunch of people quit
1:03:56
Speaker 2: and they're trying to figure out how to replace career
1:03:58
Speaker 2: and seasoned professional prosecutors with fucking Bozo goons from the.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: Fucking law internet. If you're a blue check who's ever
1:04:04
Speaker 1: posted Pepe the Frog, come join the Department of Justice.
1:04:07
Speaker 1: We need you.
1:04:07
Speaker 2: And by the way, explicitly saying, if you support President
1:04:10
Speaker 2: Trump and our crime agenda, anti-crime agenda.
1:04:14
Speaker 3: Well, really, it is a crime agenda.
1:04:16
Speaker 1: I had to write the first time. But yeah, like
1:04:17
Speaker 1: just absolutely galling. Not to be outdone by Pam Bondi.
1:04:20
Speaker 1: Tulsi Gabbard is also out there trying to score points
1:04:22
Speaker 1: with Trump in the MAGA media world. Last week, Dan
1:04:25
Speaker 1: and I talked about the FBI raid on the Fulton
1:04:27
Speaker 1: County elections office in Georgia, where a photo showed Tulsi
1:04:30
Speaker 1: talking on the phone in a baseball cap. Real ominous.
1:04:35
Speaker 2: Real ominous seeing the head of national intelligence.
1:04:37
Speaker 4: It's like you're trying to be kind of, you're trying
1:04:39
Speaker 4: to hide, but you're not doing a very good job
1:04:41
Speaker 4: of it. Spy chief, like baseball hat, just stand in
1:04:44
Speaker 4: the picture.
1:04:44
Speaker 1: It's not that hard. So now we know the New
1:04:46
Speaker 1: York Times reports on Monday that the day after the raid,
1:04:49
Speaker 1: Tulsi facilitated a call between some of those same FBI
1:04:53
Speaker 1: agents and Donald Trump himself. They got a direct line
1:04:56
Speaker 1: right to the president. The call was short, according to
1:04:59
Speaker 1: a U.S. official who, quote, compared the conversation to a
1:05:02
Speaker 1: pep rally. or a coach giving an encouraging halftime speech
1:05:05
Speaker 1: to his players. Isn't that wonderful? It's not the only
1:05:09
Speaker 1: Gabbard story in the news, though. The Wall Street Journal
1:05:11
Speaker 1: reported on Monday that a U.S. intelligence official has filed
1:05:14
Speaker 1: a whistleblower complaint alleging wrongdoing on Gabbard's part that is
1:05:17
Speaker 1: supposedly so highly classified that the complaint is kept locked
1:05:21
Speaker 1: in a safe. And it allegedly implicates another federal agency
1:05:25
Speaker 1: as well. Who would like to take a stab at
1:05:28
Speaker 1: what the hell Tulsi Gabbard has been up to? Sure.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: I'd love to.
1:05:32
Speaker 4: So I think the key to understanding what Tulsi is
1:05:33
Speaker 4: doing up to in both these cases is if you
1:05:36
Speaker 4: think back to last year, March of 2025, Tulsi testifies
1:05:39
Speaker 4: for Congress and she says Iran has not decided to
1:05:41
Speaker 4: get a nuclear weapon. A few months later, Trump decides
1:05:44
Speaker 4: he wants to bomb anyway. He's asked about her comments
1:05:46
Speaker 4: and he says, I don't care what she thinks. A
1:05:48
Speaker 4: couple of days later, she revises her views so that
1:05:51
Speaker 4: the intelligence case matches Donald Trump's opinion. It's best practices
1:05:55
Speaker 4: in the world. Fast forward to January 1st, 2026, first
1:05:58
Speaker 4: day of this year. Tulsi posts a photo of herself
1:06:02
Speaker 4: on the beach in Hawaii doing yoga. And then two
1:06:04
Speaker 4: days later, the United States invades Venezuela. She was completely
1:06:07
Speaker 4: cut out of the planning of that operation. I think
1:06:10
Speaker 4: she's seen that she is like on the outs with Trump,
1:06:12
Speaker 4: doesn't want to get fired.
1:06:13
Speaker 2: Not much of a warrior pose.
1:06:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's hemorrhaged.
1:06:15
Speaker 1: When you think about it.
1:06:16
Speaker 4: She's hemorrhaged her policy principle. She was an anti-regime change person, right?
1:06:19
Speaker 4: That was her big thing. She served in Iraq, didn't
1:06:21
Speaker 4: want regime change wars, hence supporting Trump. Fine with those now.
1:06:25
Speaker 4: So now she's like, whatever. I do think there's a
1:06:27
Speaker 4: deep state. I'm fine being like.
1:06:28
Speaker 1: The fraud czar.
1:06:29
Speaker 4: The IG report thing is crazy. I think like my
1:06:34
Speaker 4: total speculation guess is that there's some intelligence that implicates
1:06:39
Speaker 4: someone close to Trump. Like a hypothetical one is you
1:06:42
Speaker 4: could imagine a whistleblower talking about Jared Kushner, who doesn't
1:06:46
Speaker 4: have a clearance, not part of the government, getting access
1:06:48
Speaker 4: to intelligence information or sharing intelligence information with foreign officials
1:06:53
Speaker 4: or Steve Witkoff for flying around the world and negotiating
1:06:57
Speaker 4: with Vladimir Putin on WhatsApp.
1:06:59
Speaker 1: Whatever the hell he's doing.
1:07:01
Speaker 4: And like the reason it could be so sensitive is
1:07:02
Speaker 4: maybe we learned about this through collection on the other countries.
1:07:07
Speaker 4: And it's so sensitive. I'm making all this up. Like
1:07:08
Speaker 4: this is just purely hypothetical, but it's really weird. It's
1:07:12
Speaker 4: really weird. And she has an obligation when there is
1:07:16
Speaker 4: a whistleblower complaint like this to brief it to Congress.
1:07:19
Speaker 4: And I think two weeks after receiving it and they
1:07:22
Speaker 4: haven't done that. And that's a huge breach.
1:07:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:07:24
Speaker 2: It's not an avocado. It's not like they're waiting for
1:07:25
Speaker 2: it to ripen. It's not like the information in that
1:07:28
Speaker 2: safe is getting less inconvenient for them. And what's strange
1:07:31
Speaker 2: in the story is you see that they're kind of
1:07:33
Speaker 2: trying to figure out a way around sharing some of it.
1:07:36
Speaker 2: They were flirting with talking about executive privilege and other
1:07:41
Speaker 2: ways of getting out of sharing all of it with Congress.
1:07:44
Speaker 2: But the lamentation, like, we don't know what to do
1:07:47
Speaker 2: with this thing.
1:07:48
Speaker 1: Follow the law.
1:07:49
Speaker 2: Show it to Congress.
1:07:50
Speaker 1: You don't have a choice. Also, just not for nothing,
1:07:53
Speaker 1: but the president of the United States talking through the
1:07:56
Speaker 1: intelligence director Directly to the FBI agents who participated in
1:08:02
Speaker 1: a raid on a county elections office in which the
1:08:06
Speaker 1: president himself has been implicated in a crime way back
1:08:12
Speaker 1: a couple seasons ago. Right. That he's now trying to
1:08:15
Speaker 1: cover up or do whatever.
1:08:18
Speaker 4: Imagine Avril Haines, Joe Biden's DNI, being at the Mar-a-Lago raid,
1:08:21
Speaker 4: tossing her phone on speaker and Joey gives an attaboy
1:08:24
Speaker 4: to the troops there, you know, raiding Melania's underwear drawer
1:08:27
Speaker 4: or whatever the fuck. Not even going through Cash Patel.
1:08:31
Speaker 4: They're just going right over the whole chain of command
1:08:33
Speaker 4: in the FBI. It's just the agents on the ground.
1:08:36
Speaker 4: Trump wants to because he's a he's like it's like
1:08:37
Speaker 4: a coach during halftime.
1:08:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's wishful thinking. Yeah, it's wishful thinking
1:08:41
Speaker 2: to think this is part of a cover up. I
1:08:42
Speaker 2: think there's sort of a drumming up of something new
1:08:44
Speaker 2: and fake.
1:08:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is about this.
1:08:46
Speaker 2: I think this is about future election theft, not past
1:08:49
Speaker 2: election theft.
1:08:49
Speaker 1: Well, it's both because for him, he wants us. We
1:08:52
Speaker 1: got to set the record straight about 2020 and we
1:08:54
Speaker 1: got to make some arrests. So then we can go
1:08:56
Speaker 1: to the future too. Yeah, you're right.
1:08:57
Speaker 4: He said something today to Dan Bongino, who was until
1:09:00
Speaker 4: recently the deputy director of the FBI about federalizing elections
1:09:05
Speaker 4: in 15 of the crooked states or something like that.
1:09:08
Speaker 4: So yeah, he's got it on the mind.
1:09:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's been on that beat. He's been on that beat.
1:09:11
Speaker 2: So yeah. They will take whatever they find. They will
1:09:14
Speaker 2: use it to claim that this is the reason they
1:09:17
Speaker 2: need some pretext for some some takeover.
1:09:19
Speaker 4: He said we should take over the voting in at
1:09:21
Speaker 4: least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting
1:09:23
Speaker 4: because we have states that are so crooked.
1:09:26
Speaker 1: Well, the worse the.
1:09:26
Speaker 2: Polling gets, I think the more animated they have.
1:09:28
Speaker 1: They have good reason to worry because on Saturday, Democrats
1:09:33
Speaker 1: flipped a Trump plus 17 state Senate seat in Texas,
1:09:38
Speaker 1: winning it by roughly 14 points. That is a 31
1:09:39
Speaker 1: point swing. The Democratic candidate, Taylor Remmitt, a union president
1:09:45
Speaker 1: and Air Force veteran, defeated the Trump-backed candidate, Lee Wamsgans.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: I know. Any relation?
1:09:50
Speaker 2: Tom Wamsgans. I saw the name Wamsgans. I was like,
1:09:53
Speaker 2: how is that even possible? That was a made-up comedy name.
1:09:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Dutch? It was a runoff for the 9th
1:10:00
Speaker 1: district around Fort Worth. Again, this is a state senate district,
1:10:02
Speaker 1: but about a million people in that district. So, big district.
1:10:06
Speaker 1: The day before and the day of the election, Trump
1:10:08
Speaker 1: had posted to Truth Social in support of Trump. Wamsgans
1:10:11
Speaker 1: giving her his cherished endorsement and calling her phenomenal and a, quote,
1:10:16
Speaker 1: true MAGA warrior. But here's how Trump reacted to her
1:10:19
Speaker 1: loss on Sunday.
1:10:21
Speaker 2: A Democrat won in a special election in an area
1:10:23
Speaker 2: that you had won by 17 points. What is your
1:10:26
Speaker 2: reaction to that?
1:10:27
Speaker 3: I don't know. I didn't hear about it.
1:10:28
Speaker 1: Somebody ran where?
1:10:29
Speaker 3: In Texas.
1:10:30
Speaker 6: A special election for a legislative seat.
1:10:32
Speaker 5: The ninth state Senate seat. I'm not involved in that.
1:10:34
Speaker 6: That's a local Texas race.
1:10:35
Speaker 1: You mean I won by 17?
1:10:37
Speaker 3: You did.
1:10:40
Speaker 5: And this person lost.
1:10:42
Speaker 3: Things like that happen.
1:10:44
Speaker 2: It's true.
1:10:45
Speaker 1: They do happen. Things do happen. It might happen a
1:10:46
Speaker 1: lot more. What do you guys think about the, a
1:10:49
Speaker 1: lot of hype around this? Overhyped? Underhyped? What do you think?
1:10:52
Speaker 2: I think, well, I saw people making a Senate map
1:10:54
Speaker 2: where if this, if we see, if we have a,
1:10:56
Speaker 2: Oh God, did they?
1:10:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, a Senate map.
1:10:57
Speaker 2: Where if there's a swing of 31 points or roughly
1:10:59
Speaker 2: 31 points, it would mean Democrats would be able to
1:11:02
Speaker 2: get to 59 or more, get to 60 Senate seats.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: So, I mean, Straightforward from here. Fun to think about.
1:11:08
Speaker 2: Look, I, whatever the implications of a specific special election
1:11:12
Speaker 2: at a moment of just absolute kind of Trump doldrums
1:11:16
Speaker 2: and sort of dissatisfaction in the country. And like the,
1:11:20
Speaker 2: the question I had about it was though, like, is
1:11:22
Speaker 2: there really something happening with like between Alex pretty, the
1:11:28
Speaker 2: anti second amendment stuff, the turn against ice, the lack
1:11:31
Speaker 2: of focus on affordability, the endless headlines about Trump taking
1:11:34
Speaker 2: over the Kennedy center and building arches. Like, is there
1:11:37
Speaker 2: something deeper happening? Like, is there an actual, weakness in his,
1:11:42
Speaker 2: not base of support, but whatever, the two columns over.
1:11:45
Speaker 2: Is that real and could it be lasting? Is this
1:11:47
Speaker 2: a low watermark or is it the beginning of a
1:11:50
Speaker 2: real unraveling? I just don't think we know.
1:11:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:11:52
Speaker 4: I was thrilled to see Tom Wamskans in Death by Lightning.
1:11:55
Speaker 4: which I watched one episode of.
1:11:56
Speaker 1: Isn't it great? It's about the president getting killed? Quite good, yeah. Garfield.
1:12:00
Speaker 2: But really, was it the doctors digging around in there?
1:12:03
Speaker 2: The doctors dug around in there. First episode.
1:12:07
Speaker 4: I talked to Bobby Polito about this race in the
1:12:10
Speaker 4: interview today. First of all, everyone check it out.
1:12:11
Speaker 1: He's really cool.
1:12:12
Speaker 4: He was in town to go to the Grammys. Because
1:12:14
Speaker 4: he was Grammy nominated.
1:12:15
Speaker 2: That's where the traffic comes in.
1:12:16
Speaker 1: Careful, that's where they get you. Don Lemon. Let's ask
1:12:18
Speaker 1: Don Lemon about that.
1:12:19
Speaker 4: Very interesting guy. Not your traditional congressional candidate. But like,
1:12:24
Speaker 4: you know, I was talking to him about his district and,
1:12:26
Speaker 4: you know, the gerrymander that's happened in Texas and whether
1:12:28
Speaker 4: he thinks that Republicans may have over-torqued it. And he
1:12:32
Speaker 4: feels pretty optimistic that they have over-assumed their ongoing support
1:12:38
Speaker 4: with Latino voters in particular.
1:12:39
Speaker 1: They are fucked.
1:12:40
Speaker 4: And this state Senate seat is one little indication of that,
1:12:44
Speaker 4: but there might be a broader set of numbers coming
1:12:47
Speaker 4: our way.
1:12:47
Speaker 1: At least three of the five seats that they squeezed
1:12:50
Speaker 1: out of there in their gerrymander, I think could be
1:12:53
Speaker 1: at risk now.
1:12:55
Speaker 2: Listen, I wanted to say that they've over-gerrymandered, then I
1:12:57
Speaker 2: was told that that was wishful thinking, and now it's
1:12:59
Speaker 2: back to not being just wishful thinking.
1:13:01
Speaker 1: Who's your straw man? Which mention are you yelling at?
1:13:03
Speaker 1: There was a consensus. Are you on a Peter Twinklish?
1:13:06
Speaker 1: Was it NIMBY Twitter?
1:13:07
Speaker 2: This is weeks ago, not NIMBY Twitter. Don't get me
1:13:10
Speaker 2: started on NIMBY Twitter. unbelievable what's happening with NIMBY Twitter
1:13:14
Speaker 2: here in Los Angeles. But the point I was making
1:13:15
Speaker 2: is only that I think are we back into saying
1:13:18
Speaker 2: that they may have over-gerrymandered, that it's back to being possible?
1:13:20
Speaker 2: Because it was seen as Pollyannish for a while.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying.
1:13:26
Speaker 3: It was.
1:13:27
Speaker 1: You were so right so early.
1:13:29
Speaker 3: I didn't know.
1:13:30
Speaker 2: I'm not saying I knew.
1:13:31
Speaker 1: To your point about something deeper happening. So this was
1:13:34
Speaker 1: a runoff, this election. The first election was in November.
1:13:38
Speaker 1: So the same district. And all the Republican candidates combined
1:13:43
Speaker 1: versus the Democratic candidates combined, it was GOP plus five.
1:13:47
Speaker 1: So that was good enough for Democrats. That was plus
1:13:51
Speaker 1: five in a Trump plus 17 district. And this was
1:13:54
Speaker 1: then 14 points. So there was another 20-point swing just
1:13:59
Speaker 1: between November and.
1:14:01
Speaker 1: What is it? February?
1:14:02
Speaker 4: And the Republican had way more money.
1:14:05
Speaker 1: Way outspent. And so now turnout was low, right? Turnout
1:14:09
Speaker 1: was about probably a third. Seven people. So it's about 100,000 voters.
1:14:14
Speaker 1: It's about a third of what you'll get maybe people
1:14:17
Speaker 1: in Texas who know this kind of stuff estimate for
1:14:20
Speaker 1: the midterms, about a third of what you'll get. And,
1:14:22
Speaker 1: you know, lower for a special. But. It wasn't low
1:14:25
Speaker 1: and then like highly concentrated Democrat. It was because about
1:14:30
Speaker 1: 50% plus of the voters were Republican primary voters. So
1:14:34
Speaker 1: that means that the Democrat won by a lot of
1:14:38
Speaker 1: Republicans or a lot of independents, especially, and some Republicans.
1:14:41
Speaker 1: deciding to change their votes, which is huge.
1:14:43
Speaker 4: Well, luckily today in the Texas Senate race, everything seems copacetic.
1:14:46
Speaker 4: Everyone involved in that.
1:14:47
Speaker 1: Primary is getting a little crazy. No one is posting videos.
1:14:52
Speaker 1: I think it's important to take random TikToks and then
1:14:54
Speaker 1: decide that they're gospel.
1:14:56
Speaker 4: For those who don't know what we're talking about, there
1:14:57
Speaker 4: seems to be some sort of beef between James Tallarico,
1:15:01
Speaker 4: the former candidate in the race.
1:15:02
Speaker 1: I don't know. And Colin Allred. Colin, who we really like.
1:15:05
Speaker 1: He's been on the show.
1:15:06
Speaker 4: Cool guy.
1:15:07
Speaker 1: I don't know what's happening down there.
1:15:08
Speaker 4: I wish they would just pick up the phone, talk
1:15:09
Speaker 4: on the phone.
1:15:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, one thing we should do is win the Texas
1:15:12
Speaker 1: Senate race. And so that's just something everyone should be
1:15:15
Speaker 1: thinking about. I'd love to. Or at least try. Try, right?
1:15:18
Speaker 1: We should try to win that race for sure. Maybe
1:15:19
Speaker 1: not throw the race before it happens. That's one thing
1:15:22
Speaker 1: that we should think about.
1:15:23
Speaker 2: I don't know.
1:15:24
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's just a thought. We do need it.
1:15:26
Speaker 1: We do need it. We'd really like to win that one.
1:15:28
Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
1:15:29
Speaker 3: We do.
1:15:29
Speaker 1: We need Texas. We need to get those electoral votes someday, too.
1:15:33
Speaker 2: Also, one day, one day, those Texas electoral votes are
1:15:36
Speaker 2: going to come along.
1:15:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Lucy with the football. And if they don't, there
1:15:39
Speaker 1: won't be a Democratic president.
1:15:40
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, hey, there won't be even if either way.
1:15:45
Speaker 1: So don't blame Texas.
1:15:47
Speaker 4: Speaking of Democratic presidents, as we were recording, Bill and
1:15:50
Speaker 4: Hillary Clinton agreed to testify in the House Oversight Committee's
1:15:52
Speaker 4: investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
1:15:54
Speaker 3: I heard that.
1:15:54
Speaker 1: I heard they rejected them.
1:15:56
Speaker 3: Now they don't want them.
1:15:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:15:57
Speaker 1: I heard they still want to. They want to go
1:15:59
Speaker 1: forward with contempt. It's like, hey, guys. Take a win.
1:16:04
Speaker 2: Can't you see you belong together? Also, by the way,
1:16:07
Speaker 2: James Comer, listen, I know it sounds like I'm a
1:16:09
Speaker 2: partisan Democrat, and I am, but how would some fucking
1:16:12
Speaker 2: inherent contempt feel right now, huh? Put a little pep
1:16:14
Speaker 2: in your step, huh, James Comer?
1:16:16
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's where they were headed.
1:16:17
Speaker 2: A couple of Sergeant R's.
1:16:18
Speaker 1: I'm sure maybe that's why they're rejecting it.
1:16:20
Speaker 2: Honestly, I don't know.
1:16:21
Speaker 1: Arrest them no matter what. They're going to show up
1:16:22
Speaker 1: at the hearing at the scheduled time in the scheduled room,
1:16:25
Speaker 1: and they're still going to arrest them.
1:16:26
Speaker 2: I don't like the cut of your jib.
1:16:27
Speaker 1: Arrest them.
1:16:28
Speaker 4: And then Trump's going to do a conference call with
1:16:30
Speaker 4: the whole room. Yeah, and Tulsi's going to be there. Anyway,
1:16:34
Speaker 4: when we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with
1:16:36
Speaker 4: congressional candidate Bobby Pulido.
1:16:48
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Speaker 2: Coach Kerr, we're going to talk to you.
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1:18:46
Speaker 4: He's a Latin Grammy winner and a Tejano music icon.
1:18:49
Speaker 4: currently running for Congress in Texas' 15th district. Welcome to
1:18:53
Speaker 4: Pod Save America, Bobby Pulido.
1:18:54
Speaker 1: Great to see you.
1:18:55
Speaker 3: Thank you.
1:18:55
Speaker 1: In person.
1:18:56
Speaker 3: Yes, in person. Yes, we were. Most people don't know
1:18:59
Speaker 3: what Tejano is. So if you're white or black and
1:19:04
Speaker 3: not Hispanic, you're like, what is that?
1:19:06
Speaker 1: Well.
1:19:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like Selena. So I tell everybody,
1:19:08
Speaker 3: it's what Selena did.
1:19:09
Speaker 4: I want to hear a lot more about the music
1:19:12
Speaker 4: piece of this. Because you're in town because you went
1:19:15
Speaker 4: to the Grammys last night in person in Los Angeles, right?
1:19:19
Speaker 3: Correct. I was nominated.
1:19:20
Speaker 1: How'd it go? I lost. I'm sorry. It happens. Is
1:19:23
Speaker 1: that okay?
1:19:24
Speaker 4: Is it just a thrill to be nominated?
1:19:26
Speaker 3: I've lost more than I've won. And I think most have.
1:19:30
Speaker 3: I mean, you saw most of these people. You see
1:19:33
Speaker 3: Lady Gaga going against Justin Bieber and other titans. Only
1:19:37
Speaker 3: one wins.
1:19:38
Speaker 1: Right.
1:19:38
Speaker 3: And so... So it's a very hard award to win.
1:19:42
Speaker 4: Do the competitive juices flow when you're up there?
1:19:46
Speaker 3: You know what? I won two Latin Grammys. Latin Grammys,
1:19:49
Speaker 3: which is not the American Grammy. And it's really more
1:19:52
Speaker 3: pressure when they expect you to win than when you're
1:19:55
Speaker 3: not expecting to win.
1:19:56
Speaker 1: Right, right.
1:19:57
Speaker 5: Right.
1:19:58
Speaker 3: Cause like, if you're not expected to win.
1:20:00
Speaker 1: Like who cares?
1:20:00
Speaker 3: Who cares? I wasn't supposed to win anyway.
1:20:02
Speaker 6: Right.
1:20:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:20:03
Speaker 3: But if you're supposed to win and you don't.
1:20:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
1:20:05
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:20:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:20:06
Speaker 4: There's no expectations. Like, you know, don't write a speech.
1:20:09
Speaker 4: You have a couple too many drinks. Then you have
1:20:10
Speaker 4: a good time when you get up there and, you know,
1:20:12
Speaker 4: kind of.
1:20:13
Speaker 1: It's work. See, okay.
1:20:15
Speaker 3: It's work.
1:20:16
Speaker 1: You were, we were chatting on the way in.
1:20:17
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:20:17
Speaker 4: You were telling me that no matter what the event is,
1:20:20
Speaker 4: it's work, but like, okay. So I didn't watch last
1:20:23
Speaker 4: night because I was dealing with a three-year-old and a one-year-old.
1:20:27
Speaker 3: Okay.
1:20:29
Speaker 4: I'm like a sporadic award show watcher. The ones where
1:20:33
Speaker 4: it's lots of long speeches.
1:20:34
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:20:34
Speaker 4: That seems very boring to me. But the Grammys, it's
1:20:36
Speaker 4: like a really cool, interesting concert every time.
1:20:41
Speaker 3: It was a good show. I liked it. I'm an
1:20:44
Speaker 3: old school guy, so I like the... Older artists, I
1:20:47
Speaker 3: don't really know the younger artists, right? So I really
1:20:51
Speaker 3: like seeing Lady Gaga. I thought she was great. You know,
1:20:54
Speaker 3: Bruno Mars, I thought that was great. Post Malone singing
1:20:59
Speaker 3: with Slash. That's cool.
1:21:01
Speaker 1: That is cool.
1:21:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's cool.
1:21:02
Speaker 1: They do a good job mixing, matching. Yeah, yeah.
1:21:06
Speaker 4: I hate that feeling, though, when all of a sudden
1:21:07
Speaker 4: you don't know what the kids are listening to. I
1:21:10
Speaker 4: feel like my brain, the older I get, is kind
1:21:11
Speaker 4: of like hardening. It's like getting new music in there
1:21:14
Speaker 4: until stick. I guess if you see someone in concert,
1:21:18
Speaker 4: like that's when you create an experience. I think that
1:21:20
Speaker 4: creates that like memory.
1:21:22
Speaker 3: But you know, there's so much talent, man. They're all talented.
1:21:24
Speaker 3: There's no slouches there. Everybody's good.
1:21:27
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:21:27
Speaker 1: And they work their asses off.
1:21:28
Speaker 3: That also too.
1:21:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:21:30
Speaker 1: A lot of, a lot of bloody fingertips on the
1:21:32
Speaker 1: guitar over.
1:21:33
Speaker 3: Yeah. Lots of hours of practice and stuff, but people
1:21:35
Speaker 3: don't realize like how, how hard it is to walk
1:21:39
Speaker 3: and to be in an award ceremony with your wife.
1:21:41
Speaker 1: Why is that?
1:21:43
Speaker 3: Because she's got to wear high heels because that's what
1:21:45
Speaker 3: they say that looks good. But she's got to walk
1:21:47
Speaker 3: like 10,000 miles, right, that day. Yeah. And she's complaining
1:21:50
Speaker 3: and she's in pain.
1:21:52
Speaker 1: I would be.
1:21:52
Speaker 3: I mean, it's work.
1:21:55
Speaker 1: Do you wear boots?
1:21:56
Speaker 3: I wear boots and a hat and all leather.
1:21:58
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:21:59
Speaker 3: Like the S & M version of a cowboy.
1:22:03
Speaker 4: Which that is exactly what we need, I think, to
1:22:05
Speaker 4: win a congressional seat in Texas.
1:22:08
Speaker 3: All right.
1:22:08
Speaker 1: Let's talk some politics.
1:22:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:22:10
Speaker 4: A Democrat just won a major special election victory in
1:22:12
Speaker 4: Texas over the weekend. They flipped a Texas Senate district
1:22:16
Speaker 4: that Trump won by 17 points in 2024. And I
1:22:20
Speaker 4: think this was against like a much better funded opponent, right?
1:22:23
Speaker 4: On the Republican side.
1:22:23
Speaker 1: Yes, correct. What do you think happened in like.
1:22:26
Speaker 4: Is it irresponsible to read tea leaves and try to
1:22:29
Speaker 4: divine what this says about 2026?
1:22:31
Speaker 3: I think a little bit of both. There is, it's
1:22:34
Speaker 3: good news.
1:22:35
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:22:36
Speaker 3: It really is. Because I mean, Trump won my district
1:22:39
Speaker 3: by 17.9 points.
1:22:40
Speaker 1: Oh, interesting. Wow.
1:22:41
Speaker 5: Right?
1:22:41
Speaker 3: So don't think for a minute I wasn't looking at
1:22:43
Speaker 3: this and going like, okay, I want to see how
1:22:45
Speaker 3: this goes.
1:22:45
Speaker 1: You're like, here's that. 9.
1:22:46
Speaker 3: I did not expect him to win by 14 points.
1:22:51
Speaker 3: I thought he may eke it out. This is a
1:22:54
Speaker 3: big deal. And then if you look in the Hispanic districts,
1:22:59
Speaker 3: he overperformed Kamala by 40 to 50 points.
1:23:01
Speaker 6: What?
1:23:01
Speaker 3: What?
1:23:01
Speaker 1: 40 to 50?
1:23:04
Speaker 3: Yes.
1:23:04
Speaker 1: Wow. Yes.
1:23:06
Speaker 3: So in the Fort Worth areas. So this is, it
1:23:13
Speaker 3: was very surprising. I was very shocked and very encouraged.
1:23:17
Speaker 3: And I'm not surprised to be honest with you from
1:23:19
Speaker 3: what I'm seeing on the ground, even where I am.
1:23:21
Speaker 4: Well, so let's talk about that.
1:23:22
Speaker 1: So you're running for the 15th district.
1:23:25
Speaker 4: For those who don't have a map ready in their brain,
1:23:28
Speaker 4: it's like, It's as far south as you can get
1:23:31
Speaker 4: in Texas, right?
1:23:32
Speaker 1: Right on the border.
1:23:33
Speaker 4: And then it goes, shoots up and then kind of
1:23:35
Speaker 4: east of San Antonio. Is that the new map?
1:23:36
Speaker 3: That's correct. They gerrymandered it.
1:23:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk about that.
1:23:40
Speaker 4: So Wikipedia tells me the district is 80% Latino.
1:23:42
Speaker 1: Is that right?
1:23:43
Speaker 2: Yep.
1:23:43
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you, Wikipedia.
1:23:45
Speaker 4: You got parts of the Rio Grande Valley where Democrats
1:23:47
Speaker 4: got crushed in 24, right?
1:23:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, no. You're touching.
1:23:54
Speaker 3: There's the, yeah, there's a caveat, right?
1:23:56
Speaker 1: Tell me the caveat.
1:23:57
Speaker 3: Well, they, they gerrymandered it to make it seem like
1:24:00
Speaker 3: South Texas was red, but in our, our elected representative
1:24:04
Speaker 3: right now, Monica de la Cruz has never won the Valley.
1:24:06
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:24:06
Speaker 3: She's never won South Texas. Um, even with the Trump wave,
1:24:10
Speaker 3: she lost.
1:24:11
Speaker 1: Oh, right. Okay. Right.
1:24:11
Speaker 3: So, so where she did is she picks up the
1:24:14
Speaker 3: margins up in the Northern and just blows it out
1:24:16
Speaker 3: like 80, 20, and that gave her the win.
1:24:19
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:24:20
Speaker 4: Well, so, but just on the South Texas piece, there
1:24:22
Speaker 4: was that big swing, right?
1:24:23
Speaker 3: There was.
1:24:24
Speaker 1: To Trump.
1:24:24
Speaker 3: There was a huge swing.
1:24:25
Speaker 1: Why do you think that was? What happened?
1:24:29
Speaker 3: I think the candidate didn't resonate with him. And I think,
1:24:32
Speaker 3: I hate to play into our own stereotypes as Hispanics,
1:24:35
Speaker 3: but I think since I'm a Hispanic, I'm Latino, I
1:24:38
Speaker 3: can do it.
1:24:38
Speaker 1: Say whatever you want.
1:24:40
Speaker 3: If there's a stereotype that fits us is we're very
1:24:43
Speaker 3: aspirational people, right?
1:24:45
Speaker 1: Right.
1:24:46
Speaker 3: The reason why a lot of Latinos come to the
1:24:48
Speaker 3: United States is for a chance to work and actually
1:24:51
Speaker 3: make it. I think if you think most about Hispanics,
1:24:54
Speaker 3: they're hardworking, very family-oriented. And they come normally from countries
1:24:59
Speaker 3: that if you work really hard, you get nowhere. Nobody
1:25:02
Speaker 3: wants to come over here and work really hard and
1:25:05
Speaker 3: get nowhere. And that's where we are right now. So
1:25:08
Speaker 3: a lot of people in the Hispanic community were saying, like,
1:25:11
Speaker 3: we voted for Trump because we thought I could work
1:25:13
Speaker 3: hard and actually do something. So it's economic, it's a
1:25:17
Speaker 3: big thing. And then you tack on this, the cruelty
1:25:19
Speaker 3: that's going on right now, the fear with the raids
1:25:23
Speaker 3: and things like that, that is also affecting the economy,
1:25:27
Speaker 3: then there's a huge, huge backlash against it.
1:25:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you're making important points here, which is like,
1:25:32
Speaker 4: I think for someone who's a political obsessive like me,
1:25:35
Speaker 4: I think of Trump, the candidate, but a lot of
1:25:37
Speaker 4: people still think of the businessman.
1:25:39
Speaker 1: The reality show.
1:25:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, the billionaire, the billionaire.
1:25:41
Speaker 1: You wanna be rich, right?
1:25:42
Speaker 3: Wanna be rich, give me some of that, right?
1:25:44
Speaker 4: When you're doing town halls, what are you hearing about?
1:25:48
Speaker 4: And then secondarily, what's the conversation about border security and
1:25:53
Speaker 4: immigration policy like today as compared to maybe a year ago?
1:25:57
Speaker 3: I think it depends. I've already visited all 11 counties.
1:26:00
Speaker 3: I'm not even in my primary yet.
1:26:02
Speaker 1: So you're working. You're out there.
1:26:03
Speaker 3: I've been busting my butt, man. My wife is the
1:26:07
Speaker 3: best person in the world because when you retail campaign,
1:26:12
Speaker 3: it's the most time-consuming type of campaigning. you're actually grassroots
1:26:17
Speaker 3: on the ground meeting voters. That's what we're doing, taking
1:26:20
Speaker 3: their questions. And look, it depends because in the Rio
1:26:24
Speaker 3: Grande Valley, immigration is a big deal because we're in
1:26:27
Speaker 3: a community where 35 or 40% of the people speak Spanish.
1:26:31
Speaker 3: And when you see that the administration is racial profiling
1:26:36
Speaker 3: also based on language, that's a problem. In a community
1:26:39
Speaker 3: with a lot of people who speak Spanish and you know, so.
1:26:44
Speaker 3: It affects our businesses. We get a lot of, we've
1:26:47
Speaker 3: always historically depended a lot of tourism for Mexico. And
1:26:50
Speaker 3: right now, tourists don't feel welcome. And so they're not
1:26:53
Speaker 3: coming and spending their money like they should. You know,
1:26:56
Speaker 3: especially the dollar keeps declining.
1:26:57
Speaker 1: It's bad.
1:26:58
Speaker 3: The peso should be really good. They should be coming
1:27:01
Speaker 3: in droves.
1:27:01
Speaker 1: Right.
1:27:02
Speaker 3: And so the economy is not doing well. And there's
1:27:05
Speaker 3: going to be a big backlash about it.
1:27:06
Speaker 4: Well, the good news is we also pissed off the Canadians.
1:27:09
Speaker 4: So they're also not visiting.
1:27:10
Speaker 3: Not just the Canadians. We pissed off every ally we've
1:27:12
Speaker 3: ever had.
1:27:13
Speaker 1: We're working on pissing off most of NATO. Right.
1:27:15
Speaker 3: The European Union.
1:27:17
Speaker 4: Not a lot of flights from Greenland these days, I'm guessing.
1:27:19
Speaker 3: No, I don't think so.
1:27:20
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:27:21
Speaker 4: Well, I do want to ask you about the economics
1:27:24
Speaker 4: of this ICE crackdown. Because, I mean, I'm reading articles
1:27:28
Speaker 4: about kids who haven't gone to school in a month. Correct.
1:27:32
Speaker 2: That's right.
1:27:32
Speaker 4: Families who can't go to a job site. I know
1:27:34
Speaker 4: someone here in L.A. whose husband was picked up and
1:27:38
Speaker 4: detained for hours when he was trying to work a
1:27:40
Speaker 4: construction job.
1:27:41
Speaker 3: That's right.
1:27:41
Speaker 4: And then, you know, he just, like, didn't have his
1:27:43
Speaker 4: papers on him. But then he didn't go to work
1:27:46
Speaker 4: that day, right? And it flipped out everyone around him.
1:27:48
Speaker 3: That's right.
1:27:48
Speaker 4: So it's like, what are you seeing in terms of
1:27:50
Speaker 4: the economic impact?
1:27:51
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a huge deal. I mean, look, the builder
1:27:53
Speaker 3: community right now is struggling big time. Think about it
1:27:57
Speaker 3: like this, right? We talked about the aspirational nature of
1:28:00
Speaker 3: who we are.
1:28:00
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
1:28:01
Speaker 3: We're always trying to work. So a lot of these
1:28:03
Speaker 3: construction owners of these construction companies, this is the first
1:28:06
Speaker 3: generation where they're actually making money. Because before them, they
1:28:11
Speaker 3: were busy trying to do the work.
1:28:13
Speaker 1: Right, right.
1:28:14
Speaker 3: Or their parents were. And they wanted them to now
1:28:16
Speaker 3: get out of that. And so now when they're starting
1:28:20
Speaker 3: to get there, they don't have a workforce.
1:28:23
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:28:23
Speaker 3: And what do you do about that?
1:28:24
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the problem. Right.
1:28:26
Speaker 3: And they get really angry because people say, just hire
1:28:29
Speaker 3: American labor. It's like I'm putting ads out. Nobody wants
1:28:32
Speaker 3: to work those jobs or they don't know how to
1:28:34
Speaker 3: work those jobs.
1:28:35
Speaker 1: Right.
1:28:35
Speaker 3: So what do you do once business slows and construction slows?
1:28:41
Speaker 3: construction is houses get more expensive. Right. And then realtors
1:28:44
Speaker 3: get mad because they don't have enough things to sell.
1:28:47
Speaker 3: And so it's just a domino effect business wise, which
1:28:51
Speaker 3: historically the Chamber of Commerce vote tends to lean Republican.
1:28:55
Speaker 3: And right now they're very angry about this because. It hasn't.
1:28:58
Speaker 3: And us as Democrats, Tommy, we haven't been really good
1:29:03
Speaker 3: salesmen of ourselves on economics. When you go just look
1:29:07
Speaker 3: at our economic history, Democrats have always been better on
1:29:10
Speaker 3: the economy. Historically, I mean, we've always been better and
1:29:15
Speaker 3: we just don't sell ourselves that way. And people think Republicans, oh,
1:29:18
Speaker 3: successful businessman and they're better for the economy. And that's
1:29:21
Speaker 3: just not true.
1:29:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder whether it is.
1:29:23
Speaker 4: It's just sort of a Cut taxes, you know, equals
1:29:26
Speaker 4: good business in people's minds.
1:29:28
Speaker 1: I'm wondering where this disconnect comes from. You know what?
1:29:30
Speaker 3: That equals deficits.
1:29:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:29:32
Speaker 3: That's why we're in debt. Right, right.
1:29:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, our kids' kids will be hanging out.
1:29:36
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And it's because of Republicans, to be
1:29:39
Speaker 3: honest with you.
1:29:39
Speaker 1: Well, look, I agree with you on that.
1:29:41
Speaker 4: Joe Biden, he handled inflation, I think, better than a
1:29:45
Speaker 4: lot of countries did, but it wasn't good enough for people.
1:29:48
Speaker 1: Correct, correct.
1:29:48
Speaker 3: Well, we printed a lot of money.
1:29:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we printed a lot of money.
1:29:52
Speaker 4: But also, you know, I think immigration was also a
1:29:54
Speaker 4: big driver of votes against Biden's last cycle. And, you know, look,
1:29:57
Speaker 4: I'm not a fan of Governor Abbott, as you might guess.
1:30:01
Speaker 3: Me neither.
1:30:01
Speaker 1: Texas governor. We agree. He seems like not the nicest guy.
1:30:04
Speaker 4: But I think politically speaking, he did have an enormous
1:30:07
Speaker 4: impact on the national debate about immigration through this sort
1:30:12
Speaker 4: of sustained busing of individuals. And so, like, early on,
1:30:15
Speaker 4: I think people probably remember Ron DeSantis flies a bunch
1:30:18
Speaker 4: of people to Martha's Vineyard. it was so obviously a
1:30:20
Speaker 4: stunt and so obviously shitty that there was a backlash,
1:30:24
Speaker 4: but the busing was just relentless. And again, like treating
1:30:29
Speaker 4: someone like a political prop or pawn, I think is
1:30:32
Speaker 4: like morally wrong.
1:30:33
Speaker 1: Agreed.
1:30:34
Speaker 4: But there's another piece of this. It's like, well, okay,
1:30:36
Speaker 4: why do just border communities need to shoulder the economic
1:30:41
Speaker 4: and kind of social burden of having a bunch of
1:30:44
Speaker 4: people in their communities? I'm just wondering if you could
1:30:47
Speaker 4: like talk about how people you knew felt at the
1:30:51
Speaker 4: end of the Biden days.
1:30:52
Speaker 1: And that conversation has changed.
1:30:54
Speaker 3: I think what it was is, is there was a
1:30:56
Speaker 3: disappointment that for three years, he didn't go there and
1:31:01
Speaker 3: didn't address the problem in year four. Um, actually James
1:31:06
Speaker 3: Langford had a deal negotiated, right. That Trump eventually killed
1:31:11
Speaker 3: because he wanted to win.
1:31:12
Speaker 1: Right.
1:31:12
Speaker 3: And so we didn't really do a good enough job
1:31:15
Speaker 3: educating people on, on how, They themselves also had a
1:31:19
Speaker 3: hand in this, but it took too long. So, you know,
1:31:24
Speaker 3: you got to understand in South Texas, there's a lot
1:31:25
Speaker 3: of border patrol agents and they vote and so do
1:31:27
Speaker 3: their families. And they felt, I mean, I have friends
1:31:31
Speaker 3: and family in border patrol and they felt that they
1:31:33
Speaker 3: had been, they didn't sign up for necessarily for processing
1:31:38
Speaker 3: people because that's what it was becoming with the asylum seekers.
1:31:44
Speaker 3: And they're like, I signed up to patrol the border
1:31:46
Speaker 3: not to be processing people, right? Because that's all they
1:31:50
Speaker 3: were doing was just processing. And then the people would
1:31:52
Speaker 3: fly to wherever they wanted to fly. And that created
1:31:55
Speaker 3: a lot of resentment. It really did. And I don't
1:31:59
Speaker 3: want to ever sound like inhumane about that because that's
1:32:02
Speaker 3: people's spirit. They always want to look for a better life.
1:32:05
Speaker 3: That's natural. That's a part of what our ancestors would
1:32:10
Speaker 3: have done for us. But it took four years for
1:32:13
Speaker 3: him to sign an executive order, which in year four,
1:32:17
Speaker 3: That immigration slowed down considerably because he addressed it, which
1:32:22
Speaker 3: just took too long.
1:32:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it took way too long.
1:32:24
Speaker 4: No, but I think you're making an important point, which
1:32:25
Speaker 4: is like, I think it's important to hear from people
1:32:28
Speaker 4: like you who live in these communities and know friends
1:32:30
Speaker 4: and just understand how complicated things are, right?
1:32:33
Speaker 5: Yes.
1:32:34
Speaker 4: You have a bunch of friends in Border Patrol.
1:32:35
Speaker 1: I do. They're good people. They are. They're not trying
1:32:37
Speaker 1: to harm anyone. No.
1:32:39
Speaker 4: We're all horrified by what's happening with ICE. Uh, the,
1:32:43
Speaker 4: the video of the murder of Alex Preddy by two guys, horrifying, right?
1:32:48
Speaker 3: Horrifying.
1:32:48
Speaker 4: And then ProPublica just, uh, published their names. It seems
1:32:52
Speaker 4: like the two men are Latino and they end up
1:32:55
Speaker 4: killing a, uh, a white protester, which I think is
1:32:59
Speaker 4: just the perfect example of like the scrambled racial politics
1:33:02
Speaker 4: of all of this, right? Because these guys are like,
1:33:06
Speaker 4: at a organization that is recruiting people with white nationalist
1:33:09
Speaker 4: imagery run by Stephen Miller, who is an out and
1:33:12
Speaker 4: out racist. And it's just like, nothing is what you'd expect.
1:33:15
Speaker 4: And I think we all need to get comfortable with
1:33:17
Speaker 4: the complexity, you know?
1:33:18
Speaker 3: I agree, Tommy, but I also don't feel like, I
1:33:22
Speaker 3: feel like we're putting a lot of emphasis on ice
1:33:25
Speaker 3: and not emphasis on this administration, right? People like right now,
1:33:31
Speaker 3: ice is the boogeyman. Last night at the Grammys, everybody was,
1:33:34
Speaker 3: ICE out and F ICE. ICE has always existed, right?
1:33:40
Speaker 3: Whatever you want to call it, we need a force
1:33:41
Speaker 3: to get rid of bad actors in our country that
1:33:45
Speaker 3: are criminals and bad people. You need that. You can't
1:33:48
Speaker 3: not have that. But I think when we just make
1:33:51
Speaker 3: a focus about ICE, we take off the focus on
1:33:54
Speaker 3: this administration that's actually using them in that manner, right?
1:34:01
Speaker 4: The political decisions driving how they act.
1:34:03
Speaker 3: That's the problem, right? It's when they tell them and
1:34:05
Speaker 3: they go berate them in the White House and say,
1:34:07
Speaker 3: get me 3,000 people, right? Now you're forcing them to
1:34:11
Speaker 3: be overly aggressive to meet quota numbers. That's very different
1:34:15
Speaker 3: than saying how they campaigned, we're going to go get
1:34:17
Speaker 3: out the bad people. That's just not what they're doing.
1:34:20
Speaker 1: That's absolutely right.
1:34:21
Speaker 3: And so those are two separate things where you say, hey,
1:34:24
Speaker 3: go get out the bad people. Nobody's going to tell
1:34:26
Speaker 3: you you can't do that. But when you're deporting gardeners
1:34:30
Speaker 3: and grandmas, Right. And then you go in and you
1:34:34
Speaker 3: and you're violating constitutional rights. You know, Fourth Amendment, just
1:34:40
Speaker 3: like crazy. This is this is not who we are.
1:34:44
Speaker 3: We can't be that.
1:34:45
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:34:45
Speaker 3: And we have to call the administration out on it
1:34:48
Speaker 3: because it's easy. They're going to just go, well, it's
1:34:50
Speaker 3: ISIS fault. Yeah, that's the boogeyman. No, it's you.
1:34:53
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:34:54
Speaker 3: Right. It's Stephen Miller. It's Donald Trump. It's the people
1:34:58
Speaker 3: that are enabling them. That who that's who has to
1:35:01
Speaker 3: be called out. And we can't give them a pass.
1:35:03
Speaker 4: So it doesn't sound like you're in the kind of
1:35:05
Speaker 4: abolish ice camp of the solution to this problem.
1:35:08
Speaker 3: Look, it's been branded really poorly now. I don't know.
1:35:11
Speaker 3: It's a bad, it's got, you know, you give love
1:35:14
Speaker 3: a bad name. You give ice a bad name. Well,
1:35:16
Speaker 3: they did. But, but you got to have some type of,
1:35:21
Speaker 3: of administrative arm to get rid of the bad people
1:35:24
Speaker 3: that I'm, I'm for that. I don't think anybody's going
1:35:26
Speaker 3: to disagree with that.
1:35:28
Speaker 1: Right.
1:35:29
Speaker 3: Because there are bad people in every, in every walk
1:35:31
Speaker 3: of life. But the way they're doing it, I think
1:35:35
Speaker 3: that's where it's bad. And I'll tell you, look, last
1:35:38
Speaker 3: night was a room of people in the industry, right?
1:35:42
Speaker 3: And artists, we're emotional, man. We pour our heart out
1:35:47
Speaker 3: in the music, right? And so we are probably more
1:35:50
Speaker 3: emotional than most. But most Americans, especially in I live,
1:35:54
Speaker 3: I live in a rural district. People aren't exactly that emotional.
1:35:57
Speaker 3: They're more, okay, let's reason with this. Let's find some
1:36:01
Speaker 3: common sense solutions to this. And I want to caution,
1:36:06
Speaker 3: you know, because I kind of, I come from both worlds.
1:36:09
Speaker 3: I live in a rural area and I'm in an
1:36:13
Speaker 3: industry that's very, very much emotional. And we kind of
1:36:16
Speaker 3: have a blend of it and say like, yeah, I
1:36:20
Speaker 3: don't think abolishing is the right word. I know that's
1:36:24
Speaker 3: the emotional response to it because of what we're seeing
1:36:27
Speaker 3: and it's tragic and I hate it. I hate it
1:36:29
Speaker 3: as much as, believe me, with every fiber of my
1:36:31
Speaker 3: soul But we have to be smart on how to
1:36:34
Speaker 3: point them out and let people know why we got here.
1:36:38
Speaker 3: And we got here because we were sold a bill
1:36:39
Speaker 3: of goods and we voted for the wrong person. Not we.
1:36:43
Speaker 3: I did not vote for that. What I'm saying is
1:36:45
Speaker 3: as a community.
1:36:46
Speaker 1: As a country.
1:36:46
Speaker 3: As a country.
1:36:47
Speaker 1: No, I agree with you.
1:36:47
Speaker 4: Look, obviously Trump and Stephen Miller are the drivers of this.
1:36:50
Speaker 4: I think where I kind of personally land is. Blaming
1:36:53
Speaker 4: ICE is almost too simplistic. Like CBP, obviously, has been
1:36:57
Speaker 4: a huge problem here.
1:36:57
Speaker 1: It needs reforms there. It needs reforms of ICE.
1:36:59
Speaker 4: I also think the Department of Homeland Security is a
1:37:02
Speaker 4: complete and total fucking disaster. We created it after 9-11
1:37:05
Speaker 4: in this climate of fear. And we made securitized all
1:37:09
Speaker 4: these functions that maybe would be better in the Department
1:37:12
Speaker 4: of Justice or other places. So there's a broader rethinking
1:37:15
Speaker 4: that needs to happen. But it's probably bigger than just
1:37:17
Speaker 4: ICE in my view.
1:37:18
Speaker 3: I agree.
1:37:19
Speaker 1: It is.
1:37:20
Speaker 3: I mean, you see the Secretary of Homeland Defense. it
1:37:23
Speaker 3: looks like it's Halloween every time she comes out. She
1:37:26
Speaker 3: had a different outfit, you know, cosplaying is different things.
1:37:29
Speaker 3: I just don't see like, that's not, it's ridiculous.
1:37:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:37:33
Speaker 3: It's not serious.
1:37:33
Speaker 1: It's not a, not a great run organization.
1:37:36
Speaker 4: Let me ask you about, uh, Texas doing this mid
1:37:39
Speaker 4: decade redistricting. Uh, the conversation in Washington is often like,
1:37:43
Speaker 4: how does this impact the balance of power?
1:37:45
Speaker 6: Right.
1:37:45
Speaker 4: The number of seats are Democrats, Republicans. How do human
1:37:48
Speaker 4: beings in Texas feel about having this forced on them?
1:37:51
Speaker 1: Do they know, do they care?
1:37:53
Speaker 3: A lot of people don't even know. It's amazing how
1:37:57
Speaker 3: many people have no idea. I still, to this day,
1:37:59
Speaker 3: ask people, people in the Rio Grande Valley tell me, hey,
1:38:02
Speaker 3: am I in your district now? They know there was
1:38:04
Speaker 3: a change, but they didn't really know. A lot of
1:38:07
Speaker 3: people didn't know what was going on. I sure as
1:38:10
Speaker 3: hell did when I was keeping an eye on it
1:38:13
Speaker 3: when they were doing this. And I'll tell you, Tommy,
1:38:16
Speaker 3: from my perspective, I looked at this and went, they're
1:38:20
Speaker 3: assuming they're going to win those five seats because And
1:38:22
Speaker 3: they're also assuming that they're gonna keep everything that they have.
1:38:26
Speaker 3: And from my perspective, I'm like, no, you're not. not
1:38:30
Speaker 3: if i have something to say about.
1:38:31
Speaker 4: It you think this is a mistake do you think
1:38:33
Speaker 4: they kind of there's like the dummy mander right where oh.
1:38:35
Speaker 3: Absolutely oh oh yeah look i was a political science
1:38:40
Speaker 3: major in college and so i The nerd in me
1:38:43
Speaker 3: comes out sometimes. I try to keep it suppressed.
1:38:46
Speaker 1: You're in the right place, man.
1:38:47
Speaker 3: I try to keep it suppressed, right? But you look
1:38:49
Speaker 3: at it and you say, okay, everybody went on 2024
1:38:52
Speaker 3: Trump numbers, which is what they did. But we went on,
1:38:56
Speaker 3: we went and researched 2022 numbers, which is a Biden midterm,
1:38:59
Speaker 3: which favors Republicans in the opposite party is in power.
1:39:04
Speaker 3: And there was a candidate named Rochelle Garza from Brownsville,
1:39:07
Speaker 3: Texas that ran against Ken Paxton for attorney general. She
1:39:12
Speaker 3: lost my district by less than one point. That's not
1:39:17
Speaker 3: that red.
1:39:17
Speaker 6: No, no.
1:39:18
Speaker 3: That's a little red.
1:39:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right?
1:39:20
Speaker 3: Now, I looked at that and I went, oh. So,
1:39:24
Speaker 3: on one hand, I was really mad at what they
1:39:26
Speaker 3: were doing. But if I could be honest, like from
1:39:29
Speaker 3: my personal perspective, I went, well, I don't hate it.
1:39:32
Speaker 3: Because 65% of the district now is new.
1:39:36
Speaker 1: Huh.
1:39:37
Speaker 3: To her, to the incumbent. So- she doesn't have the
1:39:41
Speaker 3: name ID in that district. If that makes any sense. So,
1:39:46
Speaker 3: so like I'm a South Texas musician, right? Our music
1:39:50
Speaker 3: is very cultural to our people, you know, in our
1:39:54
Speaker 3: quinceaneras and barbecues, my music and music of my father
1:39:58
Speaker 3: too has been historically present. We've been there forever. So
1:40:02
Speaker 3: we've toured those areas. We have friends. We have, we have,
1:40:06
Speaker 3: we have friends, right? We've, we know the people. And
1:40:10
Speaker 3: when I saw this and I went, oh, you're giving
1:40:12
Speaker 3: me Beeville, Texas, a Tejano town? Well, they're looking at
1:40:16
Speaker 3: it going, well, they voted 75% Republican. And I'm going, yeah,
1:40:19
Speaker 3: but there are people.
1:40:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, they see numbers. You see human beings.
1:40:23
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
1:40:26
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:40:27
Speaker 4: So your staff, how often are they trying to get
1:40:29
Speaker 4: you to sing at events, play music?
1:40:32
Speaker 1: How many events turn into concerts?
1:40:33
Speaker 3: Man, you know what? When we go do a ranch hall,
1:40:37
Speaker 3: we sing a couple of songs.
1:40:39
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:40:40
Speaker 3: I go take their questions. We feed them. Do you get.
1:40:44
Speaker 1: A guitar in hand? What do we do?
1:40:45
Speaker 3: No, I take a band.
1:40:47
Speaker 1: Okay. The whole band?
1:40:48
Speaker 3: Not a whole band. It's kind of like an acoustic set, right?
1:40:50
Speaker 2: Nice.
1:40:50
Speaker 3: It's an acoustic set. So while they're eating food, they're
1:40:53
Speaker 3: hearing our music.
1:40:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:40:54
Speaker 3: Not my music, but our type of music. And then
1:40:57
Speaker 3: I go speak. I take their questions. I answer all
1:41:00
Speaker 3: their questions, which I might add, the person that we
1:41:04
Speaker 3: want to take down and defeat, Monica de la Cruz,
1:41:08
Speaker 3: has never done a town hall. She's never answered her
1:41:11
Speaker 3: constituents questions ever.
1:41:12
Speaker 1: How do you do that?
1:41:13
Speaker 4: Like you hear that sometimes about members of Congress and
1:41:15
Speaker 4: it's like, did she just move to DC and she
1:41:17
Speaker 4: never comes back?
1:41:18
Speaker 1: How is that possible?
1:41:19
Speaker 3: She goes and they hide her and they, and they
1:41:21
Speaker 3: protect her because they don't want her to expose herself.
1:41:24
Speaker 3: So they're trying to play her safe. They're hiding her.
1:41:27
Speaker 3: So what I'm saying is I'm going to be the opposite.
1:41:29
Speaker 3: I'm going to go everywhere.
1:41:31
Speaker 1: Take some questions.
1:41:32
Speaker 3: And take questions from, you bring them on.
1:41:33
Speaker 1: Play some bangers.
1:41:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, play some bangers. We finished. We closed with that.
1:41:37
Speaker 3: And man, everybody's happy.
1:41:39
Speaker 1: Do you do covers ever or just your stuff?
1:41:41
Speaker 3: Do my stuff.
1:41:42
Speaker 1: That's fun. God.
1:41:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:41:44
Speaker 4: Sometimes we get to do live podcasts. And it's really cool.
1:41:47
Speaker 4: And we've gone out in front of big audiences. And
1:41:49
Speaker 4: it's exciting.
1:41:50
Speaker 1: And I love doing it. And I get to be
1:41:51
Speaker 1: with my friends.
1:41:52
Speaker 4: But every single time I walk out on the stage,
1:41:55
Speaker 4: I think to myself, God, I wish I was doing
1:41:57
Speaker 4: something cooler for the next.
1:41:58
Speaker 1: Hour and a half. Like I had a real talent.
1:42:01
Speaker 1: And I was playing music. Or I was funny. I
1:42:03
Speaker 1: was doing a stand-up set.
1:42:04
Speaker 2: No.
1:42:04
Speaker 3: But you know what? Perspective is everything, right?
1:42:07
Speaker 1: Sure.
1:42:08
Speaker 3: I always took my approach to music, it's work. It's
1:42:10
Speaker 3: a job.
1:42:13
Speaker 1: So you mentioned your father was a.
1:42:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, my father's a legend in the music.
1:42:17
Speaker 1: Legendary musician.
1:42:17
Speaker 3: Just like Hank Williams, Hank Williams Jr., but not racist. No,
1:42:20
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding. But you know what I mean, like
1:42:25
Speaker 3: the cultural thing.
1:42:26
Speaker 1: I get it, I get it.
1:42:26
Speaker 4: There's a lot of legends in Texas. You got some
1:42:29
Speaker 4: Willie Nelson THC drinks in the office right now. So
1:42:32
Speaker 4: when you're growing up, Your father's being as big as
1:42:35
Speaker 4: he was in the business, did that make you want
1:42:37
Speaker 4: to play music?
1:42:38
Speaker 1: Did it make you walk away?
1:42:40
Speaker 3: No, I was a Texas boy stater in high school.
1:42:43
Speaker 3: I went to boy state. That's like a whole government.
1:42:46
Speaker 3: I was a history buff. I loved government. I loved politics.
1:42:50
Speaker 3: And that's why I became a political science major. I
1:42:52
Speaker 3: got an academic scholarship to go to St. Mary's University
1:42:55
Speaker 3: in San Antonio. And so I did not want to
1:42:58
Speaker 3: be a singer. That was not in the plans.
1:43:01
Speaker 1: My God.
1:43:02
Speaker 4: So you're walking on that stage thinking, God, I wish
1:43:03
Speaker 4: I could do a podcast right now.
1:43:05
Speaker 1: This is like, grass is always greener.
1:43:06
Speaker 3: That was my first love. Like I was, but I
1:43:09
Speaker 3: was not like, once I had success in music, I
1:43:13
Speaker 3: recorded a song with my dad. That's what did it.
1:43:15
Speaker 1: Right.
1:43:15
Speaker 3: So I got two labels. It really went really high
1:43:18
Speaker 3: and it hit. And I had two labels in a
1:43:21
Speaker 3: bidding war. I ended up negotiating my contract and renegotiating
1:43:25
Speaker 3: my father's contract in that same negotiation. I got him
1:43:28
Speaker 3: a hundred percent raise.
1:43:29
Speaker 1: Hell yeah.
1:43:30
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:43:30
Speaker 3: And, and so I ended up trying music. I said, dad,
1:43:33
Speaker 3: I'm going to try it out and see what happens.
1:43:35
Speaker 3: And that ended up turned into a platinum record. And
1:43:39
Speaker 3: then I've been at it 30 years.
1:43:40
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
1:43:41
Speaker 3: And so my music's kind of gone. My life has
1:43:43
Speaker 3: gone full circle and I'm like, you know what? I'm
1:43:47
Speaker 3: tired of what I'm seeing right now. I'm just a
1:43:49
Speaker 3: guy with an opinion. I want to be somebody with
1:43:53
Speaker 3: my opinion matters and my, I want to be a
1:43:55
Speaker 3: voice for my people. And yes, it would be taking
1:43:59
Speaker 3: a huge pay cut from what I'm doing right now.
1:44:02
Speaker 3: But it's worth it. My life has to mean more
1:44:05
Speaker 3: than just music, in my opinion. And I haven't seen,
1:44:09
Speaker 3: I've been really frustrated with the way things have been
1:44:12
Speaker 3: going with our political discourse. And I do think that
1:44:16
Speaker 3: I have a different perspective of where I come from.
1:44:21
Speaker 3: And I got nothing to lose. I really want to
1:44:25
Speaker 3: represent my people.
1:44:26
Speaker 1: That's exciting.
1:44:27
Speaker 4: Well, if folks want to help out, contribute, where.
1:44:31
Speaker 3: Do they go? Yeah, they can go from Bobby Pulido
1:44:33
Speaker 3: for Texas. My district is 11 counties and we're very poor, actually.
1:44:40
Speaker 3: My district's very poor. So we kind of have to
1:44:42
Speaker 3: go fundraise out of the district. I'm not going to
1:44:47
Speaker 3: say poor. I misspoke. My district is broke. And I
1:44:52
Speaker 3: say that because our spirit down there is we don't
1:44:54
Speaker 3: consider ourselves poor. We consider ourselves broke.
1:44:57
Speaker 1: Temporary.
1:44:58
Speaker 3: Because tomorrow we're going to make it.
1:44:59
Speaker 6: Yep.
1:44:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:45:00
Speaker 6: Right.
1:45:00
Speaker 3: And so we're very aspirational, but we've been, we've been,
1:45:04
Speaker 3: she has like $ 2 million in her war chest and
1:45:07
Speaker 3: I have a primary. And so we need to fundraise aggressively,
1:45:11
Speaker 3: but I feel very, very confident that we're going to
1:45:14
Speaker 3: win and we're going to flip this district.
1:45:16
Speaker 1: I think it's exciting.
1:45:17
Speaker 4: I think it's inspiring when people come from non-traditional walks
1:45:21
Speaker 4: of life and run for office. Like what, why do we,
1:45:23
Speaker 4: not everyone needs to be a lawyer.
1:45:25
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
1:45:25
Speaker 4: Like, it's great when people from the entertainment industry run,
1:45:29
Speaker 4: who have.
1:45:29
Speaker 1: A different kind of cultural connection.
1:45:30
Speaker 3: There's not many entertainers, though.
1:45:31
Speaker 1: Have you seen this guy, Bobby Wine, running in Uganda?
1:45:34
Speaker 3: I have not.
1:45:34
Speaker 1: Check him out.
1:45:34
Speaker 4: He's, like, incredible, massive music star running against an absolute.
1:45:38
Speaker 3: Tyrant in the thug.
1:45:40
Speaker 4: I know.
1:45:40
Speaker 3: That's, like, not normal.
1:45:41
Speaker 1: No, it's not.
1:45:42
Speaker 3: It's, like, completely rare.
1:45:44
Speaker 1: Well, because I think people are turned off.
1:45:45
Speaker 4: Because people are worried that the minute you jump into politics,
1:45:48
Speaker 4: you're going to polarize half your audience, and maybe they
1:45:50
Speaker 4: won't listen to you anymore.
1:45:51
Speaker 1: And you won't buy records. And it scares people. But
1:45:53
Speaker 1: I'm not that. Yeah. You don't seem polarizing.
1:45:56
Speaker 3: I'm not a polarizing guy, but I'll fight. Don't, don't, don't, don't,
1:46:01
Speaker 3: don't confuse the niceties for a fight.
1:46:03
Speaker 1: I'm not, I haven't gotten to fighting for 20 years.
1:46:05
Speaker 1: So don't worry.
1:46:06
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:46:07
Speaker 1: It didn't end well for me. I had a giant
1:46:08
Speaker 1: swollen ear and it sucked. Yeah.
1:46:10
Speaker 3: I've been, I've had my fair share of bar fights, but, but, uh,
1:46:13
Speaker 3: I'm a Texas boy. You can expect that. But, um, look,
1:46:18
Speaker 3: I'll fight for, for the people. And that's the bottom line. It's,
1:46:21
Speaker 3: this is, there's our healthcare down there is, is, is
1:46:24
Speaker 3: a mess, man. Um, she voted to cut Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP,
1:46:29
Speaker 3: like all the things that our district that ours really
1:46:32
Speaker 3: depends on. She voted to cut. And so you have
1:46:35
Speaker 3: to fight for what's right. Our healthcare system is, is
1:46:38
Speaker 3: in shambles. I go get my healthcare in Mexico.
1:46:41
Speaker 1: Really? Yes. Cheaper, easier.
1:46:43
Speaker 6: Why?
1:46:44
Speaker 3: Listen, musicians, all the music community, we don't work for
1:46:48
Speaker 3: school districts or other things like that where you can
1:46:50
Speaker 3: pull it.
1:46:51
Speaker 1: Right.
1:46:51
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:46:53
Speaker 3: Health insurance is through the roof. It got more expensive
1:46:56
Speaker 3: now with these ACA subsidies that expired. So we're on
1:46:59
Speaker 3: the border, but how many people that are not on
1:47:02
Speaker 3: the border are struggling right now? It's just ridiculous. I mean,
1:47:06
Speaker 3: we really have to get in there. And the biggest
1:47:09
Speaker 3: problem we're going to face is corruption because they have
1:47:13
Speaker 3: their claws in these politicians. Yes, they're good. And, you know,
1:47:18
Speaker 3: somebody has to go over there and just call them
1:47:20
Speaker 3: out for it.
1:47:21
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it.
1:47:22
Speaker 4: Well, the website again is bobbypolitofortexas.com.
1:47:26
Speaker 1: Great to meet you. Thank you for running.
1:47:27
Speaker 4: Thanks for coming in. And, you know, next Grammys, you're.
1:47:31
Speaker 1: Going to win one. And then, but also you're going
1:47:33
Speaker 1: to be a member, elected official.
1:47:36
Speaker 3: No new music, no Grammys.
1:47:37
Speaker 1: No new music.
1:47:38
Speaker 3: What if you get.
1:47:38
Speaker 1: Inspired one day?
1:47:39
Speaker 4: You're sitting in your office and you're like, you write
1:47:41
Speaker 4: like a.
1:47:41
Speaker 3: Diss track of Mike Johnson. Songwriting is therapy.
1:47:45
Speaker 1: It is.
1:47:46
Speaker 2: It is.
1:47:46
Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
1:47:47
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for coming.
1:47:48
Speaker 3: Thank you, Tommy. Appreciate it.
1:47:54
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Bobby Polito for
1:47:56
Speaker 1: coming on. Also, quick reminder, some tickets left, not many,
1:48:00
Speaker 1: but some tickets left for our upcoming shows in New
1:48:02
Speaker 1: Zealand and Australia. Wow. Next week, guys. Next week. Next
1:48:05
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1:48:08
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1:48:10
Speaker 1: Brisbane on February 14th, and Sydney on February 16th. Grab
1:48:13
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1:48:16
Speaker 1: of you out there. And in the meantime, Dan and
1:48:17
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Speaker 1: Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our
1:48:45
Speaker 1: executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics.
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Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
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Speaker 1: Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle
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Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
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Speaker 1: Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
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Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Carol Pelleviv,
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Speaker 1: David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly
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Speaker 1: unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.