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Trump's Justices Turn On Him · Pod Save America

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Speaker 1: safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
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Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
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Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
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Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to cover the Supreme Court
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Speaker 1: stopping Alien Enemy Act deportations for now. and bring in
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Speaker 1: strict scrutiny's Leah Lippman to tell us what it all means.
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Speaker 1: We'll also talk about Pete Hegseth's second signal chat scandal
1:59
Speaker 1: and the mutiny against him from within the Pentagon, how
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Speaker 1: the White House started its war with Harvard by mistake,
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Speaker 1: and the passing of Pope Francis, who held on just
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Speaker 1: long enough to dunk on J.D.
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Speaker 3: Vance.
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Speaker 1: But let's start with the biggest news from the weekend,
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Speaker 1: which is that the Supreme Court has inched even closer
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Speaker 1: to a full-blown confrontation with the Trump administration over their
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Speaker 1: use of the Alien Enemies Act to deprive people of
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Speaker 1: any due process before disappearing them to prison in El Salvador.
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Speaker 1: The court issued a highly unusual emergency ruling in the
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Speaker 1: middle of the night that specifically ordered the administration to
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Speaker 1: halt their plans to deport a group of Venezuelans, at
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Speaker 1: least temporarily. Only Justices Thomas and Alito dissented. In just
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Speaker 1: a bit, you're going to hear Lovett's quick interview with
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Speaker 1: our pal Leah Lippman from Strict Scrutiny about what the
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Speaker 1: ruling means and what's next. Before we get to that,
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Speaker 1: the three of us haven't had a chance to talk since...
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Speaker 1: Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen returned from El Salvador after
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Speaker 1: his last-minute surprise meeting with Kilmer Abrego Garcia, who had
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Speaker 1: been transferred out of Seacott to a new prison. Bukele
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Speaker 1: and the Trump White House, of course, attacked Van Hollen
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Speaker 1: for meeting with Abrego Garcia. Salvadoran officials even placed two
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Speaker 1: fake margaritas in front of them to make it seem
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Speaker 1: like everyone's having a good time down there. When Van
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Speaker 1: Hollen returned home.
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Speaker 2: Two margaritas, I'm going to open the jail. All right.
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Speaker 3: Huh? You got one laugh and a lot of stone face.
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Speaker 3: I don't know that song.
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Speaker 1: It's okay. I thought we'd go with like a wasting
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Speaker 1: away in Margaritaville.
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Speaker 3: Nope.
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Speaker 1: No? Okay. When Van Hollen returned home, he did all
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Speaker 1: the Sunday shows. Here he is patiently answering questions from
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Speaker 1: Fox News anchor Shannon Bream that might have caused me
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Speaker 1: to burst a blood vessel. Did you ask him if
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Speaker 1: he has any association with MS-13?
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Speaker 4: I didn't ask him directly because he's answered that question
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Speaker 4: repeatedly as his lawyers have. My purpose in going there
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Speaker 4: was to, number one, see if he was alive, see
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Speaker 4: if he was healthy, take his story.
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Speaker 3: Do you worry, though, that you are sticking your neck
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Speaker 3: out for somebody who, maybe down the line, is proven
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Speaker 3: to be connected to MS-13?
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Speaker 4: I want to be very clear. I'm not vouching for
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Speaker 4: the man. I'm vouching for the man's rights.
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Speaker 1: Who did pay for this trip?
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Speaker 4: This was an officially cleared congressional trip, cleared on bipartisan basis. Yes,
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Speaker 4: like every other trip. Like the trip Kristi Noem took
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Speaker 4: with her fashion show before Seacott.
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Speaker 1: Nice. Also two Republican congressmen now? We paid for Kilmar
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Speaker 1: Obrego-Garcia's trip, too.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And his detention.
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Speaker 1: Six million dollars a year.
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Speaker 3: And lodging. So, shut up.
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Speaker 2: So shut up.
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Speaker 1: It was really hard to watch the whole interview. Chris
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Speaker 1: Van Hollen, patience of a saint there.
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Speaker 3: He's doing a good job.
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Speaker 1: You guys have reactions to the meeting and the aftermath.
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Speaker 1: The Trump folks seem to think this is a winning
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Speaker 1: issue for them and that people will believe that the
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Speaker 1: story is about Democrats trying to bring an MS-13 foreign
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Speaker 1: terrorist back home.
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Speaker 3: I think Van Hollen did a good job of making
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Speaker 3: it about bigger principles. Like he did exactly what I
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Speaker 3: want Democrats to do in this moment, which is he
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Speaker 3: stepped up. He flew down to El Salvador. He took
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Speaker 3: personal political risk. knowing Bukele would try to humiliate him,
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Speaker 3: which he did with this. It wasn't even a good
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Speaker 3: margarita stunt. It was like a cherry or something.
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Speaker 1: No one's drinking margaritas with cherries.
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Speaker 3: What are you doing, dude?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was in a water glass. It was strange.
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Speaker 3: It was foolish. And then he knew, obviously, that Republicans
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Speaker 3: would attack him as like a fan of gang members.
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Speaker 3: And sure enough, the White House photoshopped a photo of
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Speaker 3: Van Hollen with like gang tattoos all over his face
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Speaker 3: and stuff. So it's just childish nonsense. But Van Hollen
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Speaker 3: used what little leverage he had as U.S. Senator to
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Speaker 3: get the only results we've seen outside of a courtroom,
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Speaker 3: which was to get access to Ebrego Garcia. And I
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Speaker 3: also think, you know, he's someone who's shown a lot
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Speaker 3: of courage on a bunch of issues lately on Gaza,
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Speaker 3: a whole bunch of other, a host of other things.
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Speaker 3: And I think that's what we want from someone like
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Speaker 3: him in a safe seat like Maryland to do, like
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Speaker 3: put your neck out there.
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Speaker 1: You guys have any thoughts on like why Bukele allowed
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Speaker 1: the visit last minute? These are all educated guesses because
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Speaker 1: we don't know for sure.
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Speaker 3: But there was a not at all veiled threat that
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Speaker 3: not allowing that access was a violation of international law
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Speaker 3: and could lead to cuts to future U.S. assistance. Right.
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Speaker 2: Except it would have to be cuts to future U.S.
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Speaker 2: assistance under a different regime. I was surprised that he
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Speaker 2: got the meeting because it's like he's bending to pressure.
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Speaker 2: Van Hollen was staying to try to get the meeting.
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Speaker 2: It all feels very like I think even the margaritas
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Speaker 2: point to Trump and Bukele are doing this on the
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Speaker 2: fly and figuring out what they're doing on the fly.
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Speaker 2: What is the message that putting like two Margaret like
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Speaker 2: it's so fucking stupid. But the whole point of Seacott
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Speaker 2: is that it's a fucking hellhole that you brag about.
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Speaker 2: The reason Kristi Noem and these Congress members of Congress
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Speaker 2: took tourist photos in front of these prisoners is to
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Speaker 2: send a message about how fucking terrible it is. So
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Speaker 2: what exactly is the point of the margaritas? It's not terrible.
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Speaker 2: He's actually on a vacation down there. I thought that's
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Speaker 2: the opposite.
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Speaker 3: He's just a troll. That's the point. He likes to
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Speaker 3: troll the left. He's on Twitter all the time. He's
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Speaker 3: super online. So he's saying, oh, you're calling me a
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Speaker 3: despot and a dictator and that we're torturing this man.
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Speaker 3: Here he is having a margarita.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he has risen. He made some jokes. And here
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Speaker 1: he is enjoying a margarita.
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Speaker 3: His Twitter bio used to say world's coolest dictator. He
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Speaker 3: just loved to be a troll like this.
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Speaker 6: Right.
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Speaker 2: So then the meeting is a troll showing that he's fine.
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Speaker 2: That's why the margaritas are there.
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Speaker 1: You know what?
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Speaker 2: It doesn't need to make sense.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't think about it too much.
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Speaker 2: Well, that's my point.
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Speaker 1: It's just like all of right-wing politics right now.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 2: It's just fascist jazz. And they thought, let's give him
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Speaker 2: the meeting. We'll make a joke out of it. We'll
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Speaker 2: show that he's fine. We'll turn it to our advantage.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's Bukele. And then I think the Trump White
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Speaker 1: House is just like, they're going all in on the message.
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Speaker 1: Democrats love MS-13. No other facts can penetrate this message.
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Speaker 1: The idea that We just want people to have due
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Speaker 1: process that the Trump administration already admitted in court multiple
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Speaker 1: times that they made an error. They haven't given any
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Speaker 1: justification for why we're jailing people in a foreign prison,
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Speaker 1: perhaps for the rest of their lives. None of that
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Speaker 1: matters at all.
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Speaker 2: Also, they can't. I mean, we'll get to it, but
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Speaker 2: they also just have to either did like kind of
7:53
Speaker 2: quickly glide over or outright ignore the fact that these
7:55
Speaker 2: aren't just Democrats expressing these concerns. It's Reagan appointees. It's
7:59
Speaker 2: three Trump appointees to the Supreme Court. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And also, just I want to point out that another
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Speaker 3: story that was, I think, broke late last week. So
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Speaker 3: Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act requires him to claim
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Speaker 3: that Trend de Aragua is invading the U.S. at the
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Speaker 3: behest of the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Most legal experts
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Speaker 3: believe that kind of linkage is necessary for an Alien
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Speaker 3: Enemies Act declaration. Both the New York Times and the
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Speaker 3: Washington Post reported that the National Intelligence Council, which is
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Speaker 3: like the board that brings together the consensus opinion of
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Speaker 3: the 18 component intelligence agencies, have determined that the Venezuelan
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Speaker 3: government does not, they're not directing trend to Iroquois. They're
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Speaker 3: not directing an invasion of the United States. So that
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Speaker 3: undercuts Trump's public statements and the already shaky legal basis
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Speaker 3: for the entire Alien Enemies Act invocation.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And a reminder, the Supreme Court has not ruled on
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Speaker 1: the constitutionality of Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act. So
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Speaker 1: that could come back to bite them in the ass.
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Speaker 1: And again, there's No legal justification and nothing in the
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Speaker 1: Alien Enemies Act that says you're not just able to
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Speaker 1: deport people under the Alien Enemies Act. You're able to
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Speaker 1: send them to a foreign prison and pay a foreign
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Speaker 1: country to jail them. There's no justification for that anywhere.
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Speaker 2: As a judge in the appeals court noted, Nazis were
9:16
Speaker 2: treated better under the Alien Enemies Act. But just your
9:19
Speaker 2: question on the politics, because right now Democrats are supposed
9:24
Speaker 2: to be doing some kind of cost of living week thing.
9:27
Speaker 2: Or something to that effect. It's Cost of Living Action Week.
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Speaker 1: Cost of Living Action. No. Cost.
9:32
Speaker 2: Action.
9:33
Speaker 3: Cost of.
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Speaker 2: We're doing. We're taking on. I'm not sure what it is.
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Speaker 3: I don't think it's a call-up plan.
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Speaker 2: Now, dear listener, you won't know this existed because you
9:42
Speaker 2: didn't get the briefing on all the news that you
9:44
Speaker 2: get when you work on Pod Save America.
9:45
Speaker 3: That's right.
9:46
Speaker 2: Because it's not going to break through because this is
9:47
Speaker 2: what the news is. And I was thinking about our
9:49
Speaker 2: conversation with Sarah McBride. and the way in which Democrats
9:54
Speaker 2: have kind of allowed themselves or boxed themselves in on
9:57
Speaker 2: immigration over the years to the point where you're not
10:00
Speaker 2: supposed to be talking about due process, but also you're
10:02
Speaker 2: not supposed to be talking about border security, right? Like
10:05
Speaker 2: all of these were sort of unacceptable as the bounds
10:07
Speaker 2: of what we were allowed to discuss got smaller and smaller.
10:10
Speaker 2: And there's this sort of consultant-driven, poll-driven, best sentence message
10:16
Speaker 2: testing idea that what you really need to be doing
10:19
Speaker 2: is figuring out the message that works with the broadest
10:22
Speaker 2: group of people. But also, you should be using that
10:24
Speaker 2: message all the time. So you need to be trying
10:27
Speaker 2: to win everybody over a little bit all the time,
10:30
Speaker 2: which in an environment like this means, for the most part,
10:32
Speaker 2: winning nobody over all the time. You have an issue
10:35
Speaker 2: like this, a lot of people may not be following
10:39
Speaker 2: it closely. It probably isn't the most important issue for
10:41
Speaker 2: the vast majority of people that voted in the presidential election.
10:45
Speaker 2: Maybe more people who voted in the midterm might care
10:47
Speaker 2: about this. But there are millions of people that are
10:49
Speaker 2: highly engaged that do care about this a lot. And
10:51
Speaker 2: if you're just being cynical, if you're just being crass,
10:54
Speaker 2: you can spend every day talking about the economy in
10:57
Speaker 2: the hopes of persuading everybody a little bit inch by
11:01
Speaker 2: inch until the midterms, I guess, even though we have
11:04
Speaker 2: no idea what the contours of that debate will look
11:06
Speaker 2: like two years from now. And I'm sure in October
11:08
Speaker 2: of next year, we'll be talking about the economy constantly.
11:11
Speaker 2: Who knows what the main debate will be about. But
11:14
Speaker 2: right now, this is the most important way we can
11:17
Speaker 2: respond to the Trump administration. And there are millions of
11:19
Speaker 2: people who want to believe Democrats are credible agents on
11:24
Speaker 2: their behalf. And you have an opportunity to build that
11:26
Speaker 2: credibility with people that are desperate for people to show
11:30
Speaker 2: some leadership, to show that they understand and really mean
11:34
Speaker 2: it when they say Trump is a threat to democracy.
11:36
Speaker 2: And so, yes, I get that there are, you know,
11:39
Speaker 2: you guys talked about it Friday, Newsom saying it's a
11:41
Speaker 2: distraction and there are people who think we should only
11:43
Speaker 2: be focused on tariffs in the economy. But right now,
11:47
Speaker 2: you can build a lot of trust with a group
11:49
Speaker 2: of people that will be your most important messengers a
11:54
Speaker 2: year from now. And just on cynical terms, I think
11:56
Speaker 2: that that's worth it.
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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, this is not a politically unpopular but
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Speaker 1: courageous and morally right thing to do. It's also politically popular.
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Speaker 1: All the polling that's coming out so far is very
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Speaker 1: clear that most people think we should not send people
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Speaker 1: to a foreign prison without a trial. I have not
12:14
Speaker 1: seen a single poll yet that has argued otherwise. There
12:17
Speaker 1: are some polls that people are saying, oh, well, Trump's,
12:20
Speaker 1: you know, overall favorability on immigration is still the strongest issue.
12:23
Speaker 5: Yes.
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Speaker 1: When you just scratch one inch beneath that surface, all
12:27
Speaker 1: the polling says otherwise.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true.
12:30
Speaker 1: But look, I'm saying that's important because that's why these consultants,
12:34
Speaker 1: the consultant brain is especially dumb on this one. It's
12:36
Speaker 1: like trying to figure out why Bukele put the margaritas
12:38
Speaker 1: on the table.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like the fair, the more generous argument
12:43
Speaker 2: is to say, sure, sure. But over time, you're creating
12:45
Speaker 2: the impression that you're soft. I don't agree. I'm just
12:48
Speaker 2: saying over time, if Democrats pick this fight, what is
12:50
Speaker 2: your memory of this fight? It is not Democrats fighting
12:52
Speaker 2: for border security or fighting to lower costs. It's Democrats
12:56
Speaker 2: fighting for a more generous immigration system and fighting for
13:00
Speaker 2: an undocumented or illegal immigrant who applied for asylum, what
13:04
Speaker 2: have you. I don't agree with that argument, but we're
13:06
Speaker 2: making this salient for people. And I think that is
13:09
Speaker 2: still worth doing because I think years of trying to
13:12
Speaker 2: build a little bit of credibility with everyone all the
13:14
Speaker 2: time has left us with a lack of credibility with
13:17
Speaker 2: just about everyone.
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Speaker 1: So apparently the list of MS-13 Trend de Aragua enthusiasts
13:22
Speaker 1: has grown to now include John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy
13:25
Speaker 1: Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, who joined the liberal justices in
13:28
Speaker 1: a late night emergency ruling over the weekend that blocked
13:32
Speaker 1: the deportation of a group of Venezuelans in North Texas
13:35
Speaker 1: under the Alien Enemies Act. The court ruled so quickly
13:37
Speaker 1: that that the lower courts hadn't yet ruled, the Justice
13:40
Speaker 1: Department hadn't yet responded to the challenge, and Sam Alito
13:44
Speaker 1: hadn't yet finished his dissent. Which, very rare that the
13:48
Speaker 1: court releases an opinion without the dissent, if the dissent
13:51
Speaker 1: is still being written.
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Speaker 3: Were you guys surprised these geezers worked so late? I was.
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Speaker 1: I assume... They're alerted, but then their clerks do most
13:59
Speaker 1: of the work? Yeah, I think it was the– It's
14:01
Speaker 1: a good question for our strict scrutiny.
14:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about why– what it meant that Alito's
14:06
Speaker 2: hadn't yet dotted his T's and crossed his I's when
14:10
Speaker 2: it went out with Leah.
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Speaker 1: Well, the important point here is that the government claimed
14:15
Speaker 1: or tried to claim that it didn't have any imminent
14:18
Speaker 1: plans to deport the immigrants. And the court's ruling, when
14:23
Speaker 1: it came, as fast as it came, showed that clearly
14:25
Speaker 1: they do not believe them. At least seven justices were
14:29
Speaker 1: not willing to trust the government and take their word
14:31
Speaker 1: for it. Wild stuff and also a bit complicated, so
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Speaker 1: love it. Talk to Leah about this ruling and Judge
14:36
Speaker 1: Boasberg's contempt finding. Here's the interview with Leah.
14:44
Speaker 2: Joining us now, professor of law at the University of Michigan,
14:47
Speaker 2: co-host of Strict Scrutiny, Zingerman's Deli aficionado, and the author
14:51
Speaker 2: of the upcoming book Lawless, How the Supreme Court Runs
14:54
Speaker 2: on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes, available for
14:58
Speaker 2: pre-order now, out May 13th. Leah Libman, welcome back.
15:02
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
15:04
Speaker 2: I want to just say, Leah, that I am at
15:06
Speaker 2: an advantage because I've already read the book. So you
15:09
Speaker 2: know everything. Why even have me on? I have been prepared. Well,
15:13
Speaker 2: you know, a book can do many things, but it
15:16
Speaker 2: can't keep up with the daily news cycle. But it
15:18
Speaker 2: does prepare you for this moment. So I really do
15:21
Speaker 2: Urge everyone listening to this to pause this podcast and
15:25
Speaker 2: put in a preorder. Let's get this thing on the
15:28
Speaker 2: bestseller list. That's one thing we can do to fight
15:33
Speaker 2: back against the freaks.
15:35
Speaker 6: It will make Sam Alito very mad if this makes
15:38
Speaker 6: a bestseller list. It will.
15:40
Speaker 2: And he keeps up with his Google alerts.
15:42
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah. He hate reads the internet.
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Speaker 2: So a lot of developments over the last few days.
15:46
Speaker 2: There was an extraordinary ruling by Judge Harvey Wilkinson in
15:49
Speaker 2: the Abrego Garcia case on Thursday. On Friday, an appeals
15:52
Speaker 2: court paused. Judge James Boasberg's plan to begin contempt proceedings
15:56
Speaker 2: against the Trump administration over their failure to turn around
15:59
Speaker 2: deportation flights to El Salvador. And then on Saturday, in
16:02
Speaker 2: a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the deportations
16:05
Speaker 2: of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under the Alien
16:09
Speaker 2: Enemies Act. Judge Samuel Alito issued a pissy little dissent
16:13
Speaker 2: to which Justice Clarence Thomas joined. Let's take each piece
16:17
Speaker 2: of this. First of all, what is the status of
16:20
Speaker 2: the Boesberg contempt proceedings?
16:23
Speaker 6: That is on hold because the 2-1 D.C. Circuit panel,
16:27
Speaker 6: two Trump appointees in the majority, paused the contempt order,
16:30
Speaker 6: which basically prevents Judge Boasberg from moving forward. And he
16:34
Speaker 6: had asked the government to submit declarations or to purge
16:36
Speaker 6: their contempt by bringing back everyone from the El Salvadoran
16:40
Speaker 6: prison that the government had wrongfully sent there. So that
16:43
Speaker 6: is just on hold until further action by the D.C.
16:46
Speaker 1: Circuit.
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Speaker 2: There are so many strange and extraordinary things happening. Obviously,
16:55
Speaker 2: it's not high on our list because of what else
16:56
Speaker 2: is happening, but This is a strange order, right? Because
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Speaker 2: Boasberg didn't hold anybody in contempt. He was just beginning
17:02
Speaker 2: the process to try to gather information.
17:05
Speaker 6: It is, as we say on Strict Scrutiny, just total
17:07
Speaker 6: fuck shit, right? Like you are not ordinarily supposed to
17:10
Speaker 6: be able to appeal a ruling that does nothing, that
17:13
Speaker 6: is not final, that leaves additional things to be determined.
17:16
Speaker 6: And Judge Boasberg, as you note, didn't hold anyone in contempt.
17:20
Speaker 6: And he held out the possibility that he would never
17:22
Speaker 6: hold anyone in contempt so long as the government returned
17:25
Speaker 6: people from El Salvador. So I don't know what the
17:28
Speaker 6: F the D.C. Circuit panel thought that they were pausing,
17:30
Speaker 6: but obviously the prospect of holding the Trump administration accountable
17:33
Speaker 6: is under the law was just too galling for them
17:36
Speaker 6: to note, and they had to take a pause.
17:38
Speaker 2: Over that one. So as you've noted on Strict, Trump
17:43
Speaker 2: has a lot of power here. First of all, one
17:47
Speaker 2: way in the past a judge might try to enforce
17:51
Speaker 2: contempt is by referring it to the Department of Justice.
17:54
Speaker 2: That's run by a Trump stooge. Boasberg can actually appoint
17:59
Speaker 2: a prosecutor himself right? But even then, the president would
18:03
Speaker 2: have pardon power, so could shut it down at any moment. Look,
18:07
Speaker 2: we're far from here, but it is a question that
18:09
Speaker 2: I had. When Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, the contempt was concluded, right?
18:17
Speaker 2: If the administration takes no steps to right this wrong
18:22
Speaker 2: of these deportations that Judge Boasberg ordered stopped before they
18:25
Speaker 2: had even reached El Salvador, and Trump pardons anyone connected
18:30
Speaker 2: to it, the crime would be ongoing. It would be
18:32
Speaker 2: a pardon of a bank robber while they're inside of
18:35
Speaker 2: the vault. So presumably contempt would just begin again because
18:38
Speaker 2: the president, though the pardon power is incredible, can't pardon
18:42
Speaker 2: people in the future. That's true.
18:45
Speaker 6: Although the president can issue a preemptive pardon, you know,
18:48
Speaker 6: here before any criminal prosecution would begin. And it's possible,
18:53
Speaker 6: and I think even likely, that in the event the
18:55
Speaker 6: president did that, I don't really see the federal courts
18:58
Speaker 6: then trying to go back and say, well, even though
19:02
Speaker 6: he basically pardoned the offense up until this date, that
19:06
Speaker 6: offense has continued. I think there would be difficult questions
19:08
Speaker 6: about whether it is indeed a new offense. And my
19:11
Speaker 6: guess is the federal court would probably stand down in
19:13
Speaker 6: that situation.
19:14
Speaker 2: So let's talk about what the courts are willing to do.
19:17
Speaker 2: Is there a reason to have some tiny kernel of relief,
19:22
Speaker 2: if not hope, that seven members of the court, including
19:26
Speaker 2: three justices appointed by President Trump, stepped in.
19:36
Speaker 6: Short answer, yes. You know, I think at minimum, it
19:40
Speaker 6: evinces a sense that the seven justices in the majority
19:44
Speaker 6: aren't willing to take the Trump administration at their word because,
19:48
Speaker 6: of course, the Trump administration was saying, well, we're giving
19:50
Speaker 6: these guys like reasonable time and reasonable notice to file
19:53
Speaker 6: their challenges when obviously they weren't. And the administration has
19:57
Speaker 6: basically been thumbing their nose at the Supreme Court's directive
19:59
Speaker 6: and Judge Sinis' order to bring back Mr. Abrego Garcia.
20:03
Speaker 6: And so I think the Supreme Court looked at all
20:06
Speaker 6: of that and realized, look, the prospect of the government
20:09
Speaker 6: shunting these people off to El Salvador and then never
20:12
Speaker 6: bringing them back is so real and the harm is
20:15
Speaker 6: so profound. we need to order a halt until we
20:19
Speaker 6: figure out what is going on and whether the administration
20:23
Speaker 6: is indeed providing the individuals with the notice that we
20:26
Speaker 6: said was required in our previous decision.
20:30
Speaker 2: So you're reading into what would have driven the order,
20:34
Speaker 2: but the order doesn't, it's not detailed. We actually, we
20:37
Speaker 2: got more information in Alito's dissent than we got in
20:40
Speaker 2: the order. But is there any other way to read
20:42
Speaker 2: this than as the seven justices looking at their previous
20:48
Speaker 2: ruling requiring reasonable time and being concerned that it's not
20:53
Speaker 2: being followed? No.
20:56
Speaker 6: One is that's basically the point in Justice Alito's dissent.
20:59
Speaker 6: He says, you know, we should assume that the Trump
21:02
Speaker 6: administration is going to comply with our previous order directing
21:05
Speaker 6: them to provide reasonable time and notice. And he faults
21:08
Speaker 6: the seven justices who halted the deportations for not doing so.
21:13
Speaker 6: And I just wanted to kind of pause on the
21:15
Speaker 6: irony that The Supreme Court basically did in this case
21:18
Speaker 6: what they faulted Judge Boasberg for doing previously, namely halt
21:23
Speaker 6: on a wholesale basis a bunch of deportations rather than
21:28
Speaker 6: requiring every individual to challenge their deportation themselves. And I
21:34
Speaker 6: think that underscores what we were talking about, which is
21:37
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court realized the error of their ways, that
21:40
Speaker 6: there actually needs to be this wholesale pause because if
21:43
Speaker 6: there isn't, The government is just shuttling people around between
21:47
Speaker 6: jurisdictions trying to find some court somewhere that will allow
21:51
Speaker 6: them to expel these people without due process.
21:55
Speaker 2: So Alito writes this short but very mad dissent. And
22:02
Speaker 2: reading it, it's very technical, actually. But it seems to be,
22:06
Speaker 2: if you step back, what he's saying is nothing extraordinary
22:09
Speaker 2: is happening to require this extraordinary response. Yeah.
22:14
Speaker 6: So he basically faults the court for not adhering to
22:16
Speaker 6: their normal process. And the things he points out the
22:19
Speaker 6: court did were, one, to grant this pause in deportations
22:24
Speaker 6: before waiting to hear the government's response is one thing.
22:28
Speaker 6: Second is the Supreme Court acted by halting the deportations
22:32
Speaker 6: before waiting for the U.S. Court of Appeals, the intermediary
22:36
Speaker 6: court between the trial court and the Supreme Court, to
22:38
Speaker 6: act on the request to halt the deportations. And so
22:42
Speaker 6: those are two kind of abnormal procedural moves the seven
22:46
Speaker 6: justices made that Justice Alito says, what reason is there
22:50
Speaker 6: to do that? But the reality is, of course, we're
22:53
Speaker 6: not dealing with ordinary circumstances here. So, right, like you
22:57
Speaker 6: need to adapt in those circumstances where, again, it looks
23:00
Speaker 6: like the administration is trying to evade any prospect of
23:04
Speaker 6: judicial review by just quickly expelling individuals without any prospect
23:08
Speaker 6: of judicial oversight.
23:10
Speaker 2: He sort of plays dumb, like, why would we do this?
23:12
Speaker 2: Why would we do this? But seven of his colleagues
23:15
Speaker 2: have decided it was urgent. And there's two aspects of
23:18
Speaker 2: it that I wanted to hear your take on. One
23:20
Speaker 2: is they put out the order. before Alito had written
23:25
Speaker 2: his dissent. They thought this was such an emergency that
23:28
Speaker 2: they put out the statement freezing the deportations without the
23:33
Speaker 2: attached dissent. And have you seen that ever before of
23:36
Speaker 2: the dissent coming later?
23:38
Speaker 6: That has happened before. It happens in some courts of appeals,
23:42
Speaker 6: and it does sometimes happen in the Supreme Court. It's
23:45
Speaker 6: exceptionally unusual. And honestly, a part of me read into
23:49
Speaker 6: this the idea that not only do the seven justices
23:52
Speaker 6: think that the Trump administration might be acting in bad faith,
23:55
Speaker 6: maybe they think Sam Alito is too, because if he
23:57
Speaker 6: sat on his dissent and just didn't release it until
24:01
Speaker 6: it was too late, until after the administration had expelled
24:05
Speaker 6: the many individuals to El Salvador... then they would be
24:08
Speaker 6: facing the situation once again, where they're trying to order
24:11
Speaker 6: the administration to return people from El Salvador. And so
24:14
Speaker 6: a part of me wondered if that is what was
24:16
Speaker 6: happening and maybe that's why he's so mad, although he's
24:19
Speaker 6: usually mad.
24:20
Speaker 2: There was, he is usually mad. There was another part
24:22
Speaker 2: of this too, uh, which you also talked about on
24:26
Speaker 2: the most recent episode of strict, which is there's a
24:30
Speaker 2: kind of jurisdictional issue that happens with members of the
24:33
Speaker 2: Supreme court. Um, for a case like this. And in
24:37
Speaker 2: this case, it would have gone to Alito alone first.
24:41
Speaker 2: And in that case, normally Alito would have had the
24:44
Speaker 2: chance to rule or refer it to the full court.
24:47
Speaker 2: But it seems like maybe that didn't happen here. Yeah.
24:50
Speaker 6: So there's an odd wording in the order, which just
24:53
Speaker 6: noted there's an application that is pending before the court.
24:56
Speaker 6: The usual wording is the application was presented to Justice
25:00
Speaker 6: Alito and referred by him to the court. That's not
25:03
Speaker 6: what the order said. And so that, too, lends itself
25:06
Speaker 6: to some speculation of, was Sam Alito just sitting on
25:10
Speaker 6: this application, not referring it to all of the members
25:13
Speaker 6: of the court, again, in order to buy the administration time?
25:18
Speaker 6: And we don't know whether that did indeed happen. I'd
25:22
Speaker 6: just like to note to any member of the Supreme
25:24
Speaker 6: Court that I am on signal if you want to
25:26
Speaker 6: accidentally add me to your group chat and let me
25:28
Speaker 6: know what's going on.
25:31
Speaker 2: But....
25:32
Speaker 6: That too, you know, is a possibility that the seven
25:35
Speaker 6: justices were just concerned he was trying to run out
25:38
Speaker 6: the clock.
25:38
Speaker 2: On the other side of the conservative legal spectrum, you
25:42
Speaker 2: have Judge Harvey Wilkinson, who wrote a beautiful and extraordinary
25:49
Speaker 2: ruling around these deportations. And I'm wondering what, you know,
25:55
Speaker 2: it's been a few days since it came out. Is
25:57
Speaker 2: there any part of it that has stuck out with you?
25:59
Speaker 2: Any impression that it's left?
26:01
Speaker 6: I think it was an incredibly powerful writing. I especially
26:05
Speaker 6: appreciated his call to other judges and to the executive
26:09
Speaker 6: branch to insist that the executive branch abide by the law.
26:14
Speaker 6: And I thought that was especially pointed because many of
26:17
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court's actions to date have looked like attempts
26:21
Speaker 6: to avoid confrontations with the Trump administration and to avoid
26:24
Speaker 6: really holding their feet to the fire and them accountable
26:27
Speaker 6: to the law, maybe out of concern that they just
26:30
Speaker 6: wouldn't abide by the court's order. But that's an unsustainable
26:34
Speaker 6: state of affairs. You can't just give the administration the
26:37
Speaker 6: green light and not do anything because you think they
26:41
Speaker 6: will disobey a court order. You're in effect like allowing
26:45
Speaker 6: them to violate the law if that's what you do.
26:47
Speaker 6: And so I really appreciated Judge Wilkinson coming down hard
26:51
Speaker 6: on that point and really writing, I think, for the
26:55
Speaker 6: Republican appointees on the Supreme Court.
26:59
Speaker 2: Leah Littman, thank you so much. We'll be right back.
27:01
Speaker 2: Thank you.
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28:32
Speaker 1: so if you're wondering how MAGA types are taking the
28:35
Speaker 1: news of the Supreme Court's intervention... Georgia Congressman Mike Collins
28:40
Speaker 1: retweeted the New York Post headline about the order with
28:42
Speaker 1: the words, let them enforce it. A Trump official named
28:46
Speaker 1: Paul Ingrassia, who's the White House liaison to the Department
28:49
Speaker 1: of Homeland Security, posted on Truth Social that the court, quote,
28:52
Speaker 1: including three members appointed by President Trump, no less, is, quote,
28:56
Speaker 1: infected with a parasitical ideology and has, quote, absolutely no
29:01
Speaker 1: understanding of law and its proper function and role. The
29:05
Speaker 1: CEO of The Federalist said, quote, if the Supreme Court
29:08
Speaker 1: is going to ignore the law and the Constitution, then
29:11
Speaker 1: the president is obligated to ignore the Supreme Court and
29:14
Speaker 1: put it in its place. And MAGA radio host Jesse
29:17
Speaker 1: Kelly wrote, quote, ignore the Supreme Court. Arrest anyone who
29:20
Speaker 1: tries to enforce this. Dissolve the Supreme Court entirely if
29:25
Speaker 1: they push. Nevertheless, as lawyers were arguing to halt removals
29:29
Speaker 1: in court, ICE buses in Texas carrying detainees were seen
29:33
Speaker 1: turning around. totally normal reactions from MAGA World. How are
29:37
Speaker 1: you guys feeling about all this? On one hand, 7-2 ruling.
29:41
Speaker 1: We like that. On the other, the calls from Trump's
29:44
Speaker 1: base to defy the court, and by extension, the Constitution,
29:47
Speaker 1: seem to be getting louder and more numerous.
29:50
Speaker 3: Or melt them in acid, it sounds like.
29:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, the head of the Federalist posted after that missive,
29:56
Speaker 2: when we're done deporting illegals, it's time to start deporting
29:59
Speaker 2: rogue judges. Huh.
30:01
Speaker 1: Cool, cool, cool. Also, if you're using the word parasitical,
30:03
Speaker 1: you're just trying too hard, in my opinion. Yeah, it's
30:06
Speaker 1: like you're the White House liaison to Homeland Security. It's
30:08
Speaker 1: not like you've got to get some attention there.
30:10
Speaker 2: It's just an intellectual treatise. It's like saying irregardless.
30:14
Speaker 3: Right.
30:14
Speaker 2: It was just this sort of like treatise about why...
30:18
Speaker 2: seven justices, including the three Donald Trump appointed, are not
30:22
Speaker 2: just wrong, but they have to be captured by liberal ideology.
30:24
Speaker 3: It must be evil.
30:25
Speaker 2: Because there's no other way to make sense of why
30:28
Speaker 2: they would do this.
30:29
Speaker 3: Disagree.
30:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's interesting, just these people that you've picked out,
30:35
Speaker 2: a lot of them have sounded like, these are the
30:37
Speaker 2: fringe that are now either in the government or just
30:41
Speaker 2: louder voices that reflect a bigger part of the base.
30:44
Speaker 2: These are people that have talked this way and thought
30:46
Speaker 2: this way for a long time. But for the first time,
30:49
Speaker 2: there's a genuine possibility that the president, that the people
30:53
Speaker 2: that work for the president might actually listen to these cranks,
30:57
Speaker 2: these sort of authoritarian right-wing fucking cranks, and it is really,
31:00
Speaker 2: really scary.
31:01
Speaker 3: I also think it's important to note that before this ruling,
31:04
Speaker 3: Trump was planning to openly defy the Supreme Court by
31:09
Speaker 3: deporting these men without giving them due process that was ordered.
31:12
Speaker 3: by the Supreme Court. And they were given a piece
31:14
Speaker 3: of paper in English only, told to sign it, and
31:16
Speaker 3: then loaded on buses. And thank God the Supreme Court
31:20
Speaker 3: was working weekends this week, or else these men would
31:23
Speaker 3: almost certainly be in El Salvador right now. And God
31:26
Speaker 3: bless the ACLU, by the way, for these lawyers sprinting
31:30
Speaker 3: through courtrooms and filing emergency injunctions and doing everything they
31:33
Speaker 3: can to protect these people.
31:35
Speaker 1: I understand why there's been so much focus on Abrego Garcia,
31:38
Speaker 1: because that is the one case where you're the government
31:41
Speaker 1: admitted in court multiple times that it was an error.
31:45
Speaker 1: But when you really dig into a lot of these
31:48
Speaker 1: folks who are getting deported under Alien Enemies Act to
31:50
Speaker 1: El Salvador, you know, the administration's putting out like, here
31:55
Speaker 1: are six people and all of the most horrible things
31:58
Speaker 1: they've ever done that we're sending there. And it's like, okay, fine.
32:00
Speaker 1: There was like 200 something that have been sent there. And,
32:04
Speaker 1: you know, the New York Times did a story on
32:06
Speaker 1: this about the what led to the late night ruling
32:09
Speaker 1: and sort of the scramble by the ACLU. And they said,
32:12
Speaker 1: one of the men, a last name Prieto said, quote,
32:15
Speaker 1: there had been no order for his deportation and that
32:17
Speaker 1: his immigration documents were in order. He said, I have
32:20
Speaker 1: American children. They brought me here and I'm innocent. They
32:22
Speaker 1: arrested me without any warrant for nothing, for nothing. They
32:24
Speaker 1: brought me here. Like, And then, you know, they mentioned
32:27
Speaker 1: this story Tommy told about the guy who was forced
32:29
Speaker 1: to sign, you know.
32:30
Speaker 3: There's another guy who had TPS. The ice broke into
32:32
Speaker 3: his house and was about to deport him. They held
32:34
Speaker 3: him for a couple months.
32:35
Speaker 1: We've talked about Andre, the Venezuelan makeup artist. We've talked,
32:38
Speaker 1: and there's just so many stories like that that it's,
32:41
Speaker 1: and some of these people have even less of a
32:44
Speaker 1: connection than, you know, Garcia was alleged to have and,
32:48
Speaker 1: you know, by some random cop somewhere.
32:51
Speaker 2: The other sort of line of reasoning is, from some
32:54
Speaker 2: of these far-right people is, well, if we can't deport people, well,
33:00
Speaker 2: we don't have a country anymore. And first of all,
33:04
Speaker 2: Donald Trump can deport people. He has his will.
33:07
Speaker 1: He's allowed to deport a lot of- Tens of thousands
33:09
Speaker 1: every month so far.
33:12
Speaker 2: The other part of this is, why is he deporting
33:14
Speaker 2: people to a foreign gulag?
33:16
Speaker 1: They never wanted, no one, no one on Fox, none
33:20
Speaker 1: of these people will grapple with the fucking gulag part
33:23
Speaker 1: of this. None of them will defend it. They act like, well,
33:26
Speaker 1: we just dropped them off in El Salvador and suddenly
33:28
Speaker 1: they ended up in the jail there, which is just
33:30
Speaker 1: not what happened. We're paying them to house them.
33:31
Speaker 2: And that's what makes, I think, and I talked about
33:33
Speaker 2: this a bit with Leah, like sort of the legal
33:37
Speaker 2: aspects of it, but it is extraordinary that the Supreme
33:40
Speaker 2: Court has done this because they're basically acknowledging the urgency
33:45
Speaker 2: of it, the doing it in the middle of the night,
33:46
Speaker 2: the doing it before Alito could finish his own dissent.
33:49
Speaker 2: They are acknowledging that by the logic of the Supreme Court,
33:51
Speaker 2: which Wilkinson talked about in his ruling last week, that
33:56
Speaker 2: if they deport someone in error to this prison, they
34:00
Speaker 2: can't get them back. And the Supreme Court, which already
34:02
Speaker 2: said people have a right to a certain amount of
34:04
Speaker 2: time to respond, is clearly saying here, this is so urgent.
34:07
Speaker 2: This is so dangerous. We got to shut this all
34:10
Speaker 2: down right now until we've had more time to examine
34:14
Speaker 2: what the Trump administration is doing. And we can't take
34:16
Speaker 2: what the Trump administration says at face value. We cannot
34:19
Speaker 2: believe them when they say that, oh, there aren't going
34:23
Speaker 2: to be any flights this weekend, or they're not aware
34:26
Speaker 2: of any flights this weekend, that the lawyers that are
34:28
Speaker 2: speaking to the court on behalf of the Trump administration
34:30
Speaker 2: either are not telling the truth or don't have all
34:32
Speaker 2: the facts themselves.
34:34
Speaker 3: What's confusing about this is, politically speaking, there seems to
34:37
Speaker 3: be a much easier, much smarter path for Donald Trump,
34:39
Speaker 3: which is to say that the border's locked down, take
34:42
Speaker 3: the win there, and then slowly, methodically deport people. I mean,
34:45
Speaker 3: the proximate reason why they are supporting Venezuelans to El
34:48
Speaker 3: Salvador because Venezuela won't take back Venezuelans, right? So, but
34:52
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that has to happen tomorrow or the
34:55
Speaker 3: next day. And I just, I like, I assume that
34:57
Speaker 3: they're shredding the constitution because this is Stephen Miller's passion project.
35:01
Speaker 3: Donald Trump cares a lot about it too. There's an
35:03
Speaker 3: element of their base that loves it, but I do,
35:05
Speaker 3: and there's probably a deterrent effect for others who might
35:07
Speaker 3: come here if they see the United States being just
35:09
Speaker 3: unbelievably cruel to everyone, no matter what. But politically speaking,
35:14
Speaker 3: I do think there is some risk that people are
35:16
Speaker 3: going to say, why are you doing this? Why are
35:18
Speaker 3: you so focused on this stuff? Why are we not
35:20
Speaker 3: allowing people a day in court? That doesn't seem that hard.
35:23
Speaker 6: J.D.
35:23
Speaker 3: Vance's fucking Twitter op-ed screed about how sometimes it's inconvenient
35:29
Speaker 3: to allow for due process or it costs too much
35:31
Speaker 3: or it takes too many resources. I don't think anyone
35:33
Speaker 3: believes that.
35:34
Speaker 1: It's true that there is a large backlog of immigration
35:39
Speaker 1: cases because we don't have enough immigration judges and our
35:42
Speaker 1: system has been broken for a long time. There's a
35:45
Speaker 1: way to fix that. which is pass legislation that funds
35:48
Speaker 1: more immigration judges. Oh, by the way, that was the
35:50
Speaker 1: legislation that Joe Biden, Democrats in Congress, and a bunch
35:54
Speaker 1: of conservative Republicans tried to pass, and then Donald Trump
35:56
Speaker 1: killed it because he wanted the issue, right? So that
35:58
Speaker 1: tells you a lot about if they're really interested in
36:00
Speaker 1: actually solving the backlog of immigration cases. Also, there's plenty
36:04
Speaker 1: of ways to expedite deportations if you need to. If
36:07
Speaker 1: there's a public safety threat, you can. There's a million
36:10
Speaker 1: different ways to deport people. They've done it before. Joe
36:13
Speaker 1: Biden's done it. They're doing it now since they became president.
36:16
Speaker 1: Barack Obama did it. George W. Bush did it. It's
36:18
Speaker 1: complete bullshit, this whole, like, if we cannot throw people
36:22
Speaker 1: in the gulag, we don't have a country anymore.
36:24
Speaker 3: Right.
36:24
Speaker 2: If we can't, we're not going to deport millions of
36:27
Speaker 2: people a hundred at a time on an airplane to
36:30
Speaker 2: a foreign jail. Even all of this is still a sideshow.
36:34
Speaker 2: There are millions and millions of people in this country
36:36
Speaker 2: who are undocumented. They came here to work. They came
36:39
Speaker 2: here to work because we built a system that of
36:43
Speaker 2: second-class citizenship for people who can get to this country,
36:46
Speaker 2: they can be employed. There are people that have wanted
36:48
Speaker 2: to do things like E-Verify, which would require employers to
36:52
Speaker 2: make sure someone is a citizen before they are hired.
36:56
Speaker 2: There are lots of steps. I think undocumented people, I
37:00
Speaker 2: think we should have a path to citizenship. I'm not
37:01
Speaker 2: saying that these are good ideas. There are lots of
37:03
Speaker 2: steps you could take to address undocumented immigrants. They have
37:06
Speaker 2: chosen to target People have received temporary protected status, asylum seekers, right?
37:10
Speaker 2: Like they're choosing this because, first of all, I think
37:13
Speaker 2: they like the politics better. And second of all, it
37:16
Speaker 2: doesn't make a lot of their biggest, wealthiest donors angry
37:19
Speaker 2: when it cracks down on the people that work for agribusiness,
37:21
Speaker 2: when it cracks down on the people that work for
37:23
Speaker 2: construction companies, when it cracks down on the people that
37:25
Speaker 2: make our economy go.
37:27
Speaker 5: Yeah.
37:28
Speaker 1: So like you said, this is not just about Arbrego Garcia.
37:32
Speaker 1: It's not just about other immigrants who came here illegally.
37:35
Speaker 1: So far, more than a thousand foreign students have had
37:37
Speaker 1: their visas canceled, including many who aren't political activists, haven't
37:42
Speaker 1: even publicly shared their political views. We're also seeing more
37:46
Speaker 1: horror stories about the government throwing people behind bars for
37:48
Speaker 1: doing nothing wrong. We learned on Friday that Jose Aramosio,
37:53
Speaker 1: an American citizen from New Mexico, was arrested by Border
37:55
Speaker 1: Patrol while on a walk during a visit to Arizona.
37:58
Speaker 1: and was then detained in an ICE facility for 10 days,
38:01
Speaker 1: 10 days until his family was able to prove his
38:04
Speaker 1: citizenship and get him out. We also learned that in mid-March,
38:07
Speaker 1: two teenage girls from Germany were detained at the Honolulu
38:10
Speaker 1: airport after saying that they hadn't booked accommodations for their
38:14
Speaker 1: entire five-week stay in Hawaii. They were held overnight in
38:17
Speaker 1: what they said were appalling conditions and then deported to Tokyo.
38:21
Speaker 1: DHS says they were kicked out because they said they
38:24
Speaker 1: told CPB agents that they planned to work while traveling.
38:27
Speaker 1: which they didn't have the right visa for. But the
38:29
Speaker 1: students say that when they were pressed on this, they
38:31
Speaker 1: simply told the agents that they sometimes do freelance jobs
38:34
Speaker 1: online for customers back in Germany. Feels like this probably
38:38
Speaker 1: isn't helping the huge drop-off in tourism to the U.S.
38:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, in 2023, international visitors spent roughly $ 225
38:47
Speaker 3: billion in the U.S. So if a big chunk of
38:49
Speaker 3: that goes away, that's going to be not a tiny
38:51
Speaker 3: hit to GDP, and it will have the potential to
38:53
Speaker 3: decimate specific communities that are tourism destinations. And like, we're
38:57
Speaker 3: already seeing this with Canada because this precipitated immigration questions.
39:00
Speaker 3: This was about, uh, Trump threatening to annex the country.
39:04
Speaker 3: Canadian car trips to the U S are down 32%
39:06
Speaker 3: last month compared to March, 2024 air travels down 13%
39:10
Speaker 3: year over year and airline bookings are down 70%. And
39:14
Speaker 3: so if you sort of like extrapolate that out, if
39:17
Speaker 3: people around the world are like, I can't go to
39:18
Speaker 3: the United States, they're going to fuck with me or
39:20
Speaker 3: treat me horribly, or, you know, God knows, Uh, like
39:24
Speaker 3: Goldman Sachs said, there's a worst case scenario where the
39:27
Speaker 3: U S could lose $ 90 billion in revenue this year
39:30
Speaker 3: from a decrease in tourism and people just choosing not
39:33
Speaker 3: to buy American stuff.
39:35
Speaker 1: I also, I saw a couple of people pointing out, um,
39:37
Speaker 1: that we're supposed to have an Olympics here in a
39:40
Speaker 1: couple of years. We're supposed to have the world cup
39:42
Speaker 1: here and, uh, other countries are issuing travel warnings to
39:47
Speaker 1: the United States. Like, like, Our allies, our former allies.
39:52
Speaker 3: In the soccer, the World Cup, it's supposed to be
39:54
Speaker 3: a pan-North American games. So if we're still fighting with
39:58
Speaker 3: the Canadians and fighting with the Mexicans, it's not going
40:01
Speaker 3: to be good.
40:01
Speaker 2: It'd be like when Carter didn't let the Americans go
40:04
Speaker 2: to Russia, you know?
40:05
Speaker 5: Yeah.
40:07
Speaker 1: Multiple U.S. citizens now have gotten these random emails, letters
40:11
Speaker 1: from ICE, from the CPB, saying you have to leave
40:14
Speaker 1: the country now. And maybe they were in error, maybe
40:18
Speaker 1: they weren't. Another U.S. citizen was detained in Miami for
40:21
Speaker 1: a while. Four students at Case Western Reserve were told
40:25
Speaker 1: their visas were revoked and that they needed to leave
40:28
Speaker 1: and then they had to go to court. And the
40:29
Speaker 1: government was like, oh, maybe we screwed up. We're not sure.
40:31
Speaker 1: The judge was like so angry. He was like, this
40:33
Speaker 1: is Kafkaesque. I can't believe it. He's like, the government's
40:36
Speaker 1: telling me they don't even know if these people are
40:38
Speaker 1: here legally or not. You can't even tell me this,
40:40
Speaker 1: the government counsel, but you just arrested them. And the
40:42
Speaker 1: other thing that I think was happening here is these agents,
40:47
Speaker 1: whether they're ICE agents or CPB agents, they're lying. And
40:51
Speaker 1: I don't want to impugn all of them, but the Hermosillo,
40:55
Speaker 1: the guy who was detained in Arizona, He was arrested
40:58
Speaker 1: in Tucson. The agent says he was actually in Nogales,
41:03
Speaker 1: which is an hour south of Tucson, and that's where
41:06
Speaker 1: they picked him up. So we know he was lying
41:07
Speaker 1: about that. So the rest of the lie, which is like, oh,
41:10
Speaker 1: he told them he was here unlawfully, and that's why
41:12
Speaker 1: they detained him, which is now what fucking DHS is saying.
41:15
Speaker 3: Trisha McLaughlin, the spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security,
41:17
Speaker 3: tweeted that this 19-year-old American citizen walked up to a
41:22
Speaker 3: Border Patrol agent and said, hey, I entered illegally from Mexico.
41:26
Speaker 3: that he offered up this information, and she tweets this,
41:29
Speaker 3: thinking that this is a credible story in any way.
41:31
Speaker 3: She doesn't think that maybe fact-checking?
41:33
Speaker 1: It happens all the time. You get caught by a
41:34
Speaker 1: federal agent, and you're like, I'm here illegally. I came
41:37
Speaker 1: from Mexico.
41:41
Speaker 2: Throughout all of this, we've been saying this could come
41:44
Speaker 2: for U.S. citizens. And the fact that the government is
41:47
Speaker 2: willing not just to do this without due process, not
41:51
Speaker 2: just to repair it when a judge orders it, but
41:54
Speaker 2: that the spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security is
41:57
Speaker 2: actively lying about this case.
41:59
Speaker 3: Here it is.
41:59
Speaker 2: This is an American citizen who was picked up. They
42:02
Speaker 2: are clearly lying. She is just passing along this fucking lie.
42:06
Speaker 2: And what if he had been on a plane to
42:08
Speaker 2: El Salvador? The kid was in jail for 10 days
42:10
Speaker 2: before they sorted things out. The government couldn't call the
42:13
Speaker 2: government to figure out if he was a citizen?
42:15
Speaker 3: It took 10 days?
42:15
Speaker 2: This is where it's like the kind of intellectualizing that
42:19
Speaker 2: like J.D. Vance and others are doing. to defend this behavior.
42:22
Speaker 2: It's just so ridiculous and just so false on its face.
42:27
Speaker 2: Let's say every single sentence about what you're trying to
42:30
Speaker 2: do is true. Why wouldn't you want to fix mistakes?
42:33
Speaker 2: Why would you want to lie about Americans? Why wouldn't
42:35
Speaker 2: you want to get it right? Even on your own
42:37
Speaker 2: fucking terms, why wouldn't you want to get it right?
42:39
Speaker 1: Because I think it was like what Tommy was saying.
42:41
Speaker 1: I think they just want to scare the shit out
42:42
Speaker 1: of people.
42:43
Speaker 3: And I also think they have a one million deportee
42:46
Speaker 3: quota that Stephen Miller is pushing them to meet. Over
42:50
Speaker 3: the course of the year.
42:51
Speaker 1: Minnesota, look, last week, there's a guy from Indonesia who's
42:54
Speaker 1: here on a student visa, working at a hospital in Minnesota.
42:58
Speaker 1: His student visa was revoked four days before his arrest,
43:02
Speaker 1: but he wasn't told. He wasn't notified that the visa
43:05
Speaker 1: was revoked. And so then they just arrested him because
43:07
Speaker 1: he overstayed the visa for four days after not telling him.
43:10
Speaker 1: They asked why. He doesn't understand. He has an eight-month-old daughter,
43:12
Speaker 1: American wife, citizen, doesn't understand, has been here since 2015,
43:16
Speaker 1: came legally. And they said, oh, he's a threat to
43:18
Speaker 1: public safety. So then They looked into his background. In 2022,
43:22
Speaker 1: he pled to a misdemeanor for spray painting graffiti on
43:25
Speaker 1: a bridge. And then the big one, he was charged
43:27
Speaker 1: with unlawful assembly over a protest around George Floyd's murder
43:32
Speaker 1: that was later dismissed. Not violent, not nothing, no property destruction,
43:36
Speaker 1: no nothing, just showing up there. And so I do
43:39
Speaker 1: think that on student visa stuff, they're starting with the
43:42
Speaker 1: With the Gaza stuff, but they're just going after– and
43:45
Speaker 1: they're doing this with like AI too. They're looking through
43:48
Speaker 1: anyone who's here on a student visa. If you've ever
43:50
Speaker 1: had any run-ins with the law that aren't political or
43:52
Speaker 1: if you've ever shown up at any kind of political
43:53
Speaker 1: protest anywhere, that's how they're targeting people now.
43:57
Speaker 3: Not January 6th.
43:58
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, of course. Pod Save America is brought to
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45:34
Speaker 1: heard about them from our show. One sign that the
45:41
Speaker 1: deportation stories are starting to break through in a way
45:43
Speaker 1: that the White House can't be too happy about is
45:46
Speaker 1: that they're losing Joe Rogan. Here he is talking about
45:48
Speaker 1: it on his show.
45:49
Speaker 7: The problem with things that are going in a radical
45:52
Speaker 7: direction and then there's an overcorrection. So the overcorrection is
45:56
Speaker 7: lack of due process. The overcorrection is like round them
45:59
Speaker 7: all up, ship them to jail. That's like some things
46:03
Speaker 7: that you say when you're not thinking things through. Like,
46:05
Speaker 7: what do you do about all the criminals?
46:06
Speaker 2: Take them all, fucking send them to El Salvador.
46:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
46:10
Speaker 2: What about due process?
46:11
Speaker 3: No, fuck that.
46:12
Speaker 7: Well, here's the problem with fuck that. What if you
46:16
Speaker 7: are an enemy of, let's not say any current president.
46:19
Speaker 7: Let's pretend we got a new president, totally new guy
46:22
Speaker 7: in 2028. And this is a common practice now of
46:27
Speaker 7: just rounding up gang members with no due process and
46:30
Speaker 7: shipping them to El Salvador. you're a gang member.
46:33
Speaker 2: No, I'm not.
46:33
Speaker 3: Prove it. What?
46:35
Speaker 1: I got to go to court.
46:36
Speaker 7: No, no due process.
46:37
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan making a lot of sense.
46:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's also like to back to where we started. Like,
46:43
Speaker 2: do you want to do like, this is breaking through
46:46
Speaker 2: for people. Do you want to be seen as fighting
46:49
Speaker 2: as having a genuine moral conviction during this moment? Or
46:52
Speaker 2: do you want to be out there saying it's a
46:54
Speaker 2: distraction and that we really need to be talking about
46:56
Speaker 2: the cost of living? Like there are people watching to
46:58
Speaker 2: see what people stand for right now.
46:59
Speaker 5: Yeah.
47:01
Speaker 3: I think Rogan weighing in on this really is meaningful.
47:04
Speaker 3: I mean, it also just reflects the reality that there
47:07
Speaker 3: are like, we hear the MAGA dead ender crazies that
47:10
Speaker 3: you read out. Like they get quoted, they get picked
47:12
Speaker 3: up in the media. But most normies are like, of
47:14
Speaker 3: course I believe in due process. Of course you should
47:16
Speaker 3: have a day in court. The idea of like hurting
47:19
Speaker 3: an innocent person, you can empathize with that easily. And
47:23
Speaker 3: it's offensive to you. So like, it's great to hear
47:26
Speaker 3: Rogan talking about this to his audience. I hope he
47:28
Speaker 3: keeps doing it. I also think it reflects the reality
47:30
Speaker 3: that Trump is good as an opposition leader, but he
47:32
Speaker 3: fucking sucks at governing.
47:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. And to your point, there's also this like, well,
47:37
Speaker 1: the Trump White House thinks they're winning the issue because
47:39
Speaker 1: they love talking about this. One reason they might be
47:42
Speaker 1: talking about it so much is because they're worried that
47:44
Speaker 1: the narrative is going to get away from them and
47:45
Speaker 1: that they're going to lose the argument. And that's why
47:46
Speaker 1: they have to lie about everything and talk about it nonstop.
47:49
Speaker 1: And that's why like Stephen Miller is screaming, which by
47:51
Speaker 1: the way, did you hear the strict scrutiny? Uh, Hosts
47:54
Speaker 1: call him Pee Wee German.
47:56
Speaker 3: Amazing.
47:57
Speaker 1: Pee Wee German.
47:59
Speaker 2: Well, one of the reasons they want to be talking
48:00
Speaker 2: about this is the markets are tanking. People are angry
48:04
Speaker 2: about the tariffs. The cost of living is going up,
48:07
Speaker 2: not down. His approval on the economy is as low
48:09
Speaker 2: as it's ever been since he's been president, last term,
48:13
Speaker 2: this term. So they have a real big problem on
48:16
Speaker 2: their hands.
48:16
Speaker 1: But I also think that they are genuinely, there is
48:19
Speaker 1: a concern that they're going to lose the narrative here.
48:21
Speaker 1: And Right before we recorded, I don't know if you
48:23
Speaker 1: guys saw that Trump posted about the court and the
48:26
Speaker 1: 7-2 decision. And it was a very uncharacteristic Trump truth
48:30
Speaker 1: because he was like, I have great respect for the court.
48:33
Speaker 1: But even the Supreme Court I have great respect for
48:35
Speaker 1: are now saying that I can't deport Venezuelans or anyone
48:39
Speaker 1: back to their country even if they're violent. And I
48:41
Speaker 1: don't like that and blah, blah, blah. But he's like,
48:43
Speaker 1: at least Alito understood that.
48:45
Speaker 2: Well, that's what he's, look, they're all, they're fucking all hyper,
48:48
Speaker 2: all the people that are around Donald Trump are like
48:49
Speaker 2: super online and reading all the same stuff we're talking about.
48:53
Speaker 2: What Trump has been doing is saying, Pam, we got
48:56
Speaker 2: to figure out what the law is, got to follow
48:57
Speaker 2: the law. I have great respect for the Supreme Court
48:59
Speaker 2: while they kind of play this sort of, this game
49:02
Speaker 2: of breaking, kind of breaking, directly breaking the orders. I
49:07
Speaker 2: do think you kind of get back to this sort
49:08
Speaker 2: of like the, you know, the Pope died. And there's
49:11
Speaker 2: this apocryphal, maybe it's apocryphal, Stalin quote of like, oh,
49:14
Speaker 2: how many divisions does the Pope have? And you see
49:18
Speaker 2: a lot, you see Joe Rogan, but you also see
49:20
Speaker 2: a lot of, I think, respected conservative people talking about
49:24
Speaker 2: the importance of following the Supreme Court. I think the
49:27
Speaker 2: Wilkinson opinion matters. I think the intellectual conversation on the
49:31
Speaker 2: right does still and possibly matter. I remember when when Kennedy,
49:37
Speaker 2: a senator from Louisiana, wasn't was doing a hearing. He
49:40
Speaker 2: said the one rule is you got to tell me
49:42
Speaker 2: you're not going to break.
49:43
Speaker 3: A court order.
49:43
Speaker 2: You got to follow court orders.
49:45
Speaker 3: Right.
49:45
Speaker 2: That's what Schumer has been banking on. And I don't know,
49:48
Speaker 2: but it does feel like they at least in the
49:50
Speaker 2: White House are not completely sure that they will get
49:54
Speaker 2: away with outright breaking right now a Supreme Court order.
49:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is why I think you have Stephen Miller
49:59
Speaker 1: just like lying about the decision. Although, you know, you
50:02
Speaker 1: did have J.D. Vance said many times before he became
50:04
Speaker 1: vice president, he did the whole Andrew Jackson quote. You know,
50:08
Speaker 1: the Supreme, the justice, the chief justice has made it,
50:10
Speaker 1: has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it. So
50:13
Speaker 1: that's where he is. Other big news from the weekend.
50:16
Speaker 1: The Times reported on Sunday night. that a second Signal
50:19
Speaker 1: Group chat has hit the Pentagon.
50:21
Speaker 2: Whoa.
50:22
Speaker 3: Jesus. So I did a video on this yesterday. Elijah
50:25
Speaker 3: recommended that as the title, and we decided not to.
50:28
Speaker 3: I like that you read it out. You know.
50:32
Speaker 1: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly shared those same Houthi war
50:35
Speaker 1: plans in a chat called Defense Team Huddle, made up
50:38
Speaker 1: of 13 people, including Hegseth's Fox News producer wife and
50:41
Speaker 1: his brother, who's now one of his advisers. A couple
50:44
Speaker 1: hours after the Signal story posted, newly resigned Pentagon spokesman
50:47
Speaker 1: John Uliot published a Politico piece describing, quote, a full-blown
50:51
Speaker 1: meltdown inside the Pentagon, which he called the month from hell,
50:55
Speaker 1: before citing rumors of more bombshell stories to come. Jesus,
50:58
Speaker 1: what's left? And predicting that Hegseth will be out soon.
51:02
Speaker 2: Literal bombshell stories.
51:04
Speaker 1: He did make sure to say of Hegseth, I value
51:06
Speaker 1: his friendship. and we accomplished a lot together.
51:09
Speaker 2: Well, tell me about the friendships you don't value.
51:10
Speaker 1: I know, it's a little confusing. Predictably, Democratic lawmakers are
51:14
Speaker 1: back to calling on Hegseth to resign, and so is
51:17
Speaker 1: at least one Republican member of Congress, Don Bacon of Nebraska,
51:20
Speaker 1: who happens to be a former Air Force general. He
51:23
Speaker 1: said that if the Signal report is true, it's, quote,
51:25
Speaker 1: totally unacceptable, and that Hegseth is, quote, acting like he's
51:28
Speaker 1: above the law, and that shows an amateur person. Today,
51:31
Speaker 1: NPR reported that the White House has already begun the
51:33
Speaker 1: search for his replacement. But Caroline Leavitt quickly shut that
51:36
Speaker 1: down as fake news. Still, the work of the nation
51:39
Speaker 1: must go on, and both Hegseth and his boss, Donald Trump,
51:42
Speaker 1: were at the White House Easter egg roll on Monday,
51:45
Speaker 1: where they both commented on the situation as a jazz
51:47
Speaker 1: combo played in the background.
51:48
Speaker 2: Pete's doing a great job. Everybody's happy with him. We
51:52
Speaker 2: have the highest recruitment numbers I.
51:54
Speaker 3: Think they've had in 28 years.
51:57
Speaker 2: No, he's doing a great job. It's just fake news.
52:00
Speaker 2: They just bring up stories. You know, what a big
52:02
Speaker 2: surprise that a bunch of.
52:04
Speaker 5: A few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of
52:06
Speaker 5: hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled
52:09
Speaker 5: the Russia hoax. And as they peddle those lies, no
52:12
Speaker 5: one ever calls them on it. See, this is what
52:15
Speaker 5: the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former
52:19
Speaker 5: employees and then they try to slash and burn people
52:23
Speaker 5: and ruin their reputations.
52:24
Speaker 2: Not going to work with me.
52:26
Speaker 1: Anonymous sources like the guy who was your spokesman until
52:29
Speaker 1: he quit and published an op-ed about it under his
52:32
Speaker 1: own name.
52:33
Speaker 3: Name. There's nothing better than like statements of grave national
52:38
Speaker 3: importance made next to a giant bunny.
52:40
Speaker 2: There were several today. Trump issued his statement about the
52:45
Speaker 2: death of Pope Francis standing next to the fucking Easter bunny.
52:48
Speaker 1: The real hero of Easter.
52:53
Speaker 2: And like, these are the people that are saying, it's
52:55
Speaker 2: just like, it's not important, but these are the people
52:58
Speaker 2: saying that we need to trust them on these, on
53:01
Speaker 2: random deportations. but they can't figure out a way to
53:04
Speaker 2: get Donald Trump to speak to the cameras about the
53:07
Speaker 2: death of the Pope. Probably the one time Trump will
53:10
Speaker 2: ever get to talk about the death of the Pope
53:11
Speaker 2: as president without the Easter bunny standing next to him.
53:14
Speaker 2: That is fucking insane.
53:16
Speaker 3: Well, he's so good.
53:16
Speaker 1: He is. He's going to the funeral with Melania and
53:19
Speaker 1: he's excited that he is looking forward to being there.
53:21
Speaker 3: Exclusion. He meant the food. He just wants some good pasta.
53:25
Speaker 1: Tommy, anything new and interesting in terms of the details
53:28
Speaker 1: that Hegseth shared here in both Signal and I thought
53:30
Speaker 1: the op-ed from Politico was wild, but why don't you
53:33
Speaker 1: I mean, it.
53:33
Speaker 3: Sounds like he was sharing the same basic information, like
53:37
Speaker 3: the F-18s are going to bomb this target at this time.
53:40
Speaker 2: It's a classic to share the same joke in multiple
53:43
Speaker 2: group chats.
53:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true.
53:45
Speaker 2: So he had the same information.
53:47
Speaker 5: Yeah.
53:47
Speaker 3: I mean, the difference here is the first Signal Gate
53:50
Speaker 3: group chat was started by Mike Waltz, a national security advisor.
53:53
Speaker 3: And that was a group of people with whom one
53:56
Speaker 3: should discuss whether or not to bomb Yemen. This was
53:59
Speaker 3: a group started by Hegseth himself. And it was created
54:02
Speaker 3: on his personal phone, which is a very, very big no-no.
54:06
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's probably a half dozen Intel
54:09
Speaker 3: agencies that have tried to break that phone. A few
54:13
Speaker 3: probably have succeeded, and he's just sharing classified information on it.
54:17
Speaker 3: Do you think he uses a really great password manager
54:20
Speaker 3: on his.
54:20
Speaker 2: Private phone, Pete Hegseth? Do you think Pete Hegseth has
54:22
Speaker 2: got state-of-the-art security? He was a Fox News anchor three
54:27
Speaker 2: months ago.
54:27
Speaker 3: Weekend.
54:28
Speaker 1: Can we talk about the... Can we talk about the
54:31
Speaker 1: chaos in the Pentagon that this guy wrote about who
54:34
Speaker 1: used to be spokesman? They're trying to brush it off
54:37
Speaker 1: as a few anonymous sources, but it seems like there's
54:39
Speaker 1: a mutiny going on in there.
54:41
Speaker 3: Well, what's weird about this is they've already purged the
54:45
Speaker 3: Biden-era professional people, right? C.Q. Brown, the chairman of the
54:48
Speaker 3: Joint Chiefs, out. Lisa Franchetti, who is the director of
54:51
Speaker 3: the Navy, out. And they're slowly starting to replace them.
54:55
Speaker 3: But The people we're talking about Hegseth firing here or
54:57
Speaker 3: they're getting pushed out in this leak investigation or whatever
54:59
Speaker 3: are like his guys. Like Dan Caldwell, the dude who
55:03
Speaker 3: was his senior advisor, he was his friend of over
55:05
Speaker 3: a decade. They worked together at that nonprofit. He was
55:08
Speaker 3: the point of contact on that original Mike Waltz signal
55:11
Speaker 3: gate being like, if I can't be around to talk
55:14
Speaker 3: about this issue, Dan is my proxy. And now they're
55:18
Speaker 3: forcing these guys out. So Hegseth is missing. Now he
55:21
Speaker 3: no longer has his senior advisor, his chief of staff,
55:23
Speaker 3: his deputy chief of staff. And I think there's some
55:25
Speaker 3: other officials that have been pushed out. So it just
55:27
Speaker 3: sounds like it's chaos over there. I mean, the spokesman
55:29
Speaker 3: says it's chaos. And it is the defense department. He's
55:33
Speaker 3: running the U.S.
55:34
Speaker 1: Military.
55:35
Speaker 2: Well, it's almost as if when people noted before that
55:39
Speaker 2: he'd run two tiny nonprofits.
55:40
Speaker 1: Poorly.
55:41
Speaker 2: Poorly. Couldn't do it. Had a bunch of public intoxication. uh, chaos, uh,
55:47
Speaker 2: missing money, all kinds of problems and running these groups.
55:49
Speaker 2: When people say he wasn't up for the job of
55:53
Speaker 2: running these organ, this, the, the, the biggest bureaucracy in
55:56
Speaker 2: the federal government, uh, there might've been some fucking truth
55:58
Speaker 2: to it. And that now is the, you can, you
56:01
Speaker 2: can spin your way to it. You can bully a
56:03
Speaker 2: bunch of, um, uh, Republican senators into going along with this,
56:07
Speaker 2: but now he has the job and it's a real
56:09
Speaker 2: job and he can't do it.
56:10
Speaker 3: And like, you know, shit could go down. We don't
56:13
Speaker 3: know what's happening behind the scenes. We don't know what
56:15
Speaker 3: debates might scare us if we were aware of them.
56:18
Speaker 3: But you had C.Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chief,
56:20
Speaker 3: got pushed out. The new guy, Dan Cain, was just
56:23
Speaker 3: confirmed the other day. Raising Cain. And he had been
56:26
Speaker 3: retired for like a year, so he's kind of getting
56:28
Speaker 3: back up to speed. And also, there is this battle
56:31
Speaker 3: in Republican foreign policy between the more isolationist wing of
56:35
Speaker 3: the MAGA world and the more traditional neocon hawkish types.
56:40
Speaker 3: You're seeing it really play out in this debate over
56:43
Speaker 3: the Iran nuclear talks that are happening, that Steve Witkoff,
56:47
Speaker 3: the actual Secretary of State, not make-a-wish Secretary of State
56:50
Speaker 3: Marco Rubio. So, I mean, it's just interesting. Like, that's
56:54
Speaker 3: kind of the backdrop is these guys are still figuring
56:56
Speaker 3: out what they believe and what they're going to do.
56:58
Speaker 3: And now the Pentagon was just purged.
57:00
Speaker 1: And it does feel like we're once again in a
57:02
Speaker 1: situation where maybe if this didn't break in the news
57:06
Speaker 1: and was all over the place that Donald Trump might
57:09
Speaker 1: like quietly get rid of them. But of course, you
57:12
Speaker 1: got to dig in. Everyone starts, now who knows? Because
57:15
Speaker 1: like there was a room, you know, the NPR had
57:16
Speaker 1: that one source that said they're looking for someone new
57:18
Speaker 1: and then everyone fake newsed it to death, you know, but.
57:21
Speaker 2: But the problem with being a bunch of liars is
57:23
Speaker 2: we can't take it seriously. Nobody knows. And by the way.
57:25
Speaker 1: He could be out by the time we are done
57:26
Speaker 1: recording this.
57:27
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has said, I'm sticking with, Donald Trump has
57:30
Speaker 2: said about people he fired, Within days, if not hours,
57:33
Speaker 2: I'm not firing this person.
57:34
Speaker 3: It's true.
57:35
Speaker 2: So we will see. But this Donald Trump does not
57:37
Speaker 2: like this is this is this reflects very poorly on him.
57:39
Speaker 2: It looks fucking bad. He's getting nothing for it.
57:42
Speaker 3: Terrible press.
57:42
Speaker 1: I mean, well, what he's got.
57:43
Speaker 5: Yeah.
57:43
Speaker 1: What he needs is if he's going to replace him,
57:45
Speaker 1: he's got to find someone else who can get confirmed,
57:48
Speaker 1: who will be absolutely loyal to Donald Trump over the Constitution,
57:52
Speaker 1: the military and anyone else.
57:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. That clip of Hex F was so unconvincing. He's
57:58
Speaker 3: like shouting at a C-Span camera. He's pointing to his
58:01
Speaker 3: own children, kind of like using them as a shield
58:03
Speaker 3: for the media in that moment. And he just had
58:06
Speaker 3: the look and the feel of a man who is
58:08
Speaker 3: in so far over his head, and he does not
58:11
Speaker 3: know how to get out of it.
58:12
Speaker 2: It seems like a bad dream. It seems like a
58:13
Speaker 2: bad dream. You're at the Easter egg roll. There's a
58:15
Speaker 2: bunny next to you. Donald Trump is next to you.
58:16
Speaker 2: You're being asked about these terrible mistakes that you made.
58:19
Speaker 1: And you've got your spokesman out there being like, oh,
58:21
Speaker 1: there's so much worse stories are going to drop this week.
58:25
Speaker 2: And I say that as a friend. That's very Real Housewives,
58:27
Speaker 2: by the way. As a friend, Pete, I'm telling you,
58:29
Speaker 2: you're a piece of shit. But the other side of
58:33
Speaker 2: it is that the more Pete Hegseth is under siege,
58:36
Speaker 2: the more loyal he'll have to be to Donald Trump.
58:38
Speaker 3: Right? The more weak, right?
58:40
Speaker 2: So it is, there is that aspect of it of like,
58:43
Speaker 2: can he hold on, get to the other side of
58:44
Speaker 2: a news cycle and still be there at Trump's, at
58:47
Speaker 2: Trump's largesse.
58:48
Speaker 3: But just for, just to be crystal clear, if any
58:51
Speaker 3: uniform member of the military did what Hegseth did with Signal,
58:55
Speaker 3: they would be fired if not court-martialed. Any normal administration
58:58
Speaker 3: would fire him on the spot and refer to DOJ
59:00
Speaker 3: for prosecution. And the fact that we're even talking about this,
59:03
Speaker 3: like there's also reports that, Pete Hexeth was bringing his
59:06
Speaker 3: wife to his meetings with like the NATO counterpart. Like
59:10
Speaker 3: these are defense minister to defense minister talks. You need
59:14
Speaker 3: a Fox.
59:14
Speaker 1: News producer there at all times. Get you some good content.
59:17
Speaker 2: We're just in our Wednesday Pod Save America meeting. And
59:20
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, Hannah's going to sit in to be here.
59:24
Speaker 1: Well, we're not discussing classified info.
59:26
Speaker 3: But I'm saying even without that, we'd be like, that's weird.
59:28
Speaker 3: If Hannah was like bomb Poland, yeah, we'd have a
59:30
Speaker 3: real problem.
59:40
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1:01:00
Speaker 1: qualified candidates tomorrow. Speaking of chaos... In the category of
1:01:08
Speaker 1: serious news that's also funny, the Times reported on Friday
1:01:11
Speaker 1: that Trump's war on Harvard started by accident. The original
1:01:16
Speaker 1: letter demanding concessions received by the university a week before
1:01:20
Speaker 1: apparently was sent without proper authorization at the White House.
1:01:23
Speaker 1: At the time, Harvard was engaged in what it thought
1:01:25
Speaker 1: were productive talks with administration lawyers from the White House's
1:01:28
Speaker 1: anti-Semitism task force, which is how they're laundering their attacks
1:01:32
Speaker 1: on academic freedom and free speech. Harvard was expecting a
1:01:35
Speaker 1: letter from the task force with some details about their concerns.
1:01:38
Speaker 1: What they got instead was the nuclear option, an email
1:01:41
Speaker 1: from one of the task force lawyers making a whole
1:01:43
Speaker 1: host of crazy demands, including federal oversight of admissions and hirings.
1:01:49
Speaker 1: That is fucking nuts. Eradication of all diversity efforts and
1:01:53
Speaker 1: the disbanding of pro-Palestinian groups. Some of the anonymous leakers
1:01:56
Speaker 1: who talked to the Times said the guy who sent
1:01:58
Speaker 1: the letter did so prematurely. Others said he meant to
1:02:01
Speaker 1: send it around internally for review. Ah, hate when that happens. Anyway,
1:02:05
Speaker 1: it caused Harvard to publicly reject the demands the following Monday.
1:02:09
Speaker 1: As we discussed last week, the administration then froze more
1:02:11
Speaker 1: than $ 2 billion in funds, threatened Harvard's tax-exempt status, and
1:02:16
Speaker 1: threatened to shut down its ability to enroll any foreign
1:02:18
Speaker 1: students whatsoever. The Wall Street Journal reports that, of course,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: doubling down again, the administration is now planning to pull
1:02:24
Speaker 1: another $ 1 billion in research funding. So administration admits they
1:02:29
Speaker 1: sent Arbrego Garcia to El Salvador in error. but then
1:02:33
Speaker 1: they refused to correct the mistake, and then they dig
1:02:36
Speaker 1: in even further. They accidentally sent a crazy letter to Harvard,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: then they refused to correct the mistake, and they dig
1:02:41
Speaker 1: in even further. You guys notice a pattern here?
1:02:44
Speaker 2: So what is strange about this is it took a
1:02:48
Speaker 2: few days for us to find out that the administration
1:02:50
Speaker 2: is claiming this is a mistake. But if it was
1:02:52
Speaker 2: an actual mistake, they would have known instantly, and yet
1:02:55
Speaker 2: they spent a week freezing the funds, then adding this
1:03:00
Speaker 2: new threat to tax exempt status. So they went forward
1:03:04
Speaker 2: as if it wasn't a mistake.
1:03:05
Speaker 3: Fine.
1:03:06
Speaker 2: The problem with the claim that this is somehow a mistake,
1:03:08
Speaker 2: it would imply that these demands are materially different than
1:03:11
Speaker 2: the demands they put on Columbia when they're really not right.
1:03:15
Speaker 1: That like they, these federal oversight of admissions and hirings.
1:03:18
Speaker 2: The, the, the set of the, the Columbia, I don't
1:03:21
Speaker 2: know exactly what Columbia ended up conceding to, but those
1:03:23
Speaker 2: were part of the demands on Columbia up to and
1:03:25
Speaker 2: including a new provost to oversee a specific department, right?
1:03:31
Speaker 2: Like The demands that Columbia agreed to, which is why
1:03:34
Speaker 2: it was so pathetic that Columbia caved, basically, in the
1:03:36
Speaker 2: same way this does, made Trump dean. They're different. They're different.
1:03:40
Speaker 2: But I think it's hard to claim that these are
1:03:43
Speaker 2: so much more extreme than what Columbia had.
1:03:46
Speaker 1: Already agreed to. I thought they were much worse.
1:03:50
Speaker 2: I think some of them are worse. Some of them
1:03:51
Speaker 2: aren't the same. They treated them differently. But I think
1:03:54
Speaker 2: Donald Trump basically demanding a private university hire a specific fucking...
1:03:59
Speaker 2: administrative official is crazy, right? Demanding that Columbia take greater
1:04:03
Speaker 2: control over student groups is crazy. Like these are there.
1:04:06
Speaker 2: Maybe these demands are different, but this is exactly the plan,
1:04:09
Speaker 2: including them then threatening the funding after. So like, all right,
1:04:12
Speaker 2: maybe this was sent an error. Maybe it was sent
1:04:14
Speaker 2: too quickly, but like I, I partly wonder if this
1:04:17
Speaker 2: is cleanup because the blowback was so much worse than
1:04:20
Speaker 2: they expected and all the other schools jumped in behind
1:04:22
Speaker 2: Harvard after Harvard went forward.
1:04:23
Speaker 3: But it does sound like the sourcing on the story
1:04:25
Speaker 3: is the administration sent a letter in error and then
1:04:28
Speaker 3: someone from the administration called Harvard to be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Right.
1:04:32
Speaker 3: Delete that, delete that, delete that.
1:04:33
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:04:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:04:34
Speaker 3: So it's confusing. I mean, we should also be clear that,
1:04:36
Speaker 3: you know, the grant money that's getting cut off to Harvard,
1:04:39
Speaker 3: it's not going to like caviar for the kids. It's
1:04:42
Speaker 3: mostly like research for medical, you know, cancer research, Alzheimer's research,
1:04:47
Speaker 3: like cutting edge scientific research. This is stuff that benefits
1:04:50
Speaker 3: all of us.
1:04:50
Speaker 2: Well, and it's a contract. It's a government contract.
1:04:53
Speaker 1: The government pays our best institutions to help do medical research,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: scientific research to benefit the country. That's the whole deal.
1:05:01
Speaker 1: Anyone else notice that one of the lawyers that Harvard
1:05:03
Speaker 1: hired to deal with this is Robert Herr?
1:05:05
Speaker 3: Sure did.
1:05:05
Speaker 1: Coming back for the new season.
1:05:08
Speaker 2: Hey, Robert Herr, listen, you know, there's a lot of
1:05:12
Speaker 2: things were said last year. 2024 was an interesting time
1:05:14
Speaker 2: and You know, we can look back on it. I
1:05:16
Speaker 2: don't think we should look back. I think we should
1:05:17
Speaker 2: just move forward.
1:05:19
Speaker 3: Robert Herr getting hired by them is interesting. Clearly like a,
1:05:21
Speaker 3: you know, very conservative lawyer, well thought of, you know,
1:05:25
Speaker 3: worked at DOJ for a long time. Though as a
1:05:28
Speaker 3: choice to make Donald Trump happy is an odd one
1:05:31
Speaker 3: because he did not prosecute Joe Biden.
1:05:34
Speaker 1: Right.
1:05:34
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:05:34
Speaker 1: We remember he was, he wasn't a hero on the
1:05:36
Speaker 1: other side either.
1:05:36
Speaker 3: No, they hated him too. Yeah. Well, whatever. He called
1:05:39
Speaker 3: him old. Cool. But didn't prosecute him.
1:05:41
Speaker 2: Which we found at the time to be ridiculous.
1:05:44
Speaker 3: Yeah. There's so much about this in Jake Tapper's book
1:05:48
Speaker 3: that I can't talk about yet because there's still an embargo,
1:05:50
Speaker 3: but conversation for a month from now. Yeah, exactly.
1:05:52
Speaker 1: All right, before we go, we're recording this on Easter Monday,
1:05:55
Speaker 1: less than a day after the passing of Pope Francis.
1:05:57
Speaker 1: Francis took a visit from J.D. Vance on Sunday morning.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: Talk about your last day. And apparently that was enough
1:06:03
Speaker 1: to put the ailing pontiff over the edge after allowing
1:06:06
Speaker 1: himself to be photographed shaking Vance's hand. The Holy Father
1:06:09
Speaker 1: then blessed the crowd of tens of thousands in St.
1:06:11
Speaker 1: Peter's Square. and had one of his deputies read what
1:06:13
Speaker 1: would be his final Easter address, in which he implicitly
1:06:17
Speaker 1: blasted Vance and Trump, decrying, quote, how much contempt is
1:06:21
Speaker 1: stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants,
1:06:25
Speaker 1: and saying, quote, I appeal to all those in positions
1:06:28
Speaker 1: of political responsibility in our world not to yield to
1:06:31
Speaker 1: the logic of fear. He also reiterated calls for a
1:06:34
Speaker 1: ceasefire in Gaza and a return of all the hostages
1:06:37
Speaker 1: and for an end to the war in Ukraine. A
1:06:39
Speaker 1: day earlier, Vance had a longer meeting with the Pope's
1:06:42
Speaker 1: number two cardinal, and the Holy See's readout of that
1:06:44
Speaker 1: meeting mentioned, quote, an exchange of opinions on, quote, migrants, refugees,
1:06:50
Speaker 1: and prisoners. That topic was not in J.D. Vance's readout
1:06:54
Speaker 1: of the meeting. The Pope in the past had called
1:06:56
Speaker 1: Trump's immigration policies, quote, a disgrace and not Christian.
1:07:01
Speaker 3: Legend.
1:07:02
Speaker 1: What did you guys think about the Vance interaction?
1:07:05
Speaker 3: We're all going to make the same joke because we
1:07:08
Speaker 3: deserve this, but there's got to be a Little piece
1:07:10
Speaker 3: of him who thinks, did I kill the vibe?
1:07:12
Speaker 1: Did I kill him?
1:07:14
Speaker 3: Right? Like, that would cross my mind.
1:07:16
Speaker 2: I think any time spent with J.D. Vance does kill
1:07:18
Speaker 2: the vibe. My mother went on, it was, we didn't
1:07:25
Speaker 2: call it this, but she, it was not to their faces,
1:07:28
Speaker 2: but it was a farewell tour to visit some of
1:07:30
Speaker 2: her oldest relatives before they died. And we had a
1:07:34
Speaker 2: great uncle, Jerry. And just before he died, my mother
1:07:38
Speaker 2: brought him a blueberry muffin. and he ate the whole thing,
1:07:41
Speaker 2: and he'd never been so happy. He was dead in
1:07:42
Speaker 2: 48 hours. That's crazy.
1:07:48
Speaker 1: I will say, I loved this pope. First Jesuit pope.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: I remember when Benedict stepped down, and Francis was picked,
1:07:56
Speaker 1: and I was like, a Jesuit from South America?
1:07:59
Speaker 3: I know.
1:08:00
Speaker 1: Who was all about social justice? I'm like, is this real?
1:08:03
Speaker 1: Is the church going to make him now, now that
1:08:05
Speaker 1: he's going to be pope, is he not going to
1:08:06
Speaker 1: be like that? And he ended up being every bit Jesuit.
1:08:10
Speaker 1: the person he was when he was in South America.
1:08:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll always call him Ratzinger, but yeah, after.
1:08:15
Speaker 1: Ratzinger. Yeah, he was a tough one. I'm just like
1:08:19
Speaker 1: very much hoping that we don't go back to that.
1:08:22
Speaker 1: And I don't know that anyone can, you know, fill
1:08:24
Speaker 1: the shoes of Pope Francis, but.
1:08:25
Speaker 2: We still need a woke Pope.
1:08:27
Speaker 1: It's time for a woke Pope. We also need like
1:08:29
Speaker 1: one world leader insulated from politics who is willing to
1:08:34
Speaker 1: speak about compassion and empathy and justice in a way that,
1:08:38
Speaker 1: you know, J.D. Vance's of the world and the right
1:08:41
Speaker 1: will probably shit on that person, but at least they
1:08:43
Speaker 1: can do so with some sense of moral authority. Yeah.
1:08:47
Speaker 3: Look, I'm Episcopalian, so I'm a lazy Catholic. And I'll
1:08:50
Speaker 3: be honest, I don't love the Catholic Church as an institution. No,
1:08:55
Speaker 3: me either. I don't feel like it's always been a
1:08:56
Speaker 3: force for good in this world, especially some of their
1:08:59
Speaker 3: social views. But I think like Benedict Cardinal Ratzinger was like,
1:09:06
Speaker 3: he was kind of, he had that Opus Dei vibe,
1:09:08
Speaker 3: you know, that was when that Dan Brown book was
1:09:10
Speaker 3: really big.
1:09:11
Speaker 2: Those expensive red shoes. Right.
1:09:13
Speaker 3: He was like a kind of scary guy. And then
1:09:15
Speaker 3: Francis came along and a lot of what made people
1:09:18
Speaker 3: love him was his tone. You know, he couldn't fully
1:09:21
Speaker 3: moderate the church's anti-LGBT views, right? But he could be
1:09:24
Speaker 3: decent when he talked about them. As you mentioned, he
1:09:26
Speaker 3: cared about poverty. He cared about refugees. He cared about migration.
1:09:30
Speaker 3: He cared about climate change. He was a huge critic
1:09:32
Speaker 3: of all wars, including the war in Ukraine. He helped
1:09:35
Speaker 3: facilitate the Cuba normalization deal between the U.S., the Obama administration,
1:09:39
Speaker 3: and the Cuban government. So he used his office to
1:09:43
Speaker 3: bring about change and facilitate good works. And he was
1:09:46
Speaker 3: from the Global South and I think brought that perspective
1:09:49
Speaker 3: to the job of understanding like the horrors of, uh,
1:09:52
Speaker 3: colonization and, um, you know, when great powers act in
1:09:57
Speaker 3: ways that are brutal and selfish. And I don't know,
1:10:00
Speaker 3: it just, I think we will miss him on the
1:10:02
Speaker 3: global stage.
1:10:03
Speaker 1: This guy, a guy who washed the feet of, um,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: AIDS patients back in when it was, um, not a
1:10:09
Speaker 1: very popular thing to do.
1:10:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like there was that moment a couple of weeks
1:10:13
Speaker 2: ago where JD Vance was talking about, um, uh, uh,
1:10:17
Speaker 2: what the golden rule means and seems, seems to have, uh,
1:10:19
Speaker 2: not fully understood it. Um, and there was, again, I'm,
1:10:23
Speaker 2: I'm so Jewish, uh, but there's, there was always just
1:10:25
Speaker 2: something beautiful about a Pope that even an institution that yes,
1:10:31
Speaker 2: that does not, uh, uh, acknowledge the rights of LGBT people, uh,
1:10:35
Speaker 2: that does not allow women to be priests, that he
1:10:38
Speaker 2: gave voice to the beautiful parts of Christian values, like
1:10:41
Speaker 2: the parts that everyone ought to appreciate. And, uh, that
1:10:45
Speaker 2: is so absent from American politics so much of the time.
1:10:51
Speaker 2: There is such a vicious and cruel version of Christianity
1:10:55
Speaker 2: represented to be the one true path. And then you
1:10:57
Speaker 2: had this Pope, this undeniable Pope, right? Moments before he dies,
1:11:01
Speaker 2: telling J.D. Vance, in not so many words, to fuck
1:11:04
Speaker 2: off before he dies.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: But also, you know, The other thing he did was
1:11:08
Speaker 1: some people thought that he was going to snub J.D.
1:11:10
Speaker 2: Vance.
1:11:10
Speaker 1: That was the first thing because J.D. Vance got the
1:11:12
Speaker 1: number two the day before. And then Pope Francis was like,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: I'll meet with him. It's the vice president of the
1:11:18
Speaker 1: United States. I will meet with him. I will criticize
1:11:19
Speaker 1: him to the people. But like because I show compassion
1:11:22
Speaker 1: to everyone, I'm also going to meet the vice president,
1:11:24
Speaker 1: which was nice.
1:11:25
Speaker 2: Yes. And there's something that I think like our, you know,
1:11:28
Speaker 2: as we think about what it means to build a big,
1:11:31
Speaker 2: small d democratic movement, there's something beautiful in that in
1:11:35
Speaker 2: that he That what he is fighting for applies to everyone,
1:11:38
Speaker 2: even the people that disagree, even the people that are
1:11:40
Speaker 2: getting it wrong, even the people that are horrible. And
1:11:43
Speaker 2: that we are fighting for that here, right? We are
1:11:45
Speaker 2: fighting to build a democratic movement because we believe in
1:11:48
Speaker 2: democracy for everybody.
1:11:49
Speaker 1: I tweeted it so you can see it on X,
1:11:52
Speaker 1: but there's this beautiful video of a young kid.
1:11:57
Speaker 3: I don't know.
1:11:57
Speaker 1: He's like five, six years old, eight years old. He
1:11:59
Speaker 1: had just lost his father. And he was so nervous
1:12:02
Speaker 1: to ask Pope Francis a question. And he goes up
1:12:04
Speaker 1: to him and Pope Francis was like, whispered in my ear.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: He whispers it in his ear. He goes and sits down.
1:12:08
Speaker 1: And the Pope said, his father is an atheist, even
1:12:11
Speaker 1: though he baptized his three children. He wants to know
1:12:13
Speaker 1: if his father is going to go to heaven. And
1:12:15
Speaker 1: he gives this whole speech about how he's like, the
1:12:17
Speaker 1: God that I believe in has a father's heart. And
1:12:19
Speaker 1: a father's heart would never want to keep his children
1:12:23
Speaker 1: too far away. And it was like a really, like,
1:12:25
Speaker 1: because the Catholic church I grew up in, you'd go
1:12:27
Speaker 1: to church and they'd, and you know, like my mother
1:12:28
Speaker 1: was Greek Orthodox and they'd be like, if you are
1:12:30
Speaker 1: not Catholic, do not come up for communion. Sit in
1:12:33
Speaker 1: the bench.
1:12:35
Speaker 3: Ratzinger's like, sorry, kid, he's burning.
1:12:36
Speaker 2: No, it is.
1:12:37
Speaker 1: It's like that, you know, and it's just being able
1:12:39
Speaker 1: to do that in an institution that's hard to, hard
1:12:41
Speaker 1: to change is, is, is laudable.
1:12:43
Speaker 2: Remember when the Pope called, called gay people, frogachinis though?
1:12:46
Speaker 1: That was funny.
1:12:47
Speaker 2: You know, where you go, fragachinos. I love everybody, even
1:12:51
Speaker 2: the fragachinis. And he's like, you can't say fragachinis. All right,
1:12:55
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say it one more time.
1:12:57
Speaker 1: It was a real, real Bidenism.
1:12:59
Speaker 2: It was awesome.
1:13:00
Speaker 1: I will say next Pope, you're right. There's, we're going
1:13:02
Speaker 1: to have all the speculation of who it may be.
1:13:05
Speaker 1: There's a, there's a lot of choices out there. There's
1:13:07
Speaker 1: one who is the, um, who, uh, would be like
1:13:10
Speaker 1: the first Asian Pope from the Philippines. And he like
1:13:14
Speaker 1: spoke out a lot against Duterte.
1:13:15
Speaker 3: Probably doing horse race.
1:13:16
Speaker 7: Right.
1:13:17
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:13:17
Speaker 1: And he would be, he would be like, where's he
1:13:19
Speaker 1: with the swing?
1:13:19
Speaker 2: Where's he with the swing Cardinals?
1:13:21
Speaker 1: Well, Tommy, I'm good. And so he's like the furthest left.
1:13:24
Speaker 1: I think you'd go. But then there's the only one
1:13:26
Speaker 1: that really scares me is there's one from fucking Hungary
1:13:29
Speaker 1: who Orban likes.
1:13:31
Speaker 2: Nice.
1:13:31
Speaker 1: And conservatives all like.
1:13:32
Speaker 3: It's his time.
1:13:33
Speaker 1: And he thinks that they need to like pull back
1:13:34
Speaker 1: the whole church.
1:13:35
Speaker 3: So that would be. That'd be cool.
1:13:36
Speaker 1: And then there's a bunch of other like sort of
1:13:37
Speaker 1: centrist leftist centers types.
1:13:39
Speaker 3: Listen, it's all going to.
1:13:40
Speaker 2: Come down to turnout. Conclave. Conclave. Best movie of last year.
1:13:47
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it.
1:13:47
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it either.
1:13:48
Speaker 1: And I'm going to watch it.
1:13:49
Speaker 3: I'll watch it before this thing.
1:13:50
Speaker 1: I'm going to watch it.
1:13:51
Speaker 3: The real deal. The real deal.
1:13:53
Speaker 1: Like, Tommy's a very religious person. That's why I made
1:13:54
Speaker 1: him godfather to my child.
1:13:57
Speaker 3: God and I.
1:13:58
Speaker 2: Not the Hebrew fag.
1:14:00
Speaker 1: Charlie's.
1:14:02
Speaker 2: Got a good Christian on that. Yeah, good and religious.
1:14:06
Speaker 1: He's got a Jewish godmother. That's true.
1:14:07
Speaker 2: That's true.
1:14:07
Speaker 1: That's his godmother.
1:14:08
Speaker 2: When's the last time Tommy saw the inside of a Bible?
1:14:13
Speaker 3: Give me a break.
1:14:14
Speaker 2: Give me a break.
1:14:15
Speaker 1: You going to a lot of Sunday mass?
1:14:17
Speaker 2: Who you seeing? They make a lot of friends at church?
1:14:19
Speaker 2: Give me a fucking break.
1:14:21
Speaker 3: I'm glad you pivoted this back to you. Fucking Pontifex
1:14:25
Speaker 3: over here.
1:14:26
Speaker 2: There's no Pope, I'm free.
1:14:27
Speaker 1: It's really beautiful. Okay, before we go, one quick housekeeping note.
1:14:31
Speaker 1: LGBTQ people are under attack and this year Pride is
1:14:33
Speaker 1: more than an excuse for Lovett to talk.
1:14:35
Speaker 3: Over us a lot in June. What a segue!
1:14:40
Speaker 1: It's life or death. Wow, that didn't really come out
1:14:42
Speaker 1: as serious as it should have. So grab a Join
1:14:45
Speaker 1: or Die t-shirt or sticker from the Crooked store. This
1:14:48
Speaker 1: design is a nod to the famous historical political cartoon,
1:14:51
Speaker 1: but we updated it to meet the moment and stand
1:14:54
Speaker 1: for LGBTQ resistance.
1:14:56
Speaker 3: Love it.
1:14:56
Speaker 1: Anything you want to add to that?
1:14:57
Speaker 2: It's a great Zevi. Our designer did an amazing job. Listen,
1:15:01
Speaker 2: if you go to any government website right now, they're
1:15:03
Speaker 2: trying to get the T separated from the LGB and
1:15:06
Speaker 2: we got to make sure we keep the T's with
1:15:07
Speaker 2: the LGBTs Because otherwise they're going to be S out
1:15:11
Speaker 2: of L. You know what I mean?
1:15:14
Speaker 1: That's a shirt.
1:15:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty good. Get that on a shirt.
1:15:18
Speaker 1: And by the way, that reminds me because Sarah McBride
1:15:20
Speaker 1: said this. Listen, if you haven't and you're like, oh,
1:15:22
Speaker 1: the Sunday interviews. Who knows? The Sunday interview with Sarah
1:15:25
Speaker 1: McBride was like my favorite conversation I've had with a politician.
1:15:28
Speaker 1: And I can't remember how long.
1:15:29
Speaker 2: Both of us were like. Really enjoying listening. I feel
1:15:31
Speaker 2: like there were several moments where either one of us
1:15:33
Speaker 2: could have cried. Seriously.
1:15:35
Speaker 1: I think I was just like staring at her at
1:15:37
Speaker 1: one point. Just like, wow, this is amazing. How do
1:15:40
Speaker 1: we have a politician like this? Anyway, check it out.
1:15:43
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Dan and I will be
1:15:45
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