Latest / Pod Save America / Blessed are the Peacemakers (Trump and Putin)

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Blessed are the Peacemakers (Trump and Putin) · Pod Save America

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• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, Tommy. Thank you. Good to be here. We
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: missed you. I missed you guys. Well, we've got a
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: big show for today. Republican governors are sending more troops
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  Speaker 1: to D.C. ICE says the quiet part out loud. Texas
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  Speaker 1: Democrats have gone home. Newsom is out trolling Trump. And
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  Speaker 1: then Tommy talks to former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Brink about the Russia-Ukraine meetings over the last few days
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  Speaker 1: and why she decided to resign from the State Department
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  Speaker 1: after decades of service to run for Congress in Michigan.
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  Speaker 1: But let's start with the big White House meeting Monday
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  Speaker 1: between Trump, Zelensky, and European leaders to discuss a possible
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  Speaker 1: deal that would end the war that began with Putin's
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  Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine. The talks were a follow-up to Trump's
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  Speaker 1: meeting with the Russian president in Alaska on Friday, where
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  Speaker 1: Trump quite literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin
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  Speaker 1: and invited him for a one-on-one ride in the presidential limo,
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  Speaker 1: where they were all smiles. Putin was even seen laughing.
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  Speaker 1: So that's cool. The meeting ended with no announcement of
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  Speaker 1: a ceasefire. or Russian concessions, or really much of anything.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't even take questions from the press. The Monday
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  Speaker 1: meeting with Zelensky and the Europeans seemed to go much
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  Speaker 1: better than the Ukrainian president's last trip to the White House,
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  Speaker 1: where he was kicked out early after Trump and J.D.
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  Speaker 1: Vance lost their shit in the Oval Office. Zelensky said
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  Speaker 1: this was the best meeting yet, and there's been vague
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  Speaker 1: talk about the U.S. joining Europe and some kind of
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a security guarantee for Ukraine as part of any peace deal,
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  Speaker 1: though the Kremlin again rejected the presence of NATO troops
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  Speaker 1: in Ukraine. Afterwards, Trump has also dropped his demand for
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: a ceasefire before negotiations take place, which Ukraine and Europe
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: very much want. And he also seems quite bought into
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the idea that Putin's just a nice guy who genuinely
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  Speaker 1: wants peace. He loves peace. Just loves peace.
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  Speaker 4: Peaceful dude.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, what are you going to do?
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  Speaker 4: That's why you invade.
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  Speaker 1: Here's some of what we heard from Trump on Monday.
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  Speaker 5: The six or so wars that we stopped, we haven't
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  Speaker 5: had a ceasefire. And so... I don't know that it's necessary.
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  Speaker 5: You can do it through the war. But it would
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  Speaker 5: be I like the ceasefire from another standpoint.
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  Speaker 3: You immediately stop the killing.
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  Speaker 5: But I believe a peace agreement at the end of
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  Speaker 5: all of this is something that's very attainable and it
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  Speaker 5: can be done in the near future. President Putin agreed
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  Speaker 5: that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine. And this
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  Speaker 5: is one of the key. points that we need to consider.
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  Speaker 5: And we're going to be considering that at the table also,
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  Speaker 5: like who will do what, essentially. I'm optimistic that collectively
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  Speaker 5: we can reach an agreement that would deter any future
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  Speaker 5: aggression against Ukraine. And I actually think there won't be.
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  Speaker 5: I think that's even overrated, largely overrated, but we're going
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  Speaker 5: to find out. And I think that the European nations
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  Speaker 5: are going to take a lot of the burden. We're
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  Speaker 5: going to help them and we're going to make it
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  Speaker 5: very secure.
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  Speaker 3: I think he wants to make a deal.
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  Speaker 4: I think he wants to make a deal.
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  Speaker 5: You understand that? As crazy as it sounds. You sit down.
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  Speaker 1: That last part was Trump caught on a hot mic.
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  Speaker 4: Hot mic.
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  Speaker 1: Saying he really thinks Putin wants to make a deal.
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  Speaker 1: As crazy as it sounds. For me. For me. For me, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Right before we started recording, Trump posted a truth video
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  Speaker 1: I never know how to say it. What do we
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  Speaker 1: call them? Tim Miller calls them bleats. I wonder where
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  Speaker 1: bleats came from. I think it's just Tim's word for it.
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  Speaker 3: There's an answer for all this. We do not need
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  Speaker 3: to refer to where these posts are, where they're coming from.
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  Speaker 3: He posted. He has a statement.
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  Speaker 4: He's a poster.
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  Speaker 3: We can disaggregate it from the media.
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  Speaker 1: I know that. But it's like Trump posted a. A statement?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: A statement seems so much more formal for what those are.
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  Speaker 3: He just posted.
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  Speaker 1: He's a poster.
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  Speaker 4: But you're right. We are doing PR for him when
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  Speaker 4: we say truth. And I don't like to say truth.
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  Speaker 3: I don't like to say X. It was a post.
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  Speaker 1: He tweeted.
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  Speaker 3: He put it on the internet. We all fucking saw it.
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  Speaker 3: It's a statement.
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  Speaker 1: It's just disgusting. It's neither here nor there. For sure.
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  Speaker 1: But he said he's arranging a meeting between Zelensky and Putin,
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  Speaker 1: a one-on-one. And then after that, we'll hopefully get the
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  Speaker 1: trilat going with Zelensky, Putin, and Trump. What the fuck?
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's when they go to the villa.
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  Speaker 4: They both go back and.
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  Speaker 3: Forth, and he makes his decision.
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  Speaker 1: Tommy, what did you think of the meetings today? Are
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  Speaker 1: you pro-peace as much as Trump is pro-peace and Putin
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  Speaker 1: is pro-peace?
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  Speaker 4: I think I like peace. I mean, thorns and roses. Thorns,
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  Speaker 4: or no, roses first. Yeah, as you said, they didn't
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  Speaker 4: scream at Zelensky for 45 minutes and kick him out
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  Speaker 4: of the White House, so we exceeded that low bar.
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  Speaker 4: It is good news that Trump is not ruling out
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  Speaker 4: a US role as part of a security guarantee. I
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  Speaker 4: still don't know what that means in practice. It might
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  Speaker 4: be just us selling the European stuff, but it's, you know,
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  Speaker 4: he's not ruling it out. Zelensky's body language. I don't
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  Speaker 4: want to be that guy, but it's like, it seemed
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  Speaker 4: like he thought things went okay. Like first there was
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  Speaker 4: the first, the press conference was before the meeting with Trump.
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  Speaker 4: So you never know how things are going to go.
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  Speaker 4: But then they did the second pool spray with all
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  Speaker 4: the European leaders and Zelensky seemed kind of happy.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So it wasn't bad. But the bad news is, first, Trump,
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  Speaker 4: as he's mentioned, has abandoned the idea of getting a
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  Speaker 4: temporary ceasefire. He's abandoned the idea of putting in place
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  Speaker 4: secondary sanctions on Russia to pressure them into a deal.
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  Speaker 4: So that's bad. And the demands that Putin laid out
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  Speaker 4: in Alaska were still quite maximalist. I mean, he wants
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  Speaker 4: Ukraine to fully see control of territory in eastern Ukraine
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  Speaker 4: that they aren't even occupying. So just like giving up
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  Speaker 4: more territory without military conflict in Donetsk. Putin is still
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  Speaker 4: talking about, he calls it the root causes of the war,
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  Speaker 4: which is code for this laundry list of stuff that
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  Speaker 4: means Ukraine putting limits on their military, Ukraine giving up territory,
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  Speaker 4: barring Ukraine from NATO, and then even walking back NATO
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  Speaker 4: expansion that occurred in.
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  Speaker 1: The late 90s.
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  Speaker 4: And so psychologically speaking, Putin also knows that Trump is
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  Speaker 4: just so desperate for a deal, any deal. So he can, again,
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  Speaker 4: call the prime minister of Norway and demand the Nobel
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  Speaker 4: Peace Prize, even though that is not, sir, how this works.
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  Speaker 4: It's like five academics who make this determination.
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  Speaker 3: He's asking to see the Nobel Peace Prize's manager. That's
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  Speaker 3: what he's doing.
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  Speaker 1: And also not the manager of.
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  Speaker 3: The Nobel Peace Prize.
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  Speaker 4: But Putin just knows he can manipulate Trump with a
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  Speaker 4: little bit of flattery, a little bit of shitting on
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  Speaker 4: Joe Biden. And so we've conceded all our leverage in
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  Speaker 4: these talks.
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  Speaker 1: It does seem like a win-win for Putin here, which
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  Speaker 1: is either he knows that Trump really wants the deal.
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  Speaker 1: And so either Trump pushes Zelensky to give Putin everything
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  Speaker 1: he wants, or Trump gets annoyed at Putin and annoyed
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  Speaker 1: at the whole thing and just throws his hands up
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  Speaker 1: and says, well, I'm done. You guys figure it out,
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  Speaker 1: which is also a win for Putin because then he
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  Speaker 1: gets to do whatever he wants. Pretty sweet. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: All the old terms of the debate are a win
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  Speaker 3: for Putin. Even the fact that you're engaging in the
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  Speaker 3: idea that this is some sort of negotiated peace between
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  Speaker 3: two countries, the way Trump talks about it, like it's
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  Speaker 3: Indian Pakistan or these long simmering enemies. If there's only
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  Speaker 3: someone who could come to bring the end to this long,
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  Speaker 3: this conflict between these two these two warring parties when
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  Speaker 3: it was still a war of aggression that Putin started.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, we can get to the, to the actual
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  Speaker 3: Putin meeting, but like what you're, what I noticed today
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  Speaker 3: is it feels like European leaders have figured out what
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  Speaker 3: Putin figured out a long time ago, which is there's
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  Speaker 3: just no equity in open conflict, defiance, any kind of disagreement.
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  Speaker 3: So you have like, and there was like a decade
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  Speaker 3: of this, right? There was a decade of European leaders
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  Speaker 3: kind of At first, they were in denial. They assumed
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  Speaker 3: that Trump was just posturing. And so he would still
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: maintain the U.S. 's role in the world order. And
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: then there was this sort of anger that's played out
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  Speaker 3: with a decade of weird handshakes between him and Macron
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  Speaker 3: and like all this alpha dogging. And that was the
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: meeting in February where Zelensky got too upset to not
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  Speaker 3: tell the truth in that setting, which cost him dearly.
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  Speaker 3: And there's just no equity and pride with Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 3: And so now all of these Zelensky shows up, all
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: these leaders have to fly in. and they have to
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  Speaker 3: say things like, we all want peace and someone as
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: smart and handsome and good as you, Mr. Trump, wants
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: peace more than anyone.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: And this isn't- And that's why I bought a bunch
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: of Trump coin before I- Of course, of course.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Here's my little crypto wallet. But what it amounts to, right,
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  Speaker 3: is like diplomacy is about national interest, but they all
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: come here knowing that in order to pursue the collective
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  Speaker 3: interests of these countries and the interests of a democratic order,
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  Speaker 3: they have to appeal to Trump's ego. And that's not diplomacy,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: that's flirting. They have to fly to America- to flirt
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  Speaker 3: on behalf of the world order.
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  Speaker 4: Maybe more hand stuff.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a little, yeah, under the table. That's why, did
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: you notice that Macron slid his chair a little bit closer?
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: So then all the two shots, it was just the
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  Speaker 3: two of them. It was like a tête-à-tête between the
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: two of them. I don't know what's going on under there.
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  Speaker 3: You know, and he's French. Yeah, all right, there we go.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: He's French.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: And this is just a joke because I know that
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: the McCrons are litigious. But that was like, that was
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: what I, it felt to me like what we're seeing
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: now is the culmination of a decade of leaders trying
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: to figure out what to do with Trump. And they just,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: they can't be honest. And so it just means that
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: we watch these public displays and because Trump says everything
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: to everyone, and it depends on who he spoke with last.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: And these leaders can't exactly tell the truth anymore in
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: front of them. We just have to wait, right? Because
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: the public stuff isn't nearly as important as it used
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: to be.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think of the Alaska summit? Trump
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: called it a 10. What do you give it? Nine, 9.5?
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: Maybe an Alaska 10.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was an LA 5.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Sorry.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like we both did the same.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Tough pivot, tough pivot.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: The point I wanted to make is just first think
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: about the images of that red carpet and the chummy
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: walking down it and getting in the beast and laughing
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: and Trump applauding him. And then imagine you're a Ukrainian.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: So they've lost nearly 12,000 civilians have been killed. Tens
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: of thousands of civilians have been wounded. An estimated 60,000
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: to 100,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed. Hundreds of thousands
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: have been wounded or injured. 10 million Ukrainians are displaced,
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: either in Ukraine or throughout Europe or wherever else. And
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: then tens of thousands of Ukrainian children were kidnapped, taken
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: to Russia or taken to Russian occupied areas and put
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: in reeducation camps. Hours, just in the hours before Zelensky
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: or when Zelensky arrived in Washington, Russian attacks killed 14
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: people and wounded dozens of others. So just imagine like
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: being in Kiev and watching that. It's like, it's not
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: just that, that Trump invites him to the U S
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: for talks, but the literally rolls out the red carpet.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: Like I I'm of course you, you, you do diplomacy
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: with your enemies and you make peace deals with your enemies,
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: but you didn't have to roll out the red carpet.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: And like, he also just got completely steamrolled by Putin
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: at his own press conference. It was really weird that
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: Putin talked first. It was a U S based press
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: conference and they refused to take questions and Like on
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: all the Barretts, it was a colossal failure. Trump told,
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: I think it was the in-house stenographer, right? It was
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Brett Baer. They did the interview on the plane on
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: the way there. He was like, well, I'll know in
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: two to three minutes of a success because I get
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: a ceasefire and I'll walk out. And he didn't get
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: a ceasefire and he didn't walk out. But I like,
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: it's just like the only reason the coverage was bad,
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: but the only reason people weren't reacting even with like
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: more direly is that the expectation was that Trump might
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: just completely sell out Ukraine to Putin in that moment
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: and kind of end things there.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: The whole thing was sick. There were three different moments.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Sick, not like cool.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: No.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was dope. Yeah. It was cap.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: For sure. I can't, I can't even do that. I like,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: I'm so old. I just turned 43. I can't do it.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: But the happy birthday. Hey, thanks.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: It's Leo's birthday today too.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And that's great. I love dog's birthdays. People
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: love hearing about dog's birthdays.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I confuse yours and Leo's.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: It's hot.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Uh, three different, your, your wife, uh, FaceTime me.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: She did. Yeah.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah. With Tessa and a nice little FaceTime. Three different moments.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: What are we doing? Two very good boys.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: You were saying about Vladimir Putin.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: It's wild that everyone thinks they need to flatter Trump.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: What kind of a character is that?
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Listen, I understand the man. I understand the man. Uh,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: So there are three different moments where Trump and Putin
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: were an earshot of reporters who were shouting questions. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: they're about Putin murdering civilians, about whether he's trustworthy, about
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: whether he underestimated Ukraine. On the tarmac, he kind of
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: does a little ear thing like he's pretending not to hear.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: There's another moment when they're sitting for the meeting. And
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: then the final moment in the press conference where they
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: don't take any questions at all. And so you have
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: an American president hosting a Russian autocrat. who should want
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: Putin to squirm, right? Who should want Putin to face
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: tough questions from American journalists. For his war crimes, for
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: the kidnapping of these children, for the crushing of dissent,
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: for all of it. But that would require Trump caring
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: about the democratic values that Putin doesn't. And Trump respects power.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: He respects what autocracy represents. And so he enjoys reporters
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: not being able to get their questions answered. And so
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: the end result is is Putin stands next to an
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: American president lying about the causes of the war, throwing
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: a sop to Trump's ego by saying if he were
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: president in 2022, none of this would have happened. All
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: of it is just this, it's Trump getting snowed, but
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: it also means we're all getting snowed by this fucking
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: guy because instead of Trump being on our side with Europe,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: with Zelensky for these basic democratic values, he's got an
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: ally because Putin figured out a decade ago what Europe
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: just figured out this week, which is you just suck
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: up to him. praise him, and you have him in
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: the palm of your hands.
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: Except the Europeans haven't gotten anything yet. You know what
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: I mean? They're doing the sucking up, but I'm like,
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: the jury's out if it's effective.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Who fucking knows? But they've learned that they've
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: gotten nothing for being honest, for being direct, for hoping
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: that he would uphold the basic American position in Europe
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: of defending NATO, of defending against Russian aggression.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, it seems pretty clear that... If Trump were
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: given the choice between, you know, a global international order
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that's sort of grounded in shared values of freedom and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: democracy and can be a little messy and you've got
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to go to the United Nations and negotiate all that stuff,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: or him and Xi and Putin and Netanyahu and Modi
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and both just carving up the world and then everyone
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: ruling their own fiefdom with an iron fist. he would
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: pick the latter, right? This is why he respects people
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: who are authoritarian and who are strength. It doesn't matter
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: how successful the country is. It doesn't matter that the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Russian economy is shit, that they weren't what they were
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: when they were the Soviet Union. None of that matters
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: to Trump. What matters to Trump is that he's a
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: tough guy who's an authoritarian and rules with an iron fist,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and so he respects that, and he doesn't respect Zelensky
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: because Zelensky is president of a much smaller nation.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's also something like There is just something so
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: deeply psychological about it, right? Because Trump is shameless. And
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: so to be in his orbit, you must be shameless.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: But there's sort of a corollary to that, which is
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: like how much pride makes him uncomfortable, like how dignity
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: makes him uncomfortable because displays of pride and dignity are
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: an insult to him in some way, like some fundamental way.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: It makes him uncomfortable. And so that's what Zelensky, I
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: think that's why there's such a kind of tension there
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: with Zelensky because Zelensky has pride and he has dignity
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: on display. And Putin doesn't really. He has something else,
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: kind of his power. He has like kind of the
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: kind of like the kind of whatever fragile power of
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: like autocracy in him. But he doesn't have pride or dignity.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: And that that works for Trump because he doesn't either.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: The meeting on Monday was it might have been a
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: little light on substance, but it was heavy on men's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: fashion talk. There were quite a few. And of course,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: in the Oval, Trump and Zelensky faced questions from just
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the most rigorous, tough press pool. Let's listen.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: President Zelensky, are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: to their deaths for another couple years, or are you
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: going to agree to redraw the maps?
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: A very touching letter from the First Lady, and the
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: letter was hand-delivered to President Putin.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: President Zelensky, you look fabulous in that suit.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I said the same thing.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you look good.
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: I said the same thing.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, looks good on you.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: That's the one that attacked you last time.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I remember that. I apologize to you. You look wonderful.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It's just so fucking, I feel so bad for Zelensky.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: It's like the guy is holding his country together by
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a thread. They've been invaded, they've been in war for
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: three years, and like, you better dress up nice for Mr.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Trump so that Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend doesn't yell at you.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, obviously the primary idiot here is Brian Glenn from... something,
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: something real America's voice, some shit like that. Like he's
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, but like, it wasn't just him.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: All the MAGA people were tweeting about his outfit today.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Like this woman, Mary Margaret Olihan, the Daily Wire White
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: House correspondent tweeted, Zelensky appears to have done his best
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: to not wear a suit today, along with the photo
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: of Zelensky clearly wearing a suit. It's like, ma'am, do
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: you have a heist? What are you talking about? But
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: that wasn't the extent of the stupidity. Like Peter Doocy's question,
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: from Fox News, who actually I think has done like
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: a pretty good job at some of these press avails
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: in the past, was basically, Zelensky, are you going to
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: continue to send soldiers to their deaths for years or
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: agree to redraw the lines?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Like it's fucking redistricting.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like Zelensky wants to be defending the borders of
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: his country from invasion, like this is good for him.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: And none of them poke Trump or press him on
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: this claim that he's ended a bunch of wars.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Six wars now. It keeps going up.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: Like, so Trump has completely abandoned the idea of demanding
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: a ceasefire from Putin because he's weak and he got
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: rolled in that meeting. And now he's saying like, ah,
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: who needs a ceasefire? What's even the point? Well, the
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: point is that people in Ukraine are under constant bombardment, right?
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: So they're getting killed. So you want a ceasefire to
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: save them in the near term. And then longer term,
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: the concern is that Putin is just going to drag
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: out these talks and press his military advantage as much
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: as he can and take more territory and just sort
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: of play for time. But also like, He didn't end
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: any wars like this is what he posted about the
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: India and Pakistan ceasefire. Quote, I am pleased to announce
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: that India and Pakistan have agreed to a full and
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: immediate ceasefire because that's.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: All it was.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: They don't like each other now. The countries, they aren't
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: allies now. They haven't abandoned their nuclear weapons and decided
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: to like. become buddies, all he's gotten is ceasefires. And
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: yet he like, no one calls him out.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: You get a ceasefire between Israel and Iran because we
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: bombed Iran.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they patch things up, right?
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: They're buddies now. But it's also just like, it goes
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: to the point, right? Which is, everybody also knows that
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: all Trump wants is to say that he did it, right?
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: And that just gives you so much leverage in dealing
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: with this person whose motivations are so obvious. And on
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: the surface.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Horny for that peace prize.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yes.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: The other very revealing moment along these lines was when
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: some reporter asked about Zelensky not being able to hold
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: or when he's going to hold an election. And Zelensky's like, look,
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: under my constitution, I can't hold an election when we're
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: at war. Like, think about this practically, because first of all, like,
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: it'd be very hard to vote when you're under bombardment
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: by drones and ballistic missiles. Hundreds of thousands of troops
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: are at the front. And then again, 10 million people
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: are displaced. So how the hell do you hold an election? Like,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: it's practically very hard. But Trump's like, hey, buddy, pretty
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: sweet that you managed to avoid that reelect by getting invaded.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he took it as a.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, as you say, even before you get how
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: he joked about it for himself, which we'll get to, it's...
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: No one's a Democratic leader. Obviously, Putin's not, but neither
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: is Zelensky. It's no different than the way Trump has
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: to accuse every one of his opponents as to having
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: done what he has done, because it's not that... Putin
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: cannot prove he is a Democratic leader. Trump cannot prove
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: he is not corrupt, but he can try to make
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Everybody looked corrupt. You can try to claim that Zelensky
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: is not a democratic leader. Just two autocrats going toe
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: to toe in a war of attrition where both sides
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: are to blame. Even Putin is in his speech to
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Trump describes it as a tragedy, right? They constantly calls
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: it a tragedy. And it's like, well, okay.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's what, yeah.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: How did this happen?
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: What do we do?
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, uh, Trump, uh, clearly seemed to, uh, uh, admire, uh,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the one thing he really admires about Zelensky is the, uh,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the suspending the election. He went on to talk about that. And, uh,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: he also, uh, Got some got some inspiration from Putin
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: apparently on on mail-in ballots Let's listen.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: Vladimir Putin said something one of the most interesting things
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: He said your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting.
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: He said mail-in voting every election He said no country
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: has mail-in voting. It's impossible to have mail-in voting and
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: have honest elections and And he said that to me.
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: It was very interesting, because we talked about 2020. He said,
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: you won that election by so much.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: We're going to end mail-in voting. It's a fraud.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: If you have mail-in voting, you're not going to have
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: many Democrats get elected. That's bigger than anything having to
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: do with redistricting, believe me. And the Republicans have to
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: get smart. So you say during the war, you can't
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: have elections.
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: So let me just say, three and a half years
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: from now, so you mean if we happen to be
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: in a war with somebody... No more elections.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: I wonder what the fake news is.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's getting ideas. Trump also posted on Truth Social
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: that he'll, quote, lead a movement to get rid of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: mail-in ballots and voting machines, which will begin with an
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: executive order, which he then said was an executive order
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: being drawn up right now by the best lawyers in
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the country. He also said that states are, quote, merely
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: an agent for the federal government in counting and tabulating
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the votes. and, quote, must do what the federal government,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: That is, of course, not what the Constitution says, not
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: what the Supreme Court has said, not at all true
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: with regard to fraud or America being the only country
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: with mail-in voting. Plenty of countries have mail-in voting.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Dozens.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: But between that threat and Trump's joke about postponing elections,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: deterring war, what's your level of concern on this one?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Is this just Trump being stupid, or is this one
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: that we should keep an eye on?
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: So, on this specific... specific threat. The Constitution is explicit.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: It's not just clear. It is explicit. It says that
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: legislatures are in charge of running federal elections. And actually,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: what Trump is saying here is in conflict with another
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: crackpot right-wing legal theory, which is the independent legislature theory,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: which it says not only are legislatures responsible for the
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: administration of federal elections. They can't be questioned by, or
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: their laws can't be adjudicated by the courts, maybe even
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: the Supreme Court.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Congress can. Congress is the only.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: Congress can, but that courts ruling what those laws mean
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: can't supersede what the legislature said. That was their way
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: of trying to get around some votes in 2020, and
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: they'll probably try it again.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: But certainly the executive has no role.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: No, it's not. Congress can set certain rules to regulate elections,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: but the president is not mentioned anywhere and legislatures run
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: their elections. But whatever the specifics of the order he
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: was told about and is then describing, he's very bad
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: at telephone. Our level of concern should be very high,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: to answer your question, because whatever he does here, he
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: is going to try wherever he can, like a rap
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: protesting the fences, to figure out the weaknesses that he
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: can exploit before the midterms in 2026 and the general
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: in 2028. And because everything with Trump is either, these
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: worries feel too early and then our responses feel too late.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: That is up to and including him finding some pretense
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: to not leave office in 2028. He's doing a lot
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: of redecorating for a guy who's only supposed to be
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: there for a short-term lease. And so all of this
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: to me is sort of, these are red sirens the
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: scariest color for sirens going off.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: They're not blue. They're not white.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: And so like this, he's going to, you know, this plus,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: you know, the tabulating of votes, he's always attacking. It
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: has to be done super quickly. He wants paper ballots, fine,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: but it's an agent of the federal government. So now
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: we have federal agents coming in, what, to monitor elections.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Like you can see this playing out in a dozen
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: of very bad ways, whatever he can't get away with
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: on mail-in ballots.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, Putin doesn't like mail-in ballots because it's just
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: so much easier to physically stuff a ballot box or
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: just bus people to multiple voting locations and have them
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: vote a bunch of times or just like kill your opponents.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean? It's just an inefficient way
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: to steal an election.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Killing your opponents is much easier.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: You just got to kill them off.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Or just change the numbers after.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot of ways. When you're Putin-
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of ways to win an election.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: You just get 100% in the regions where you want
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: to get 100%, and then you're fine. Yeah, I have
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: the same reaction you did. I'm like, Trump rails against
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: mail-in ballots until it's time for him to vote himself.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Then he does it.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: His campaign is opposed to mail-in ballots until they see
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: a political advantage, and then they whip votes that way
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: or try to get people to vote that way. But
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: I'm more broadly worried, like you are, about Trump trying
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: every way possible to take control over the voting process.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: Or- Just find ways to make it harder for Democrats
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: to vote, especially in cities. That's the end game, I think.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think there's intimidation that we should worry about
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: around election time. I think that post-election is still probably
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the more dangerous period because of Democrats. That makes you
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: think that. Yeah, right. I don't know, a couple of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: years ago. And look, I think he can try to
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: convince Republican governors and Republican legislatures to get rid of
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: mail-in voting in red states. but like that, okay. First
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of all, I don't think they're going to do that
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: because the Republican Party has realized that was the stupidest
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: thing he tried to do in 2020 and that that's
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: why in 2024 they all decided to push mail-in voting.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if Republicans will want to do that,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: but even if they did, you know, you need the
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: electoral votes of the blue states. And then, you know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: he could try to get Republicans in Congress to introduce something,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: but that would run up against, you know, it would
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: need 60 votes. So then maybe, yeah, you'd have to
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: have a scenario where They get rid of the filibuster
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: to pass some, you know, elimination of mail-in voting and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the tabulation machines, which he's mad about. He wants watermarked
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: paper ballots now, which is fucking ridiculous. Sure, they're not
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: going to give any states money for that kind of
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: transition either. So, yeah, I mean, it's not likely, but
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: there are plenty of other things that can go wrong.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Well, like stepping back, one of our great protections from
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: when Russia tried to figure out if it could get
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: into sort of the voter rolls— one of our great
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: protections from Trump in 2020, when he was trying to
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: overturn the election, is the fact that our electoral system
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: is incredibly complex and it is disaggregated. It is run,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: forget the state level, it's run at the county level.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: It's run locally. And that makes stealing an election federally very,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: very difficult. That is very, very good. That is a
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: really good thing. And this is like, if fascism, you look,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: back on the terms they had for it. I can't
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: remember off the top of my head. There's a German
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: word for it about a government that can flip like
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: a switch. That was a term for it. And it
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: was an exciting technological advance, like electricity, that you could
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: just have a government where at the very top, a
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: person can flip the switch and change everything beneath it.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: That is very appealing to Trump. Forget the comparison. That
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: idea of a government that runs that way is very
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: appealing to him. It's very dangerous for democracy. And any
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: way he can undermine that independence, that disaggregation is dangerous.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: And that is what he will try to do. And
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: he will probably for the most part fail, but only
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: probably and only mostly. And that's what makes it so dangerous.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he continues to try to go for the maximalist
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: positions and then he sees what he can get. Sometimes
• 28:55
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  Speaker 1: what our government is doing to help support fascism here
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: at home. The military occupation of our nation's capital could
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: double in size. thanks to Republican governors in West Virginia, Ohio,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, and late-breaking, now Louisiana, deciding to deploy another
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: 750 troops to join the 800 National Guard members currently
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: patrolling the streets of D.C. And they may start carrying weapons,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: because it's always good to have more guns on the streets.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal reports that people living in the D.C.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods with the most crime are wondering why they're not
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: seeing Trump's deployment fighting any crime on their streets. the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: streets that have the crime. The journal says, quote, the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: most visible show of force has centered on the city's
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: upscale corridors and tourist hubs and focused on arresting immigrants,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the homeless, quote, seatbelt violations, and putting drunk revelers in Ubers.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Unnamed FBI agents... That seems okay. Yeah.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: It's just nice.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: It's polite. Don't know if we need the National Guard
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Unnamed FBI agents told the journal they are, quote, worried
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: they're neglecting larger national security threats or their own cases... Yeah. Though,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: per usual, the stars of the show seem to be armed, masked,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: unidentified ICE agents who were filmed over the weekend tackling
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and tasing a delivery driver, complaining about liberals ruining the
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: country and ripping down anti-ICE signs, a video which ICE
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: proudly tweeted out. Here's some sound from those incidents. Yo,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: let's see some badge. Yo, let's see some badge work.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Boys, let's see some badge work.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Do I have to answer to you?
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: You gotta answer to somebody.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: So, wait, so you guys are just masked?
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: We're just masked up? You guys are ruining this country.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: You know that, right? The liberals already ruined it.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, there we go.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Okay. Come on.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: We're taking America.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Back, baby. Now, an NPR reporter did say that the
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: residents of Mount Pleasant, where the sign was taken down,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: all saw that the sign was replaced afterwards with a dildo.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys saw that.
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: It's been a lot of dildo action.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: A lot of dildo action.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: A lot of dildos being thrown on the courts at
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: WNBA games. It's not like an old head thing, but
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: there was a dildo thrown onto the end zone at
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: a Bills game, I believe, a few years back.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Dildos are flying.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Tommy, I just want you to know that I think
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: there's been a lot of dildo action in this country
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: for some time. If you're just coming around to dildos,
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: you should know that they've been in the mix for
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of people.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: There was a third dildo incident recently that wasn't.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Oh, another person who believes... Damn it. Who believes in
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: the third dildo theory.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Wasn't the WNBA games. It was something else. Anyway, a
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: lot of dildos and dildos. Are you guys impressed with
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: all the crime fighting that's been happening in D.C.? Yeah,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of D.C.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: Residents would say that there is a crime problem in D.C.,
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: but the issue is not the Lincoln Memorial getting carjacked,
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: you know, and I think you made the point that
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: they're kind of giving up the game by sending troops
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: to monuments. You got Pete Hegseff tweeting about how. Union
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: Station has got some big deployment. It's like, are we
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: protecting the Sparrow? What's happening here?
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're running down the people, taking the breadbasket from
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the diplomat.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, I will say that the men's room at
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Union Station is a crime. If somebody could do something
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: about that fucking place, that place has been disgusting since
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: we were there. It remains so.
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: But obviously, I view this through the lens of, you
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: do too, the L.A. people who had our own fake
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: troop deployment to solve a nonexistent problem with nonexistent protesters.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: But like when I kind of squinted this, I see
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: it one of two ways. The first is Trump is
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: just doing whatever he can to highlight law and order
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: as an issue and pick a fight with Democrats. And
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: the unique way that D.C. is governed allows him this
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: ability to send in federal agents and just, you know,
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: create a narrative. And like to be clear, he wants
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: these fights like the sandwich guy throwing the sandwich.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: At the ICE agents. Which is very, very funny.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Resist.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: It's a funny video.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Expensive sandwich. That guy lost his job.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel bad for that guy. I don't think it,
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: it wasn't, look, the funniest part of that is he
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: outruns all those agents running like a 5-8-4.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: At a Barry's beginner speed. I mean, just, it's not fast.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: That's a 5-0, that's a 5-0 jog.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Did you see DHS brought cameras and filmed going into
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: his apartment?
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: I think there are 20 agents.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: And arresting him? 20 agents? Yes. This is like, well,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: that's all their dream. A deep state DOJ person who
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: threw a sandwich and was running away, that's owning the libs.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: That's what they're here for. But so that's the good
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: version of this, I think. The bad version is precedent
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: for a takeover of D.C. if the time was right,
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: like January 6, 2.0, or to deploy troops across the
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: country in some sort of quasi-martial law. And that's where
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: all these governors kind of just being so thirsty to
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: get in the game and send troops to Washington is
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: really interesting. pretty weird. And so I don't know, like
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: the pretext here was, I think, I mean, I was
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: off last.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Week, but it was big balls. This is all big balls.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: God be not like, to be clear, I don't want
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: to see anyone manhandling Mr. Balls in DuPont circle. That
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: is not cool and not something I'm for, but I
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: feel confident that the DC police department could have handled
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: that on their own.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: This is big balls and dildos. This is what's, this
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: is what we're having happening in DC. What do you
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: guys make of the response from a lot of elected
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Democrats over the weekend that Trump's deployment is a stunt
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: that and a distraction?
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: So those are two different things. It is absolutely a stunt.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: We know it's a stunt. He saw it on Fox News.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: He saw it. I'm going to do something about this.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: They cobbled together this plan. They bring Pam Bondi out.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: I always say Palm Bandy. Pam Bondi out to the teleprompt,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: to the press conference to be like, crime is ending
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: and it's ending now. Of course it's a stunt, but
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: that's how Trump governs. He governs with stunts, announcing tariffs
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: on the whole world as a stunt. He's very good
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: at getting a lot of attention. on the stories that
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: he wants attention on. But that doesn't make it a distraction, right?
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: It doesn't mean that's something that you should ignore. Like
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: it's a big deal that he's doing it. You have
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: to meet him where the attention is. He's gotten the attention.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: You have to respond to it. You have to have
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: an argument about it. So that's first. Then you have
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: to hold him accountable for the consequences of the stunt,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: whether it's the failure to deliver, because no, this will
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: not solve crime in this country. National Guard doing traffic
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: stops outside of Sweetgreen. at the corner of 14th and
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: R is not going to stop crime in DC. And
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: then there's just like the, the, the sort of the
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: other consequences of this. Trump today in the meeting with
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Zelensky made some point about how, or it was an
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: answer to a question about how MTG and her boyfriend
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: were able to go walk in the streets. So Trump
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: made it safe again. And Trump then jumped out. Oh,
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: I'm hearing from all kinds of friends saying that they
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: haven't gone out to dinner in DC in years. And
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: now they're going out and all the restaurants are full.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: I was like, that's a strange thing for Donald Trump
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: to say. So I was like, why is he saying that? Well,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: he's saying that because Open Table reported that the restaurant
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: reservations plummeted after this takeover because, as we all know,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: criminals and homeless people use Open Table to book their reservations.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: But it's still hurting their businesses. And then the third
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: part of it is we have to figure out ways
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: to elevate the stories that are dramatic and interesting enough
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: to compete with the stunts, right? That means pulling the
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: moments where ICE is manhandling people for no reason. It
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: means telling the stories of immigrants or American citizens grabbed
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: off the street for no reason. We have to compete
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: with Trump and his stunts with a level of drama
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: and human interest that gets people attention. And the good
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: news is that I do think on social media, especially
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: what spreads are these stories that make what Trump is
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: doing feel real for people in the way we would
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: hope that it does. yes, it's a stunt. No, it's
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: not a distraction.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I was wondering where all the distraction stuff came from,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: because it's really, really been kicked up lately on a
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of issues. And then I saw some polling
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: last week from Blue Rose Research. They did like a
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: bunch of message testing. And they said of the 16
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Democratic messages tested about the Trump D.C. takeover, just two
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: tested above average. The first one is called pivot to tariffs.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Trump's takeover of D.C. 's police is a stunt to
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: distract from the pain his tariffs are causing families. Trump's
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: tariffs are driving up prices on groceries, cars, and everyday goods, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: And then the next one, of course, pivot to Medicaid.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: While Donald Trump is sending troops into D.C. in the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: name of safety, he just cut Medicaid for millions of Americans.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: And then it goes on about the Medicaid cuts. Okay,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: so I could see why when you read someone two
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: statements that are mostly about tariffs and Medicaid cuts, they're like, oh, yeah,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: that's pretty fucked up. In real life, if someone was like,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: what's the deal with Trump's takeover of DC? And you said,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: it's a distraction from the tariffs. You sound like a
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: fucking moron. And the person would think you sound like
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: a fucking moron.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: It's kind of like the, the Swiss army knife of pivots.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: Like that's what, that's all anyone's saying. Trump is talking
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: about this because he doesn't want you to talk about that.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: And you can just insert anything you want. And I
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: think there were, there were, look, there was a, The
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: two weeks of Epstein, there was certainly a series of
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: attempts to distract from that narrative, right? Like when you're
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: hitting the Obama did treason button.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Over and over again, right? That was that. A clear
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: example of distraction.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: But I think like, I'm going to deploy the National
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: Guard to DC to drive a message about law and
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: order is Trump like getting back to his core message
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: and thing he.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Wants to talk about. Yeah, which is an authoritarian takeover
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: of the country. And like, it's pretty clear. The Epstein
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: thing is very funny because- If you guys remember, at
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the Epstein scandal, as many of us
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: were talking about it, some elected Democrats were like, Epstein,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: this Epstein thing is just a distraction from the Medicaid cuts.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Now they're all in on Epstein, and now the authoritarian
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: takeover is a distraction from the Epstein file. Guys, just
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: fucking say what you think. Say what you think about
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: what's going on.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: The insurrection was a distraction from Medicare cuts as well.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: but still important and worth talking about.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: I just, the other thing about it too, is like,
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: forget sounding stupid to people. This is a distraction. Like
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: who are you telling that to? Like, who is your,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: who is hearing that from you? Is it someone watching MSNBC?
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: Is it someone already following you on social media? Like
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: when you say into some lens that it is a distraction,
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: who's on the other side? Cause it's not the person
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: you're trying to reach with the most, with the, you're
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: not getting the person who is the, the sort of
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: the person you're hoping will receive the best poll tested message.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: You're reaching someone who's already very engaged on the topic,
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: most likely. And you're trying to figure out how to
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: how to combat what Donald Trump is doing by arming
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: that audience and people beyond it with some sort of
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: a story about why what he's doing is wrong, because
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: otherwise what's out there is just Trump doing this and
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: a bunch of Democrats saying, well, really, we should be
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: talking about something else. And no one answers the actual
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: thing of why it is wrong for Donald Trump to
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: deploy troops in DC due to a kind of a
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: manufactured crime.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's, it's always over learning the lesson of
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the last election. And in 2024 it was like, shouldn't
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: talk about democracy, should talk about kitchen table issues, which
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: voters cared about more. And what these Democrats are saying
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: by talking about distraction is the Medicaid cuts, and the
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: tariffs are more unpopular than Trump attempting to fight crime
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: is unpopular, right? That's what they're trying to say, but
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: instead use this distraction language, which just doesn't make sense.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's a little different. I think it's
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: more like Democrats not wanting to talk about immigration in
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: the last election and pivoting to anything else. It's like, no,
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: this is a thing people care about. It's happening in
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: the world. Talk about it. Take it on, make an argument. Like,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: first of all, put forward your case for how you'd
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: make things better, but also make the point that like,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: If you're worried about crime, just deploying National Guard guys
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: with no law enforcement training to hang out at the
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: Lincoln Memorial is not going to do anything.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And again, like my view on the various federal
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: agents and troops that are all over D.C. now is
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: like National Guard troops are like, why the fuck are
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: we here? That's what they were like in L.A. And,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: you know, that's why they you know who they are
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: by their uniform. And they don't wear masks. And they're
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: probably like, what are we?
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: They don't want to be there.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: They don't want to be there either. The FBI agents
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: that are running around are like, yeah, we have actual
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: threats to go take care of. We don't know why
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: we're here. But again, they're clearly identified as FBI. You
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: know that this is all about fucking letting the secret
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: police force ice just go wild and do whatever they want.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Those are the people tackling people, tasing people, saying liberals
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: ruin the country, just like fucking. I was going to
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: say mask off, but not. But just saying the quiet
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: part out loud here, right? That, like, they just don't
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: like liberals. They're politicized. That you can't identify them. The
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: guy that— the people that tased the delivery driver on 14th Street,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: no one knew where they were coming from. It just
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: said police on them, but, like, no identification whatsoever. I mean,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: that's what this is. And that's fucking dangerous. Yeah, and—
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: ICE is dangerous.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: And there is— I' m sure— The problem, right, too, is that
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: like for any any individual politician talking about this, right,
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: like they would rather be talking about health care issues
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: that they first of all, maybe have more knowledge or
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: care about. That's why they're in politics.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: And there is just less equity in talking about these
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: issues where Trump has more purchase with the electorate on crime,
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: on immigration, though he's lost a lot of ground there.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: And you may not fight to a win. You may
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: not even fight to a draw on the issue. But
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: we have to be making an argument collectively against what
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Trump is doing. You may not win there. You may
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: wish we were having a debate about health care and
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Medicaid cuts and all the rest. I wish we were, too.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: But we're not. And when we cede those grounds completely,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: we lose ground to Trump that we don't get back
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: when we eventually do talk about the big, beautiful bill
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: or whatever.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: The guy's underwater on immigration, which was his best issue.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: And the reason he is is because he, you know,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: took it to the extreme. And then a bunch of
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Democrats finally made the argument instead of avoiding talking about immigration.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: And now he's underwater on the issue. Pod Save America
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  Speaker 1: much you could save. That's policygenius.com slash crooked. All right,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the latest in the redistricting wars. On Monday,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Texas Democrats ended their two-week walkout and returned to the state,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: clearing the way for Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans to
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: pick up five Republican congressional seats at the request of
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: President Trump. Democrats said their conditions to return were met
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: after California Democrats, led by Governor Newsom last week, announced
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: a redistricting plan that would offset any gains made in Texas.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: The California plan, which Newsom discussed with Dan in our
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: last episode, would net Democrats five new House seats, but
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: would only go into effect if other states redraw their
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: maps first and only last for the 26, 28, and
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: 30 election cycles before reverting to the nonpartisan redistricting commission.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: And the plan would have to be approved by California voters.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: this November. Let's start with Texas. Tommy, I think the
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: first time we talked about this, you called that there
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: was no way the Democrats would be able to stay
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: out of Texas until December. What do you make of
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: them returning for this second session? Mission accomplished?
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think their best and only card to
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: play was to raise awareness about what was happening. And
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: so to the extent that, I mean, they did a
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: pretty good job, I think. They got this on everyone's
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: radar screen. They did a lot of media. This was
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: just kind of like The Texas legislature, it's a part-time gig.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: Most of them have jobs.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: They have families.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: They had things they had to do in Texas. So
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: like just being on the lam forever was not an option.
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: I'm like very glad that Gavin Newsom has taken this
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: on and has made this a cause. I think it's
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: going to benefit him enormously politically. And I think it's
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: really meaningful. I think his hope was probably that there
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: could be some sort of mutually assured destruction approach where
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: it's like he told Texas don't redistrict or else we
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: will too. So it just sort of stopped everyone. It
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: seems like that's not going to be the case here.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: because Texas Republicans are shameless. But yeah, it sucks.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: It sucks. What do you think?
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, they're putting their best face on going back,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: having not been able to stop the gerrymander from happening.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: But would California be doing this had Texas not fled?
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: I think so. I think Newsom was talking about it
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: before they ever left.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: Well, regardless, I think it sort of ignited something, ignited
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: a conversation. I don't, maybe it still would have had
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: to get through the legislature. So it would have to
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: go before voters. I do think it like brought to
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: the fore gerrymandering, whether it would have happened regardless. I
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: don't know whether Texas Democrats could have held out longer.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: Seems like no, because they're going back now means they thought, well,
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: maybe we can hang on a little while longer, but
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: not all the way to December. So we might as
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: well give up now. When I talked to James Tallarico,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: And I asked, like, well, what is the plan to
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: hold out? They were saying they weren't going to think
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: past this session. And I was like, well, what's the hope?
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: And the hope is that Texas Democrats back down from
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: pressure from other states. Neither of those felt likely at
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: the time. But if we end up in a situation
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: where now Democrats are doing redistricting in California, at least
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: to partially stem the losses, I think that's a good outcome.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: How do you guys feel about the prospect of Newsom's
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Election Rigging Response Act getting approved by voters this November?
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm going to vote for it. We're going
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: to have to fight.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, like, hopefully this is, you know, it's an
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: off year vote. Hopefully it'll be base turnout. A lot
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: of Democrats who sort of understand what's happening here. I mean,
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: it's really important that people understand that he is responding
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: to a massive overreach by Trump to redistrict in like
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the decade. And something is completely
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: unprecedented and that he's doing so. only as a response
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: to Texas. And it's not a permanent thing. This is
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: just a temporary fix to respond to what Texas is doing.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: I think that it's going to be challenging. I mean,
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: it's tough for the Schwarzeneggers out there fighting this hard,
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: but I think we have no other choice. I think
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: Democrats generally have no other choice to fight against gerrymandering
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: like this. Long-term, it really sucks. I think it really
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: muddles any kind of semblance of a reform message from
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: Democrats or And in longer term, like more gerrymandered districts
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: make politics more polarized and more extreme. And they help
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: people like Donald Trump because when Trump has a bunch
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: of Republicans in totally gerrymandered districts, he can fully control
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: whoever represents that district because all they care about is
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: a primary election and not a general election. But, you know,
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: we're going to fight for this. I mean, I think
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I've seen just that one political story
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: in the one set of polling that wasn't exactly what
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: Gavit has put forward. Like basically they polled. the approval
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: in the state of getting rid of the independent commission,
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: which is not at all what Gavin Newsom has proposed.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: Look, I think there's going to be a glut of
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: ads that are going to be extremely deceptive about what
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: this is that's going to claim, do you want to
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: vote for partisan politics or for independence? And in a
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: way that I think appeals to maybe lower engaged voters
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: or people that are going to kind of clock in
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: right towards the end, that's worrying. I hope that because
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: it is a midterm and because I think people are
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: going to be pretty fired up about this and explain
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: why this is necessary. I hope it'll win the day.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: It does say something about our politics that Arnold Schwarzenegger,
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: who very powerfully spoke out about why Trump is such
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: a danger, is sort of pumping iron and getting ready
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: to fight here, but not in Texas or not anywhere else.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is his state and it is his baby,
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: but still just says something also just about how redistricting
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: has worked, right? Colorado has independent redistricting. We have independent redistricting.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: It's been pursued by some of the biggest names in
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: democratic politics. And now we've sort of caught on our
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: asses because Republicans are willing to do this mid-decade and
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: talk about some of the ways in which our politics
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: are asymmetrical. But yeah, I'm glad we're doing it. I
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: hope we get it through.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think polarization sort of rules everything around us
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: these days. And I think you have a big democratic
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: voter registration in California. And I think if you ask
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: California Democrats, would you rather Republicans have a lock on
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: the House of Representatives in the midterms so they can
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: continue to rubber stamp Donald Trump's agenda? Or do you
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: care more about keeping independent redistricting and getting rid of gerrymandering?
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: They're going to say they care more about the midterms
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: if it's communicated well. I mean, it's still going to
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: take some work. It's going to take a lot of money.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: And it's by no means a sure thing. But I
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: feel like in this case, polarization is going to help
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: us because it's pretty clear that if California doesn't do it,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: they're going to start with a five to 10 seat
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: head start on the midterms.
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: And in terms of the long-term effect of what gerrymandering does,
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: like I hear you, Tommy, on like the ways it
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: makes a kind of, it draws people to the extremes
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: in those districts. But you look at where we're at
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: now with the vote on this big, beautiful bill, right?
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: There was like one or two super right-wing holdouts. There
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: are no Republican moderates left. There are a few Democratic moderates,
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: but no matter how you draw the maps, there will
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: still be swing districts all across the country already we're
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: pretty polarized in Congress. So I'm less worried about the
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: effects on how we govern and more just the brute
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: partisan impact of gerrymandering and the fact that if we
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: do this, and this will be what we'll get to next,
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: what is the Republican reaction? Because they have more arrows
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: in their quiver.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Than we do. Yeah. Also, we spent a couple of
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: years trying to pass a bill just a couple of
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: years ago that would have outlawed gerrymandering all across the country.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: So I think Democrats can very easily say, now we've gerrymandered,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: you've gerrymandered, We'll give up our gerrymandering if you give
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: up your gerrymandering. And if they don't want to, then like,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't think they, I don't, I think
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: the reform message is still strong then.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: We can say that, but that just, it sounds kind
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: of childish. You know, like I, like I, you're right.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: Of course, we're all supportive of that bill. I just
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: think it muddles it and it sucks.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: It's like, although there are a lot of democratic states
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: that are gerrymandered to fuck already. It's not like Democrats
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: are out there leading the charge, complaining about Maryland.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like... No, but if we had passed
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: the John Lewis voting rights bill, then Maryland, none of
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: them would have.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: We would support universal redistricting reform for the country. But like,
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of hypocrisy here that I think is challenging.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, I think every single Democrat in
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: the country voted for that bill, voted to get rid
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: of gerrymandering, including the senators from Maryland and from every
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: other Democratic state. I know.
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: It's just a tough sell. I think it's a tough sell.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: New York Times published a great analysis over the weekend
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: that quantified the Republican Party's redistricting advantage, that just as
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Republicans have the potential to pick up seats in 15
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: different states, well, Democrats only have the potential to pick
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: up seats in three to four, if you include California,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: after passage of its ballot measure. So we basically knew this.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: But after the California news, it does seem like a
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: good reminder that Republicans can still rig the maps to
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: start the midterms with a big advantage of the House. Yeah.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: Also, just part of the reason why Republicans are against
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: independent redistricting is because it helps Democrats more than it
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: helps Republicans because the maps are inherently less fair to
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: Democrats because of where Democrats live and how we're distributed.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: Our protection here, we talked about this a little bit,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: but some of this is kind of old school politics
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: and there are natural breaks on gerrymandering. One being that
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: if you gerrymander too hard, you can lose your seats
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: in a wave. The other being that what you do
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: when you gerrymander is you take seats from a safe
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: Republican district and you put it in another district to
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: make it more safe. But those are, you're taking Republicans,
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: parts of, you're taking Republican neighborhoods from Republican politicians in
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of states. And they're going to be fighting
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: behind the scenes, never in public, be like, hey, hey,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: that town of rich golfing assholes, they belong to me.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: Those are my people.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: Those are my people. You're not giving them to this
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: other freak. Those are my people.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: It is wild that the California Republicans and the New
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: York Republicans and everywhere else, they're probably going to lose
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: their seats or just sort of Maybe they put out
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: a statement slightly, but it's like, you know, it's Donald
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Trump's party and he's the king and you don't piss
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: him off. And so, oh, whatever, I guess I'll just
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: lose my job.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: It's pathetic.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: It's truly pathetic. And just don't say anything. Yeah. Pretty
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: fucking wild. Pretty wild. All right. Before we jump to
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the interview, we should talk now that we're on Newsom
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: about his social media strategy. If you're no longer on Twitter,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: you may have missed the rollout of Newsom's new press
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: office account where the governor's team has been posting aggressive
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: parodies of of Trump's all-caps tweets and over-the-top memes like
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: this one. Let's check it out. For those who are
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: just listening, Lovett, can you describe what we're seeing here?
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's Gavin Newsom being supported by the angel of
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: Hulk Hogan and a living Kid Rock and a living
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson, I believe, with his hands on his shoulders.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: Which is interesting that only Hulk Hogan is dead because
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: normally it's the spirits behind them.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: But it's a beautiful, moving AI portrait, and I think
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: speaks to the promise of AI itself and why we're
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: all so excited about it.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if they could have used other MAGA
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: stars who have passed, like Hulk Hogan, Herman Cain.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's a good idea.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: The Kaiser.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know about the Kaiser. I don't know where
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: the Kaiser would have been out of MAGA.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think about the social media thing?
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's great.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you something. I saw the first one, like
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: the parody one, and it gave me a weird feeling
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: at first.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: It was like, oh, yeah, that's right. You did say that.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: And like it hit me in a strange way. But
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: I love I love two things about it. One, I
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: love the commitment to the bit. And the bit has
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: only gotten stronger with commitment. And they are excellent. They're
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: not they're not like real humor. It's not resistance lib
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: version of a Trump tweet. They really are doing a
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: good job of getting the voice.
• 57:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: And so the fact that it's being done so well
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: is working for me and it's annoying them. The fact
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: that it's getting a rise out of them is, is,
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: is making me like it more.
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: It's breaking through. It's getting attention. People are talking about it.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: Republicans are mad about it. Democrats find it funny. I
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: admit like I too, when I first saw the kind
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: of all caps Trump parody, uh, sad exclamation. Like I just,
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh boy, where's this going to go?
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: Because we've seen a lot of it done poorly.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: Now this is done well. And it's, it's not just
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: like Trump trolling, like, you know, the libs of TikTok
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: account tweeted an attack on Gavin Newsom. So they replied
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: with a photo of her holding up the Epstein files
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: phase one binder and said, great job, Chaya.
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: So they're just like going after tons of people. And
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: I think that pisses off the Republicans. It gets you attention.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: It also gets you some sort of like algorithmic juice
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: right because you're engaging in fights and people are looking
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: at it and they're sharing it and they're commenting and
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: it's just like you know this um the jd vance
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: one of him what's the name of the australian break
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: dancer oh.
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: Fuck skeet shoot nope what no it was something you
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: know what i mean uh uh skater eight gator skater
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: uh ray gun ray gun close you're so close Almost there.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I like it.
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: Tweeting the video of J.D. Vance jogging like an idiot. Like,
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: I like it.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: It's fun. It is wild to me. I mean, it's
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: not surprising, but it's still wild that one of the
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: deputy press secretaries in the White House was like, this
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: is so lame and unserious that he's doing this. And
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Dana Perino just on The Five was like, where is
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom's wife in all this? How could she be
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: letting him do this? It's so unserious. This is not,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: how did, he thinks this is gonna be successful? And
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: I was like, I tweeted, I was like, what do
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: you think of Donald Trump's social media strategy? Do you
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: think that's a thing? And she's like, well, I just,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: I think that, I don't think it's going to work.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to work.
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: Well, that's what everyone went down to. Oh, it's not
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: going to work. Oh, this is a strategic impulse that
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: you're feeding. What I also appreciate about this, and what
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: I appreciate about what Gavin Newsom has been doing with redistricting,
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: with the way that he's doing press, the way that
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: he's coming on our show, is We talked about who's
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: going to be the person that takes on MAGA. Maybe
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: it's Gavin, maybe it's not. But the way we find
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: out is by seeing how they take on, like the
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: right person who's going to take on whoever replaces Trump
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: or is Trump in 2028. How do we figure out
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: who the right person is? Well, let's see what they're
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: doing right fucking now. How are they fighting back against
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: MAGA now? How are they making news and taking attention now?
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: And so I view this as like a time where
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: the people that are going to be the right people
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: to lead this are going to be showing us what
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: they want to do and how they're going to fight them.
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: And the people that are hanging back to wait for
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: their moment to ride in on a white horse, I'm
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: just less interested in.
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: It's like shamelessness and commitment really gets you a long way.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump has shown us that. Somewhere Gavin Newsom must
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: have had a meeting where he was like, you know what?
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: I trust you guys.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Let rip.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: Have fun with this.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: And it's working.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: And just watching Republicans flail in response has been very funny.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: I think it was over the weekend. Some Republican account
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: tweeted a photo of Gavin Newsom like 15 or 20
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: years ago. maybe at a wedding.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: Kind of looking, looking like, you know, it was like
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: 11 to 12 to 1 a.m. at a wedding next
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: to a very attractive younger woman being like, you really
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: gonna vote for that guy? He was gawking a little bit.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: He was gawking at her, like judging by the angle
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: of the photo or whatever. I was like, do you
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: think this makes him look bad? It's like a young,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: attractive photo of this man next to an attractive person.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: I thought you guys were, yeah, I thought you were
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: the manosphere part. Yeah, I thought you guys got what
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: voters like. This isn't a negative thing.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: We used to be the ones for fucking and sucking.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: Now you are. That sucks.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: What?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: I'm just saying. Gen Z's not having sex. We gotta...
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: They're out there acting.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: We gotta be... Listen.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: America's gonna vote for fucking and sucking.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: Alright?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: Am I wrong? Are we sick? He's having fun.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: That's why they put the dildo there.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: This is our lead-in to Bridget Brink.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's gonna be really excited about her decision.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: Ukraine's getting fucked.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay. I will just say that also... Gavin Newsom
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: has separated himself just a little bit from the, like
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: it's not, his tweets are also punchy and great, but
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: they're not the same parody voice as the account, which
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: I think is, it keeps his stature and it's his
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: doing his, in his press office is doing it. And
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: so like he, he's having fun. He likes it. He's
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: enjoying it. But like when he's given interviews, he's not,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: he's not.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: Doing the voice moron. He's not doing the voice. And
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: you know what? It's just like, Hey, like there was,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: there was a moment in 2024. It was called, I
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: don't know if you remember it, Brett Summer. And there
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: was like a brief, it was, it was like a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: refreshing moment where people were just having fun and the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: team on the social media accounts were having fun and
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: it was exciting and it was generating enthusiasm. And did
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: it work? Yes. No, but I just think it's like
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: great to have like they were like there's some fun
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: in it.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: It was good.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: It was good.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: I'm joking. Of course, it was awesome that that was happening.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: It was exciting.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: There is like we do. Let's just define what success is.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: Because I saw some like self-serious chode tweet like liberals
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: think this is how you convince swing voters to like. No,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: this is not about swing voters. This is about the
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: base and getting attention. in breaking through the clutter and
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: the crap on social media so people know about you
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: and what you're talking about and you're just making noise.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: That's all this is.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Also, so many people in my life who are not
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: political junkies have recently been like, I don't even know
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: that much about Newsom, but these are really funny. I've
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: noticed these. Attention is the most important currency.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: The way that I think about it, too, is we
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: don't get attention anymore. You have to take it. You
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: take attention. And this is taking attention. That's great.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's a distraction from Gavin's other problems.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: It's a distraction from the Epstein files from the takeover
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: of DC from the Medicaid cuts.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: She's like, make some Epstein.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: All right. In a moment, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: former United States ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: Apologies.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Apologies.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: That apology is not from me.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: But before we jump to that, the new season of
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Shadow Kingdom is almost here. Shadow Kingdom Coal Survivor. is
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: the unbelievable true story of the deadly power struggle for
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: control of the United Mine Workers of America and the
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: son who took on a dangerous union boss to avenge
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: his family's murder. At the center is Tony Boyle, the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: union president so powerful and corrupt he'd stop at nothing
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: to keep control. And when a rival candidate threatened that,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: that man and his family ended up dead. Host Niccolo
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: Mainoni investigates the rise and fall of a union built
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: to protect workers and the moment it became their greatest threat.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: With never-before-heard tapes, exclusive reporting, and interviews with those who
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: lived it, including Chip Yablonski, the surviving son of Toadie's
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: murdered rival. This season tells the story of a movement
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: that turned deadly. Listen to the trailer now on the
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: Shadow Kingdom feed and tune in to the premiere of
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Shadow Kingdom August 25th, wherever you get your podcasts. Friends
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: of the Pod subscribers can listen to the full season
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: of Shadow Kingdom starting August 25th. Join Friends of the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Pod at cricket.com slash friends or subscribe to the Shadow
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Kingdom Apple feed. Pod Save America is brought to you
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• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: Joining me now is the former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: Bridget Brink. She is now running to represent Michigan's seventh
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: congressional district. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining the show.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 7: Thanks so much for having me, Tommy.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: So we all saw this press conference today between Ukrainian
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump. The good news is
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: it was not nearly as bad as the one we
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: all watched in February. The bad news is I feel
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: like a lot of the big kind of ticket issues
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: are not resolved. What were your takeaways from what we
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: saw and what you've read since?
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 7: Well, First of all, I think it's very good that
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 7: it was better than the meeting in February, that's for sure.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 7: I think there were some critical things that needed to
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 7: come out of it, and I think it's yet to
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 7: be seen if they did. And I think first and foremost,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 7: it's security for Ukraine. The starting point to ending this
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 7: war is focusing on how do Ukrainians have security? And
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 7: if that problem can be solved, the other pieces, whether
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 7: it's territory, whether it's assistance, whether it's other things, those
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 7: can all follow. But the starting point is security. And
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 7: it does sound like that was a topic of conversation,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 7: both in the bilateral meeting, but also critically in the
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 7: meeting with European leaders.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so there has been a lot of focus on
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: this question of what a security guarantee for Ukraine could
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: look like if the war were to end. The contours
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: of the kind of broader deal could be Ukraine gives
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: up a lot of territory to Russia Putin agrees to
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: end the war and not evade again. I guess we
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: kind of pretend to believe him because he's a liar
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: and we should not believe him on the front. But
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: that pledge is also backed up by a European and
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: potentially U.S. Ukrainian security guarantee, maybe some sort of force
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: in Ukraine that says, you know, if Putin does this again,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: we'll protect you. President Trump didn't rule out the U.S.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: playing a role in like whatever the security force might
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: look like. But I'm a little skeptical that you might
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: see U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine. But what
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: kind of security guarantee do you think could actually deter Putin?
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 7: Well, I think first and foremost, any diplomatic negotiation needs to,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 7: with Russia, certainly with Vladimir Putin, needs to do two things.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 7: And this is where I think we need to start.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 7: Number one, has to make sure that we don't give
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 7: away things in advance. And that's already happened, whether that
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 7: is a meeting, which for someone maybe not in diplomacy
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 7: doesn't sound like a big deal, but that is a
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 7: very big deal to have a meeting with the president
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 7: of the United States. Or maybe even more fundamentally, NATO membership.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: That is a decision for the members of NATO and
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 7: those members alone. Those things have already been, well, the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 7: meeting has happened and NATO membership has at least in
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 7: earlier conversations been taken off the table. That's one thing
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 7: that I think is problematic in the way this is
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 7: being approached. The second, though, is trust but verify. I mean,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 7: this is something that has to be done with a
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 7: leader like Vladimir Putin, who, as you said, he lies.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 7: He agrees to things and then violates those agreements over
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 7: and over. and over again. So we can't trust anything
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 7: that he is going to agree to. Instead, what we
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: need to do and what Europe needs to do is
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 7: come together with Ukraine on an agreement of what would
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 7: make Ukrainians feel secure. Secure so people come home and
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 7: they can contribute to their own economy secure so that
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 7: the U.S. and Europeans can work together with Ukraine to
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 7: invest for the benefit of both the countries. And that
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: would happen only with maybe one option is NATO membership.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 7: It's not clear that this is something NATO members are
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 7: yet ready to do. I actually think this would be
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 7: a smart option. But if not NATO, it could be
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 7: something else. It could be a coalition of the willing
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 7: that provides some kind of security guarantee so that essentially
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 7: If Putin violates the agreement, there will be a consequence.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 7: And that consequence will be not just Ukraine responding. It
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 7: will be Ukraine plus other democratic partners responding.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: Trump and Zelensky were joined today, as you mentioned, by
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: a collection of European heads of state and officials, leaders
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: from France, Germany, Italy, Finland, the UK, you, NATO. Obviously,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: these countries, these entities have a huge interest in the
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: outcome from today's talks. But what did you make of
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: the strategy today? of having them all in Washington with
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: Zelensky at the same time as part of this bilateral meeting?
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 7: Well, I would have preferred that it happened before a
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 7: meeting with Vladimir Putin, but I think it's a good idea.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 7: I think and believe that our allies and partners are
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 7: part of what increases U.S. power and that we should
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 7: first and foremost be close with countries that align with
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 7: our values. And that's democracy, that's rule of law, that's
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 7: protection of human rights. And all of those countries that
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 7: came to Washington represent that. So I think it's a
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 7: great thing. I think that it's good if we're working together.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 7: It also shares the burden with Europe that we should do.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: And Europe is stepping up in a way that I
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 7: think is very positive, including buying U.S. weapons that will
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 7: then be given to Ukraine. But I think working with
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 7: partners and allies is vitally important. And it's a change.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: And I think it should continue.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: Last week, Putin and Trump met in Alaska for this,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: whatever you want to call it, historic mess. They failed
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: to broker a ceasefire. Trump kind of tried to yada, yada,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: yada away the value and importance of a ceasefire today. But,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: you know, going into that meeting, he said basically that
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 4: that was the line of success or failure. You also
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: heard Putin continue to outline pretty maximalist views. He kind
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: of codes it as dealing with the root causes of
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: the conflict, which I'd love for you to explain to
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: our listeners. But what was your takeaway from this summit,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: such as it was in Alaska, and what maybe was
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: achieved or not?
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 7: Well, I mean, I thought it was a win for Putin.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 7: And this is exactly why I resigned from my position
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 7: as U.S. ambassador, because I could see this also back
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 7: in April when I left my position and also left
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 7: the State Department, that the instinct of President Trump and
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 7: the administration is to appease Putin and to take what
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 7: Putin says at face value and respond on his terms,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 7: not on our terms. And I believe we should be
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 7: using the levers of American power to achieve a result,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 7: not just that's good for Ukraine, because it matters for Ukraine, obviously,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 7: but it also really deeply matters for Europe and it
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 7: matters for the United States. And that result needs to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 7: be one that, again, starts with security and puts more
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 7: sanctions on Russia. The economy is already hurting. There's more
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 7: that can be done and we should be doing it.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 7: And third, that gets the Russian sovereign assets that are
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 7: in Europe. It's about $ 300 billion. Those could be used
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 7: to buy weapons in America and potentially in Europe and
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 7: in Ukraine so that Ukraine can defend itself. There are
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 7: many ways we can do this without an endless amount
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 7: of American taxpayer money flowing to Ukraine, but that secure
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 7: our interests.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: Do you really think that any kind of security guarantee
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: that doesn't include the backing of NATO or the United
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: States can deter Putin. I mean, imagine, you know, we're
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: talking about giving up, the Russians are demanding that the
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: Ukrainians give up parts of the Donetsk province that are
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: the most heavily fortified. Obviously, the U.S. is sort of
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: the biggest military force within NATO. If we are not
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: part of a security guarantee that is Article 5-like, that says,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: you know, an attack on Ukraine will be responded to militarily,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: by the US, will that deter Putin?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 7: Well, my belief is that NATO has already deterred Putin.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 7: So I believe that that optimally would be an option
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 7: we should go down. Conditions-based for Ukraine, but to make
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 7: clear that Putin has no business and no right and
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 7: no ability to stop NATO from deciding as NATO which
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 7: countries will be a part of this alliance. It's a
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 7: defensive alliance. It's an offensive alliance. And we should not
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 7: accept any of Putin's historical justifications for why he started
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 7: this war in Ukraine in a sovereign country. So yes, ideally,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 7: it would be something as ironclad as NATO. But it
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 7: could be something lesser than that. If that's not an
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 7: immediate possibility, which I actually don't think it is immediately,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 7: then the question would be, what would? And I think
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 7: that's a question that the Ukrainians can answer. And I'm
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 7: confident that between us and the Europeans, and I believe
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 7: we would need to be a part of it, we
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 7: could answer that question. But again, because the promise that
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 7: President Trump made to end this war is not happening,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 7: this is exactly the problem. We're six months into this administration,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 7: and the claim that the war, as I hear many times,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 7: would never have started under President Trump, I mean, the
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 7: fact of the matter is the war has escalated since
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 7: President Trump has taken office. Just in July, more civilians
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 7: have been killed in that month than any month since
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 7: May of 2022. That's when I first arrived in Kiev. Additionally,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 7: more missiles and drones have been sent to Ukraine from
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 7: Putin and Russia in July than any time since the
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 7: beginning of the war. Over 6,000. I mean, imagine that.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 7: Imagine if that was America. I know this because I
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 7: lived under these night after night, I know exactly what
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 7: it's like for the people of Ukraine. And we should
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 7: not be okay with this. And we should be very
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 7: clear to Putin and not welcoming him back with red
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 7: carpet in Alaska so that we can hear out his
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 7: rationale for starting the biggest land war in Europe since
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 7: World War II. In my mind, this is crazy. And
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 7: this is not what we want to be representing. This
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 7: is not using American power in a way that advances
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 7: our values, advances our interests.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, two-part question. I mean, can you sort
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: of tell us what you've heard from folks you still
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: talk to back in Ukraine about how they felt about
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: seeing Trump literally roll out the red carpet for Putin?
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: And then second, I mean, you were, I believe, in
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: the State Department for nearly 30 years. We actually overlapped
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: at one point during the Obama administration when you were
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: a detail to the NSC. I mean, back in my day,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 4: staffers like you, I was a little lower level than you,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: but like worked really, really hard to get all the
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: details done in advance of of the meeting so that
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 4: the leaders could agree to it and have a big
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: thing to announce. It seemed like this was just thrown
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 4: together and that the whole point of the Trump Putin
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: meeting was just kind of the optics of the Putin meeting.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: I sort of wondered what you made of that kind
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: of slapdash method.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, you're exactly right. So it's, it's great to
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 7: see you again, but the meetings like this summit meetings
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 7: are ordinarily prepared weeks, if not months in advance. And
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 7: so the outcomes of the meeting, and they're always outcome focused.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 7: So we only agree to such a meeting after many
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 7: meetings before happen and after we know what will come
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 7: out of that meeting. And as you know, during the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 7: time when we were both in the White House under
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 7: President Obama, these were just incredibly detailed and stage managed
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 7: in a way so that the outcome met our needs
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 7: and our interests. And in this case, I actually think
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 7: it's more about a distraction. It's a distraction from, well,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 7: most importantly, I think what's going on at home and
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 7: promises not kept with regard to the economy. So promises
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 7: to lower prices and make life more affordable are not,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 7: it's not happening. And I can tell you that from Michigan,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 7: where I am now, because I talk to people all
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 7: over my district and they are very frustrated because prices
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 7: are going up. Their insurance costs are going up. their
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 7: kids can't afford to buy their own houses. This is
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 7: happening today in America. And we see this with the
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 7: indicators that came out in just the last couple of weeks,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 7: the jobs report, the inflation report. I think this is
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 7: more about distracting attention to something. And as you can see,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 7: everyone's paying close attention to in a slapdash way so
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 7: that the main issue that people are unhappy about is
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 7: no longer the focus in the media. And I think
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 7: we have to be really clear about this and show
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 7: when promises that have been made by President Trump are
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 7: not being kept. And I can tell you from Michigan
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 7: that this is happening right here and right now.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: Including the promise to end this war in 24 hours.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 4: Zelensky's last Oval Office meeting was an unmitigated disaster. And
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: on some level, like this was better than that. So
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: I think there was a sigh of relief. But then
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: we saw, you know, Trump and J.D. Vance dressing down
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: Zelensky and There were random reporters insulting Zelensky based on
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: the clothing he was wearing. What was the reaction like?
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: in Ukraine after that meeting? And what do you think
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: Zelensky learned from it? And how did he adjust going forward?
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 7: I think the reaction in Ukraine about the whole positioning
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 7: of the United States after that meeting, but also during
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 7: a number of key moments in the last few months
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 7: has been one of just shock and incomprehension. People don't
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 7: understand what happened. I mean, I had a meeting with
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 7: the foreign minister, one of my last meetings, and there's
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 7: just not an understanding there. All he could say is,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 7: you know, what happened? You know, you were our closest ally.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 7: And I think the challenge we have in this instance
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 7: is that we have turned our positioning 180 degrees, which,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 7: you know, any new administration gets to make the policy.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 7: And of course, that goes to the president. But in
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 7: this case, it doesn't meet our interest. It does not
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 7: meet U.S.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: Interests.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 7: And as you said, it also isn't achieving the promise
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 7: that was made, end the war in 24 hours or
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 7: end the war in 100 days. I mean, in either case,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 7: we're well past that point. And as I said, it's
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 7: gotten worse. So what I think people feel is just
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 7: They don't understand. And it's hard to believe not just
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 7: that the position has changed, but that instead there's an
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 7: appeasing or a capitulation to the demands of the aggressor
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 7: of Putin, who is essentially changing the borders of Europe
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 7: at a time when this has not happened in 80 years.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 7: After 80 years of peace on the European continent, we
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 7: are now facing the biggest threat to European security since
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 7: that time, since World War II. Now, why should we
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 7: care about it? We should care about it because Europe
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 7: is our biggest trading partner. It's the home of some
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 7: of our most important allies who are working with us
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 7: on any number of issues and problems and crises around
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 7: the world. So it makes no sense for us to,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 7: you know, side with the aggressor on a moral plane,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 7: but even more than that. In terms of our interests
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 7: and our values, it makes no sense. And the danger
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 7: we have is that China's stepping in, our adversaries are
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 7: stepping in, because we are stepping back and siding with
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 7: dictators and siding with autocrats. It's unthinkable. And it's, again,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 7: the reason why I spent my entire, almost 30 years
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 7: in the parts of Europe that are contested space, the
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 7: young democracies of Europe. And the reason that I left
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 7: the State Department, the reason that I left that job
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 7: that I love so much and that I had done
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 7: since I was in my 20s, was that I saw
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 7: us becoming what some of these young countries are, which
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 7: are weaker democracies. And I couldn't believe that that could
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 7: be the situation with the United States. And the only
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 7: way I thought to change it, I could not change
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 7: it from the inside, was to step out and try
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 7: to change it in a different way. And so just,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 7: you know, so people know where I'm coming from. I'm
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 7: running for Congress in mid-Michigan for the 7th District to
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 7: try to help flip a critical seat and also to
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 7: help flip the House, because I think we need to
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 7: have principled leaders in Washington who are solely focused on
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 7: American interests, solely focused on delivering for the people of, well,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 7: for me, my district, but also our state and our country,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 7: in a way that helps make America the strongest country
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 7: in the world, which I believe deeply, that's our tradition
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 7: and we need to keep building on it, not destroying it.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 7: And this is what I see is happening right now.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, look at you, you are, you know, you're
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: an ambassador. You had very senior jobs throughout the state department,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 4: an extraordinary tenure of service, and you resigned because you
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: couldn't in good conscience carry out this administration's foreign policy.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: And I think you could be, um, I would understand
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: if you decided to take some time off or go
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: into the private sector or write white papers for a
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: think tank, but instead you decided to run for Congress.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: And what do you hope to accomplish in this next
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 4: iteration of public service? Why was it running for this
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: seat the thing that inspired you to be your next step?
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 7: Yeah, well, thanks. I mean, I felt compelled to do
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 7: something because I had spent my life trying to build
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 7: up uh, the young democracies on the fringes of Europe
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 7: and create better partners, stronger partners and allies for the
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 7: United States and fighting essentially for freedom and democracy. That's
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 7: what I spent almost 30 years doing and very proud
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 7: to do it. I was proud every single day that
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 7: I represented our country working for five presidents and, um,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 7: over a lifetime and a career, but it just seemed
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 7: that I needed to find a way, um, To do that,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 7: I feel like it's such a critical moment for us
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 7: because the problems that I saw overseas in terms of
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 7: broken promises or doing things that did not reflect or
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 7: advance our interests is exactly what I see happening at home.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 7: I'm a really proud Michigander. My family goes back in
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 7: Michigan for six generations, and I decided to come home
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 7: with my family. I have a husband and two kids.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 7: and to run for Congress. And I think that that
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 7: is a way to change the situation and change it
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 7: in a way that advances US interests, that actually helps
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 7: to do what we promised to do. And in my district,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 7: it's all about the economy. It's all about how do
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 7: you help make life more affordable? And what Trump is
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 7: doing right now with regard to the reckless tariffs, it's
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 7: making everything more expensive. regard to the big ugly bill,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 7: it's threatening to take away health insurance from 25,000 people
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 7: in my district, but also will increase the cost of
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 7: life insurance for everybody else. So the actions that are
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 7: being taken on the domestic front are also equally bad
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 7: for the people of Michigan, the people of my district.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 7: And so I feel like we need truthfulness. We need
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 7: correct facts. We need to make policy based on what
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 7: actually is true and happening and ensure that we deliver.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 7: We need government to deliver so that people feel that
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 7: government and have confidence in their political leadership, which must
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 7: also be held accountable no matter who it is, whether
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 7: it's the president of the United States, the house leadership
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 7: for any district or local representation, everyone needs to be
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 7: accountable for how they deal with taxpayer money and how
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 7: they deliver.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: Well, Ambassador Brink, thank you for your decades of service
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: in the State Department. Thank you for joining us today
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: and providing insight on this cluster of a policy towards Ukraine.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: And best of luck in your campaign. And really appreciate
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 4: you doing the show.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 7: Thank you. You can find me on BridgetBrink.com. Thanks a lot, Tommy.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 7: It's great to see you. Thanks for having me on.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Bridget Brink for
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: coming on. Dan and I will be back with a
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: new show on Friday.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: We didn't even talk about the Melania letter.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 4: I think she's a force for good in this.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: I really do. I also didn't.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 3: I think Chad GPT is a force for good in this.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 4: I think Chad GPT wrote the letter, but I kind
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: of think Melania is pushing Trump in a good direction.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm not going to. We also forgot
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: to talk about the flyover, but that's fine. Which part?
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: The B-2 bomber and how that was just a massive show.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're MAGA dudes just like losing their minds, just
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: rock hard.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: Over it in that video.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 4: I was like, guys, you think Putin's intimidated by that?
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think he is. They're fucking talking over that.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they were.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 4: Do you guys think Putin thinks that Trump's going to
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 4: bomb him and kill himself?
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: This is a great coda. We should just put it
• 1:26:30
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