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The MAGA Plot to Jail Democrats · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: Thank you for watching! Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm
0:21
Speaker 1: Jon Favreau.
0:22
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:23
Speaker 1: On today's show, Donald Trump and his goons are planning
0:25
Speaker 1: to lock up Democrats if they win. One of those goons,
0:28
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon, is finally going to jail. Joe Biden makes
0:31
Speaker 1: the case for democracy at the D-Day anniversary in Normandy.
0:35
Speaker 1: And Republicans block a bill that would protect access to
0:39
Speaker 1: birth control. But first, it has been a week now
0:42
Speaker 1: since a jury unanimously found Donald Trump guilty of committing
0:46
Speaker 1: 34 felonies. This comes after another jury. found the Trump
0:51
Speaker 1: Organization guilty of 17 felonies, and two separate juries found
0:55
Speaker 1: Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. All unanimous verdicts
1:00
Speaker 1: as well. He's not doing so well with the juries, Dan.
1:03
Speaker 1: It's a lot of jurors. There's a lot of jurors
1:05
Speaker 1: and four different juries. Just now he's struck out. He's
1:08
Speaker 1: 0 and 42 jurors.
1:11
Speaker 2: Did you just do some fast math there?
1:13
Speaker 1: I think so. We'll see if it's right or not.
1:15
Speaker 2: It's definitely not right. Does it have to be a
1:17
Speaker 2: multiple of 12?
1:19
Speaker 1: You know, it's fine. We'll take care of it in post.
1:24
Speaker 1: And we're finally starting to see some evidence that the
1:26
Speaker 1: small slice of persuadable voters who hadn't yet made up
1:30
Speaker 1: their mind about the election might not want to reward
1:33
Speaker 1: an unrepentant criminal with the job of running the country.
1:37
Speaker 1: The New York Times re-interviewed nearly 2,000 swing state voters
1:42
Speaker 1: who participated in their last poll and found that Trump
1:45
Speaker 1: lost 7% of his voters in 3% said they're now
1:50
Speaker 1: backing Biden. 4% said they're now undecided, taking Trump's previously
1:55
Speaker 1: three-point lead down to one point. The Times also interviewed
1:59
Speaker 1: some of these voters and did a separate focus group
2:02
Speaker 1: of undecided voters, as did our friend Sarah Longwell, all
2:06
Speaker 1: of which we can talk about. But first, what's your
2:09
Speaker 1: take on the post-verdict polling? And more importantly, does it
2:14
Speaker 1: tell you anything about how we should talk about the
2:17
Speaker 1: verdict with undecided voters.
2:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a couple of interesting things from the polls. One,
2:22
Speaker 2: we should be, even though the numbers are smaller than
2:25
Speaker 2: common sense or common decency would suggest in terms of
2:28
Speaker 2: wanting a convicted felon to be president of the United States,
2:31
Speaker 2: it should be encouraging to everyone that things matter, right?
2:35
Speaker 2: This does actually matter. It matters. 7% of voters is
2:37
Speaker 2: not a lot of voters, but it is more than
2:39
Speaker 2: enough to tip the White House one direction or the other.
2:42
Speaker 2: So in that sense, it's a very big deal. The
2:45
Speaker 2: The overall magnitude is not great, but the impact in
2:48
Speaker 2: a race this close is seismic, potentially. Now, if you
2:52
Speaker 2: look across all the polls, one of the main takeaways
2:55
Speaker 2: is that Biden's number doesn't really move. Maybe it goes
2:57
Speaker 2: up a point. A lot of times, it stays the same.
2:59
Speaker 2: What is happening is that Trump is losing voters, and
3:02
Speaker 2: most of them are going into the undecided column. Undecided,
3:06
Speaker 2: in this case, could mean maybe they're going to back
3:08
Speaker 2: Trump again. Maybe they're going to back a third-party candidate
3:10
Speaker 2: like RFK Jr., Maybe they're not going to vote at all.
3:13
Speaker 2: That might be the most likely scenario, or they might
3:14
Speaker 2: vote for Biden. Now, Trump losing a voter is a
3:18
Speaker 2: minus one for him, right? It's a net vote gain
3:21
Speaker 2: for Biden. If Biden gets that voter, it's a net
3:24
Speaker 2: two vote gain for Biden. So that is what we want.
3:28
Speaker 2: We want to move them not just to undecided. We
3:30
Speaker 2: want to move them to pro-Biden. And so my takeaway
3:32
Speaker 2: from this is we have a lot of work to do, right?
3:35
Speaker 2: That there is an opportunity here. It is not going
3:37
Speaker 2: to be realized right immediately because not only are these
3:40
Speaker 2: folks moving to undecided, In the data for progress poll
3:42
Speaker 2: that Tommy and Adisu talked about on Wednesday's podcast, 60%
3:47
Speaker 2: of their identified swing voter universe are not paying close
3:50
Speaker 2: attention to the trial. That is a much larger percentage
3:52
Speaker 2: than the overall electorate. So the voters we need the
3:55
Speaker 2: most are paying the least attention. But what we have
3:57
Speaker 2: seen is when those voters hear about it, it causes
4:01
Speaker 2: them to rethink Trump. So that is an argument for
4:03
Speaker 2: Democrats to keep talking about this, to keep hammering it,
4:05
Speaker 2: to keep making it part of the larger argument against Trump.
4:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
4:10
Speaker 1: And in the New York Times survey of the 2000
4:13
Speaker 1: people they had already polled a couple of weeks ago,
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Speaker 1: a sizable share of that group, 16 percent, said they
4:21
Speaker 1: hadn't heard enough about the verdict to say whether they
4:24
Speaker 1: approved or disapproved. And more than a quarter of those
4:28
Speaker 1: voters paid little or no attention at all to the trial.
4:32
Speaker 1: The other interesting thing is the most likely people to
4:35
Speaker 1: switch their votes away from Trump and also towards Biden.
4:40
Speaker 1: younger voters, non-white voters, disengaged voters, people who haven't been
4:46
Speaker 1: following the news that closely, Biden 2020 voters who had
4:51
Speaker 1: previously said they were voting for Trump, and the double haters.
4:55
Speaker 1: So the voters who said that they disapprove of both
4:57
Speaker 1: Trump and Biden. So the very voters that Biden had
5:01
Speaker 1: been struggling with in a lot of these polls are
5:05
Speaker 1: the voters who, when they heard about the verdict, tended
5:09
Speaker 1: to have second thoughts about voting for Trump, which I
5:12
Speaker 1: thought was very interesting. I also want to dig into
5:15
Speaker 1: sort of why people switched, which, again, the New York
5:18
Speaker 1: Times did interviews with some of these voters that they polled.
5:21
Speaker 1: There was another focus group as well. You know me,
5:24
Speaker 1: I love focus groups.
5:26
Speaker 2: Why do you love focus groups, John?
5:28
Speaker 1: Because I host another podcast called The Wilderness. You should
5:30
Speaker 1: check out this Sunday. We have another episode of The
5:33
Speaker 1: Wilderness coming. This is going to focus on black voters.
5:36
Speaker 1: persuadable black voters who have not yet decided, um, who
5:40
Speaker 1: they're going to support. So tune in guys, tune in.
5:43
Speaker 1: So some of the, some of the reasons people switched
5:46
Speaker 1: one guy in Nevada said that he actually wants to
5:49
Speaker 1: see if Trump gets jail time or not. And that's really, he's, he's,
5:52
Speaker 1: he's now undecided. He's gone from pro-Trump to undecided. And
5:56
Speaker 1: I think if Trump gets jail time, he's going to
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Speaker 1: be more likely. This is Kristen Soltis Anderson is a
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Speaker 1: Republican pollster. She wrote a whole piece about this in
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Speaker 1: the New York times. that there's actually a lot of
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Speaker 1: voters who jail time will make the difference for them.
6:07
Speaker 1: So I thought that was interesting.
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Speaker 2: Well, I would fucking hope so.
6:11
Speaker 1: I mean, but my thing is like, why do you
6:13
Speaker 1: need the jail? The conviction seems like it should be enough.
6:15
Speaker 2: I mean, even if you were like kind of iffy
6:19
Speaker 2: on maybe it was a fair trial, if you care
6:21
Speaker 2: that much about falsifying business records to interfere in an election,
6:24
Speaker 2: a president in prison seems like kind of a monkey
6:29
Speaker 2: wrench in the works here.
6:30
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think for people who weren't paying attention to
6:33
Speaker 1: the trial or who still haven't paid attention that much,
6:36
Speaker 1: jail is a signifier that it is a more serious
6:38
Speaker 1: offense than just, oh, you get community service or whatever.
6:43
Speaker 1: A guy in Georgia said, my thing is just go
6:45
Speaker 1: ahead and be honest. We as Americans, we can respect that.
6:48
Speaker 1: A lot of people make mistakes. And he said he's
6:51
Speaker 1: very worried that Trump would seek retribution against Democrats, which
6:54
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. But that is interesting, too.
6:56
Speaker 1: It's sort of why I keep calling him an unrepentant criminal.
6:59
Speaker 1: There are people who You look at Donald Trump and
7:02
Speaker 1: he's just showed he's showed no remorse. He has admitted nothing.
7:05
Speaker 1: He has said that he's made no mistakes. It's just
7:07
Speaker 1: like victim, victim, victim. And I think that probably doesn't
7:09
Speaker 1: land well with a lot of people. And then there
7:11
Speaker 1: was an interesting there's a woman in Pennsylvania who volunteers
7:14
Speaker 1: with people who've been incarcerated. You don't want to dig
7:16
Speaker 1: in too much on this woman because they said that
7:19
Speaker 1: she was she was a Biden voter who then decided
7:22
Speaker 1: she was going to vote for Trump because Joe Biden
7:25
Speaker 1: allowed Roe v. Wade to be overturned and didn't do
7:28
Speaker 1: anything about it. So just, you know, but she said,
7:36
Speaker 1: if a person who received 34 felony convictions in one
7:39
Speaker 1: day can still run for president, why can my guy
7:42
Speaker 1: not apply for a job at a gas station? It's
7:44
Speaker 1: not that Trump's guilty. It's the fact that he can
7:45
Speaker 1: still carry on his life without any kind of hurdles.
7:48
Speaker 1: This to me is, I think, maybe the most salient
7:53
Speaker 1: argument for a lot of people. And this goes to
7:57
Speaker 1: Trump trying to say, oh, you know, There's a lot
7:59
Speaker 1: of black Americans who identify with me now and who
8:02
Speaker 1: are going to vote for me because they've experienced unfairness
8:05
Speaker 1: with the criminal justice system. And he's trying to he's
8:08
Speaker 1: trying to say that the fairness and the unfairness in
8:10
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system, which a lot of people will
8:12
Speaker 1: believe it's unfair, that he's trying to he's trying to
8:15
Speaker 1: make himself be part of that.
8:17
Speaker 2: Right.
8:17
Speaker 1: To get sympathy. And I think you have to separate
8:20
Speaker 1: him from most other people. Most other people who've been convicted,
8:25
Speaker 1: most other people who've gone to jail because Donald Trump,
8:29
Speaker 1: he plays by a different set of rules from everyone else.
8:31
Speaker 3: Right.
8:32
Speaker 1: Like he he's been just been charged and convicted of
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Speaker 1: 34 felonies. He's got another 54 felony charges that he's
8:39
Speaker 1: awaiting and he doesn't, you know, he might not have
8:42
Speaker 1: to go to jail. Uh, he gets to do, he
8:45
Speaker 1: gets to be a president United States. Uh, and most
8:47
Speaker 1: people can't even, when they, when they leave jail, they
8:49
Speaker 1: can't even vote. They can't get a job. And Donald
8:51
Speaker 1: Trump gets to do it every once because he's Donald Trump. Like,
8:53
Speaker 1: I do think that's a pretty powerful argument.
8:55
Speaker 2: The idea, well, this is not, I'm not sure this
8:58
Speaker 2: is the right public message, but just as a point,
9:01
Speaker 2: imagine how blatant and stupid a criminal you have to
9:04
Speaker 2: be to be one of the richest, most politically connected
9:08
Speaker 2: white men in America and still get convicted on 34
9:10
Speaker 2: felonies in like six seconds. It's just that it is
9:15
Speaker 2: right there. I think one of the things about how
9:17
Speaker 2: we talk about this is it's not enough just to
9:22
Speaker 2: call him a convicted felon, although I think we should
9:25
Speaker 2: do that because people have not yet paid attention. So
9:28
Speaker 2: we cannot allow this to be memory hold like so
9:30
Speaker 2: many other previous transgressions. But it should not be about
9:36
Speaker 2: saying what kind of person Trump is. Because that is
9:39
Speaker 2: baked into the cake. People, they're either going to vote
9:41
Speaker 2: for an asshole or they're not going to vote for
9:42
Speaker 2: a selfish asshole, right? They know that about him. So
9:45
Speaker 2: you have to spin it forward to make it be
9:47
Speaker 2: about what kind of president Trump will be, right? As
9:49
Speaker 2: evidence of the core part of the argument that Trump
9:53
Speaker 2: is only in this for himself and his presidency is
9:56
Speaker 2: going to be about avoiding further legal accountability, helping himself,
10:00
Speaker 2: and as we will get to soon, seeking revenge on
10:03
Speaker 2: his adversaries. It has to be part of that story.
10:06
Speaker 2: And it is one of the most salient, most resonant
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Speaker 2: data points to prove that story, but it's one we're
10:13
Speaker 2: going to have to hammer over and over and over
10:15
Speaker 2: again because five months ago from Wednesday was the election.
10:19
Speaker 2: And that is an eternity in trying to keep this
10:23
Speaker 2: in front of voters because as all this polling shows,
10:26
Speaker 2: the voters that we need most are paying the least attention.
10:29
Speaker 1: Did you read the focus group of undecided voters in
10:33
Speaker 1: The Times that I think they had Frank Luntz do
10:36
Speaker 1: and Pat Healy and some other folks?
10:38
Speaker 2: Yes, I did. I have a lot to say about
10:41
Speaker 2: how The New York Times presents it on their website
10:44
Speaker 2: because it's basically impossible to follow with all the graphics
10:47
Speaker 2: and the sketches and the jumps.
10:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're trying to do some multimedia thing that's supposed
10:51
Speaker 1: to be fancy. It doesn't really work as well.
10:52
Speaker 2: Just give me a transcript.
10:56
Speaker 1: Definitely go check it out. I highly recommend it. Again,
10:59
Speaker 1: you'll pull your hair out, you'll laugh, but I think
11:01
Speaker 1: you'll walk away fairly hopeful. A lot of those voters
11:04
Speaker 1: were surprised. I thought that was notable by the verdict.
11:08
Speaker 1: We saw this in polls prior to the verdict. People
11:11
Speaker 1: did not expect him to be convicted. A lot of
11:13
Speaker 1: people in the focus group mentioned the jury involved. as
11:17
Speaker 1: a reason to support the verdict and why they thought
11:20
Speaker 1: the trial was fair, which is, again, it's important to
11:23
Speaker 1: mention the jury all the time when you're talking to people.
11:25
Speaker 1: A couple people mentioned fear that Donald Trump would enact
11:29
Speaker 1: retribution on people if he becomes president as a reason
11:33
Speaker 1: not to vote for him post-conviction. And then again, there
11:35
Speaker 1: was a guy who said, we're all regular people with
11:38
Speaker 1: regular jobs. If any of us did like one thousandth
11:41
Speaker 1: of what this guy did for being on trial, we
11:43
Speaker 1: would all have been fired immediately. We'd all been out
11:45
Speaker 1: on our butts applying for jobs at grocery stores or
11:47
Speaker 1: driving Uber or whatnot. And that was a guy who
11:49
Speaker 1: was thinking about voting for Trump, and now he's not
11:50
Speaker 1: going to. So, again, and then there's, of course, just
11:54
Speaker 1: some funny ones, some crazy comments, you know. One person said,
11:58
Speaker 1: I want a president who's going to be able to
12:00
Speaker 1: cover up a $ 130, 000 bribe to Daniels. If he can't
12:03
Speaker 1: pull that off, I'm not going to trust him with
12:05
Speaker 1: the nuclear football.
12:07
Speaker 2: So that person is now voting for Biden because Trump
12:09
Speaker 2: is not a good criminal?
12:10
Speaker 1: Yes. Okay. You know what? You know what? We'll take
12:13
Speaker 1: the votes wherever we can get them.
12:15
Speaker 2: Every vote counts the same.
12:18
Speaker 1: Just voters, you know? It's amazing.
12:20
Speaker 2: Wait, before we change this, have you seen the ad
12:23
Speaker 2: that the Republican voters against Trump did a few months
12:26
Speaker 2: ago where they tried to get jobs working at a
12:30
Speaker 2: shopping mall with Trump's resume?
12:34
Speaker 1: No.
12:34
Speaker 2: This is pre-conviction. It's not like actors. They sent real
12:38
Speaker 2: people in and they blurted out the faces saying, Could
12:40
Speaker 2: I work here if I was convicted, if a court
12:43
Speaker 2: found me guilty, liable for sexual assault or all of
12:45
Speaker 2: the other things that Trump did? And I think it's
12:47
Speaker 2: a really interesting way to sort of just make it
12:52
Speaker 2: feel real to people, like what the actual impact is
12:56
Speaker 2: in two ways, right? It seems like to a lot
12:59
Speaker 2: of people, it's political and it's out there and it's
13:01
Speaker 2: New York and all of this, but it brings it
13:03
Speaker 2: down to the level of, would you hire a person
13:06
Speaker 2: who had just been convicted of this exact crime to
13:09
Speaker 2: do things like, oh, I don't know, manage the economy
13:11
Speaker 2: for somebody who just was convicted of 34 counts of
13:13
Speaker 2: falsifying business records. And it also showed, then it gets
13:16
Speaker 2: to the second point you highlighted, which is a normal
13:19
Speaker 2: person couldn't get a job at a mall with this
13:21
Speaker 2: on their record. And Donald Trump gets to be president
13:22
Speaker 2: of the United States and that there is this two-tiered
13:24
Speaker 2: system of justice where rich, powerful people like Donald Trump
13:26
Speaker 2: are above law. And that's a system he wants to perpetuate, right?
13:29
Speaker 2: Just on stage today in Arizona, he was doing, he
13:33
Speaker 2: brought on stage Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a person convicted of
13:36
Speaker 2: crimes that he pardoned, right? Because he was a political
13:38
Speaker 2: crony of Donald Trump's, right? And so that sort of cronyism,
13:43
Speaker 2: political cronyism and corruption is a helpful argument that can
13:45
Speaker 2: be tied to this as well.
13:47
Speaker 1: Convicted of crimes. Joe Arpaio, I just, again, everything gets
13:52
Speaker 1: memory hold. He brings Joe Arpaio on stage, Joe Arpaio
13:56
Speaker 1: up on stage. He kisses him. He says, I don't
13:58
Speaker 1: kiss men, but I'm kissing Joe Arpaio. I guess like
14:01
Speaker 1: happy pride.
14:02
Speaker 2: Did you watch the video?
14:04
Speaker 1: I did watch the video.
14:05
Speaker 2: There's a kiss.
14:06
Speaker 1: The team said, wait, we should play this clip. And
14:08
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, it's an audio medium, but
14:10
Speaker 1: maybe we should put it on social media. But the point,
14:13
Speaker 1: but the less funny point is Joe Arpaio like bragged
14:18
Speaker 1: that his jails that he ran were concentration camps. He
14:22
Speaker 1: literally said that he was proud that they were concentration camps.
14:25
Speaker 1: He denied food and medical care to prisoners. He was
14:28
Speaker 1: found by the courts to violate the eighth amendment against
14:31
Speaker 1: cruel and unusual punishment. He installed a live video feed
14:35
Speaker 1: camera in the woman's holding cell. I mean, it was
14:39
Speaker 1: torture what Joe Arpaio did. He would not just racially profile,
14:43
Speaker 1: he would like lock up people just because they spoke Spanish.
14:47
Speaker 1: And so he suspected that they might be undocumented immigrants,
14:49
Speaker 1: even if they were citizens. I mean, it's just, and
14:52
Speaker 1: then found guilty of a whole bunch of crimes. And
14:54
Speaker 1: then of course, pardoned by one convicted felon, pardoned now
14:58
Speaker 1: by another convicted felon, Donald Trump. And he brings him
15:01
Speaker 1: up on stage. That's who Donald Trump is. That's what
15:04
Speaker 1: we're working with here. All right, before we break, we
15:08
Speaker 1: are officially less than three weeks away from the publication
15:12
Speaker 1: of our book, Democracy or Else, How to Save America
15:15
Speaker 1: in 10 Easy Steps. June 25th, Dan. We're so close.
15:21
Speaker 2: It's here. It is here.
15:23
Speaker 1: Big news, too. Our book event in Boston. Guess who's
15:25
Speaker 1: going to be moderated by? Dan Pfeiffer.
15:28
Speaker 2: I would say.
15:29
Speaker 1: We've got Dan. Only.
15:30
Speaker 2: a little offended as you went through that was on the,
15:33
Speaker 2: all the emails were everyone you wanted did not, uh,
15:37
Speaker 2: was not available. And then you finally asked the guy
15:40
Speaker 2: who was already staying in the same hotel as you.
15:42
Speaker 1: I honestly, like, I didn't even think about it. And
15:45
Speaker 1: then part of it is like, we've, we just asked
15:47
Speaker 1: you to do so much. I'm like, why are we
15:48
Speaker 1: asking Dan to do this fucking book event? It would
15:50
Speaker 1: be like his one night off.
15:52
Speaker 2: I'm happy to do it. You guys did many of
15:54
Speaker 2: my book events.
15:55
Speaker 1: We appreciate that. If you're in New York or Boston,
15:58
Speaker 1: we have jam-packed week of events. On June 25th, Alyssa
16:02
Speaker 1: will be moderating, Alyssa Mastromonaco, will be moderating a book
16:06
Speaker 1: launch discussion with me, Lovett, and Tommy at Symphony Space
16:09
Speaker 1: in New York City. On June 26th, we're kicking off
16:13
Speaker 1: the Pod Save America live tour at the Brooklyn Paramount
16:15
Speaker 1: Theater with very special guest host, Stacey Abrams. That's exciting.
16:21
Speaker 1: On June 27th at 6 p.m. in Boston, this is
16:24
Speaker 1: the Dan event. We're going to be pre-gaming the Trump-Biden
16:26
Speaker 1: debate with a book chat at First Parish Church. So
16:30
Speaker 1: that's exciting. Dan's going to have plenty of survivor questions
16:34
Speaker 1: for Lovett that he'll probably not be able to answer.
16:36
Speaker 1: If he's back by then, who knows? And then on
16:39
Speaker 1: June 28th, Pod Save America will be live at the
16:41
Speaker 1: Wilbur Boston for a post-debate show with guest host Mehdi Hassan,
16:45
Speaker 1: followed by a late-night Lovett or Leave It with guests
16:48
Speaker 1: Kathleen Turner and Jay Jordan, also at the Wilbur. Wow.
16:51
Speaker 1: That's going to be a busy week. It's a busy week.
16:54
Speaker 1: You can get tickets to all of these events at cricket.com
16:56
Speaker 1: slash events right now. And if you're not in New
16:58
Speaker 1: York or Boston, you can still pre-order your copy of
17:02
Speaker 1: Democracy or Else wherever you get your books. Please go
17:05
Speaker 1: pre-order our book. We got to get on top of
17:07
Speaker 1: that New York Times bestseller list, Dan. And now, we
17:10
Speaker 1: just got to get on it, really. And now it's
17:12
Speaker 1: crunch time. And I think we're already, maybe we'll beat
17:16
Speaker 1: Kristi Noem, maybe we'll beat the Dog Killer, but there's
17:18
Speaker 1: always going to be some kind of right-wing kook that
17:21
Speaker 1: we're trying to beat out on the New York Times
17:24
Speaker 1: bestseller list, on all the bestsellers. So please go order
17:27
Speaker 1: Democracy or Else. And guess what? If you order it,
17:29
Speaker 1: the proceeds are going to Vote Save America. So you're
17:32
Speaker 1: going to be helping actually save democracy. And then you
17:35
Speaker 1: get a fun book to read with, you know, great jokes,
17:38
Speaker 1: great advice, and real smart advice from really smart people
17:41
Speaker 1: like Dan.
17:42
Speaker 2: Look, people, buy the book. Buy it early. You're going
17:46
Speaker 2: to like the book. You're going to like helping Vote
17:48
Speaker 2: Save America. You're going to feel good about beating Kristi
17:50
Speaker 2: Noem and what other right-wing MAGA nut is trying to
17:55
Speaker 2: rig the bestseller list because that's what the right does.
17:57
Speaker 2: They buy books in bulk to get their authors on
18:01
Speaker 2: the bestseller list so that the publishers will then give
18:04
Speaker 2: more book contracts to right-wing nuts to spread MAGA extremism
18:08
Speaker 2: across the country.
18:08
Speaker 1: It's time for you to rig the book list for democracy.
18:12
Speaker 2: But we're not going to rig it with the Kochs
18:14
Speaker 2: buying a bunch of books en masse. We're going to
18:16
Speaker 2: do it grassroots style.
18:17
Speaker 3: Yes.
18:18
Speaker 2: It's a grassroots rigging is what we're doing.
18:21
Speaker 1: That's what I like to hear. All right. As Trump
18:34
Speaker 1: waits to be sentenced for his crimes, he is, of course,
18:38
Speaker 1: out there doing everything he can to reassure voters that
18:40
Speaker 1: he's learned his lesson and will, of course, respect the
18:44
Speaker 1: rule of law. Here's Trump saying a bunch of crazy
18:45
Speaker 1: shit on Hannity Wednesday night.
18:48
Speaker 3: Even Schumer has become like a Palestinian. Chuck Schumer, Jewish,
18:53
Speaker 3: always strong for Israel. He's become like a Palestinian. He
18:57
Speaker 3: said it's an existential threat. He loves the words existential threat.
19:03
Speaker 3: That global warming is an existential threat. And he doesn't
19:06
Speaker 3: know why. What is it? It's weather. And I'm all
19:10
Speaker 3: for that.
19:10
Speaker 2: You know what?
19:11
Speaker 3: In a certain way, in a very powerful way, I'm
19:13
Speaker 3: an environmentalist. Those that want people to believe that you
19:18
Speaker 3: want retribution, that you will use the system of justice
19:22
Speaker 3: to go after your political enemies. So, number one, they're wrong.
19:26
Speaker 3: It has to stop because otherwise we're not going to
19:28
Speaker 3: have a country. Look, when this election is over, based
19:33
Speaker 3: on what they've done, I would have every right to
19:36
Speaker 3: go after them. Yeah.
19:38
Speaker 1: I threw the first two in just because, A, Trump
19:42
Speaker 1: is so anti-Palestinian that he now uses it as an insult.
19:45
Speaker 1: He also told donors a couple weeks ago, we didn't
19:47
Speaker 1: even mention this, that if he's elected president, he's going
19:50
Speaker 1: to set back the Palestinian cause 25, 30 years. So
19:55
Speaker 1: no friend of the Palestinians. And of course, once again,
19:59
Speaker 1: we just played a clip earlier this week of him
20:00
Speaker 1: talking about climate change when he said, oh, all it's
20:03
Speaker 1: going to do is give us more beachfront property. Now
20:06
Speaker 1: he's just saying it's just weather. It's just weather. So
20:08
Speaker 1: that's Trump on that. But I want to talk about
20:10
Speaker 1: the comments he made about revenge. Really, the only question
20:14
Speaker 1: left is if Trump wins, will he have the desire
20:19
Speaker 1: and the power to prosecute and potentially jail anyone who
20:24
Speaker 1: opposes him? Adam Liptak, the legal reporter for The Times,
20:27
Speaker 1: wrote a pretty alarming piece I would encourage everyone to
20:31
Speaker 1: read that says Trump would have, quote, immense authority to
20:35
Speaker 1: actually carry out the kinds of legal retribution he has
20:38
Speaker 1: been promoting. He will be able to tell Justice Department
20:41
Speaker 1: officials to investigate and prosecute his rivals and fire those
20:45
Speaker 1: who refuse. What's your level of alarm on this one?
20:48
Speaker 2: On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm about a 38,
20:51
Speaker 2: I'd say.
20:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, this is maybe my... This is like in
20:56
Speaker 1: the top three or top five for me.
20:58
Speaker 2: Where do you think we are on the list?
21:01
Speaker 1: I mean, here's what... Here's what... Who knows? We're trying
21:06
Speaker 1: not to talk about that here. This is how the
21:08
Speaker 1: clip gets pulled and aired on Fox. And then we
21:11
Speaker 1: get on the list.
21:11
Speaker 2: Growth, growth, growth.
21:15
Speaker 1: Go ahead. You tell me why you're alarmed about it
21:18
Speaker 1: and then I can get into my whole spiel on this.
21:20
Speaker 2: I would just say that I don't really think we'd
21:23
Speaker 2: be targeted, but I was walking through the crooked offices
21:26
Speaker 2: when I was there two weeks ago. And I went
21:28
Speaker 2: to that back part that I don't go to very
21:30
Speaker 2: often for a meeting. And I saw... framed is a
21:34
Speaker 2: copy of that chart from the NSC memo that Seb
21:37
Speaker 2: Gorka wrote about the echo chamber that has all of
21:40
Speaker 2: our faces on it, that we were running some sort
21:43
Speaker 2: of program to undermine Donald Trump.
21:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Well, at least Seb Gorka won't be
21:48
Speaker 1: back in the administration. Oh, wait, probably.
21:51
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he will. I would encourage everyone to go
21:55
Speaker 2: check that out. That was really a real fun moment
21:57
Speaker 2: in history. But Your original question was, will Donald Trump
22:02
Speaker 2: have the power and desire to do this?
22:04
Speaker 1: Of course.
22:05
Speaker 2: He had the desire to do it last time. There
22:08
Speaker 2: is all the reporting and all the books talked about
22:10
Speaker 2: him wanting to investigate his rivals. He spun up the
22:13
Speaker 2: Durham report to try to go after the people investigating
22:16
Speaker 2: him for collusion with Russia. He talked about jailing opponents.
22:21
Speaker 1: Jeff Sessions told investigators, told Mueller's investigators that Trump wanted
22:26
Speaker 1: him to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton. If you remember,
22:29
Speaker 1: Jeff Sessions recused himself. Trump was angry because he, and
22:33
Speaker 1: that's what Sessions testified. He wanted him to investigate and
22:36
Speaker 1: prosecute Hillary Clinton. And that's when Sessions' replacement, Bill Barr,
22:39
Speaker 1: had John Durham open up an investigation that eventually led
22:42
Speaker 1: to the Clinton campaign.
22:43
Speaker 2: Reports about him fulminating about the IRS auditing opponents, right?
22:49
Speaker 2: All of these we knew we wanted to do. And
22:50
Speaker 2: the only reason it didn't happen, and it really is
22:52
Speaker 2: sort of by the grace of God, is there were
22:56
Speaker 2: people in power who for as bad as they were
22:59
Speaker 2: We're relying on the gravitas and morality of Jeff Sessions
23:04
Speaker 2: preventing it from happening. Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr, John Bolton,
23:07
Speaker 2: these sorts of people. These are not heroes of democracy
23:10
Speaker 2: by any stretch of the imagination, but they did not
23:13
Speaker 2: follow through on Trump's orders. And there was also a
23:16
Speaker 2: sense that the rest of the Republican Party, particularly the
23:18
Speaker 2: folks in Congress, would not go along with this sort
23:20
Speaker 2: of stuff, that this was a bridge too far for them. Well,
23:24
Speaker 2: flash forward to 2025, and all of those safeguards are gone.
23:27
Speaker 2: Every person Trump hires will be an extreme loyalist willing
23:31
Speaker 2: to go to the hilt to implement whatever Trump's desires are.
23:35
Speaker 2: And then the reaction within the party to Trump's conviction
23:39
Speaker 2: in these investigations is that retribution against political opponents is now,
23:45
Speaker 2: that is an accepted Republican party policy. And one of
23:48
Speaker 2: the most disturbing things was, this was mentioned in the
23:51
Speaker 2: New York Times article from Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and
23:53
Speaker 2: Charlie Savage, sort of detailing some of these conversations in
23:56
Speaker 2: the party, is this article from John Yoo, a Berkeley
24:01
Speaker 2: law professor who sort of infamously wrote the memos that
24:04
Speaker 2: authorized torture and wiretapping in the Bush administration, making a
24:07
Speaker 2: constitutionalist case for retribution against Trump's political opponents, that the
24:13
Speaker 2: only way to stop political retribution is revenge, sort of
24:16
Speaker 2: a mutually assured destruction of arresting your opponents. And that's
24:20
Speaker 2: the kind of stuff that always, that sort of faux-intellectual
24:26
Speaker 2: permission structure from the right wing is always what precipitates
24:30
Speaker 2: these things actually happening, right? It creates this aura of
24:32
Speaker 2: legitimacy for people like Marco Rubio, who tweeted his support
24:36
Speaker 2: for such a thing with fire emojis the other day
24:38
Speaker 2: and is always cringe behavior. And so I think we
24:41
Speaker 2: should be very, very concerned about this because this is very,
24:43
Speaker 2: if Trump wins, the most likely scenario is that he
24:47
Speaker 2: is going to weaponize the power of government in the
24:50
Speaker 2: most ironic way possible, given all the bullshit from Republicans
24:52
Speaker 2: over the last few years, to investigate arrest and potentially
24:56
Speaker 2: jail his political opponents.
24:59
Speaker 1: And again, I think it's important for people to understand that,
25:02
Speaker 1: you know, when you hear about Trump wanting to take
25:06
Speaker 1: revenge on his political opponents, you may think like, you know,
25:10
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, Joe Biden's family, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama,
25:15
Speaker 1: like all the Republicans that were disloyal to him, right?
25:19
Speaker 1: All the people he's mad at, all the You know,
25:23
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people are probably I would say
25:25
Speaker 1: most Americans are probably very much against that.
25:27
Speaker 3: Right.
25:28
Speaker 1: But you might think also, well, it's not something that
25:30
Speaker 1: affects my life. And the challenge is that, like, once
25:35
Speaker 1: you start down the road of having an entire justice
25:38
Speaker 1: department filled with crazy people. right-wing prosecutors. Once you clear
25:45
Speaker 1: out the FBI and you have a bunch of like
25:46
Speaker 1: crazy right-wing FBI agents, again, these aren't just like conservative
25:50
Speaker 1: FBI agents, conservative prosecutors. These are like MAGA types. And
25:56
Speaker 1: once you have departments like that, it doesn't have to
25:58
Speaker 1: necessarily just be them going after Trump's political opponents. It's
26:03
Speaker 1: them going after Democrats or anyone that seems like they
26:08
Speaker 1: are favorable towards democrats you can imagine political prosecutions with
26:13
Speaker 1: against like abortion providers in blue states companies that sell
26:17
Speaker 1: pride merch that have contributed to democrats media outlets you
26:21
Speaker 1: know labor unions labor unions right like it just goes
26:24
Speaker 1: on and on and on and it goes and it
26:26
Speaker 1: starts with trump but whatever trump wants whatever trump's focused
26:30
Speaker 1: on that's not even going to matter as much as
26:32
Speaker 1: like what all of these other prosecutors and all these
26:35
Speaker 1: other fbi agents want to do and will have the
26:37
Speaker 1: full power of the law behind them. And what it
26:39
Speaker 1: does is even if you're not targeted, what happens in
26:42
Speaker 1: authoritarian countries, what happens when there's autocrats in power is
26:45
Speaker 1: that there is this pervasive culture of fear so that
26:49
Speaker 1: no one wants to speak out. No one wants to
26:50
Speaker 1: do anything. You're constantly afraid that you're going to have
26:52
Speaker 1: a knock on the door because you've pissed off either
26:55
Speaker 1: your local MAGA prosecutor or governor or state legislature, or,
27:00
Speaker 1: you know, it goes right up the ladder. And that is,
27:03
Speaker 1: once you start down that path, I think it is very,
27:05
Speaker 1: very difficult to come back from that. And, and so
27:09
Speaker 1: anyone who thinks like this is going to be some
27:11
Speaker 1: show trial against, you know, the people that Donald Trump
27:13
Speaker 1: hates personally, and maybe I'm not going to be affected.
27:16
Speaker 1: I don't think you should comfort yourself with that thought.
27:21
Speaker 2: And then there was the question of how do you like,
27:24
Speaker 2: that is exactly right. That's the substantive argument. Why about
27:26
Speaker 2: why this is dangerous? How do you look for a
27:29
Speaker 2: lot of people? And this is always when the challenge
27:31
Speaker 2: with Trump stuff is, well, you sound like alarmist lunatics
27:36
Speaker 2: and this didn't happen last time, right? So why should
27:40
Speaker 2: we worry now? And I think you have to explain
27:42
Speaker 2: about why this time is different, which I tried to
27:44
Speaker 2: do earlier. But there is also a point here is
27:47
Speaker 2: we have to want, like we're still trying to win,
27:49
Speaker 2: like you are raising the alarm for why this is
27:51
Speaker 2: bad for the country. We also have to make voters
27:53
Speaker 2: care enough about it that they will prevent it from happening.
27:56
Speaker 2: We're the only place where we have the true power
27:57
Speaker 2: to stop it, which is at the ballot box this November.
28:00
Speaker 2: And there are a couple of ways I think One
28:02
Speaker 2: is we have to once again fit it into that
28:04
Speaker 2: story about Trump, right? That this is all about him.
28:07
Speaker 2: A presidency that is about seeking retribution against your political
28:10
Speaker 2: opponents is a presidency that is about helping Donald Trump.
28:14
Speaker 2: And then the other thing is there is an opportunity
28:16
Speaker 2: cost here. If Donald Trump is spending all of his
28:17
Speaker 2: time trying to go after Alvin Bragg and Hillary Clinton
28:20
Speaker 2: and all sorts of things, that means he's not spending
28:22
Speaker 2: that time trying to Lower your costs, right? He's so
28:25
Speaker 2: busy fighting for himself that he's not fighting for you.
28:28
Speaker 2: And I think that's an important part of trying to
28:30
Speaker 2: explain this and understand why it matters to people. Because
28:32
Speaker 2: even you're going to have to– I think it's hard
28:34
Speaker 2: to get the average person to think that this is
28:36
Speaker 2: somehow going to redound against them, that they will somehow
28:39
Speaker 2: end up on a list or someone they know will
28:41
Speaker 2: get prosecuted. But it can affect their lives because he's
28:44
Speaker 2: not focused on them. And I think that is the
28:47
Speaker 2: probably more believable way for the average voter to interpret
28:50
Speaker 2: this than the idea that with the very real and
28:53
Speaker 2: true thing, that their local prosecutor is going to start prosecuting,
28:57
Speaker 2: you know, the local hospital for the local pharmacy that's
29:00
Speaker 2: selling abortion pills or whatever else.
29:03
Speaker 1: I actually think that the issue of abortion, which is
29:06
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, one of the very top
29:09
Speaker 1: issues in this election that people very much understand right
29:11
Speaker 1: now is almost a proof point in making this larger argument.
29:17
Speaker 1: And you've talked about this before in framing this election
29:21
Speaker 1: and framing What Trump and MAGA want to do as
29:25
Speaker 1: sort of taking away people's freedoms, because this falls under
29:29
Speaker 1: under that.
29:30
Speaker 3: Right.
29:30
Speaker 1: Like he wants to he thought it was OK. He
29:33
Speaker 1: said it was OK for states to monitor women's pregnancies.
29:36
Speaker 3: Right.
29:37
Speaker 1: And what Trump and Republicans. in states are doing to
29:42
Speaker 1: restrict access to abortion and to restrict access to care
29:47
Speaker 1: that that mothers need who may have who may be
29:49
Speaker 1: having a miscarriage. I mean, go down the list. We've
29:52
Speaker 1: talked about it before. Like that is the kind of thing.
29:56
Speaker 1: what they're doing in schools with don't say gay laws.
29:59
Speaker 1: I mean, I really do think you can fit all
30:01
Speaker 1: of these issues and all of these moves that Republicans
30:03
Speaker 1: have made over the last several years into this bucket
30:06
Speaker 1: of they want to take away your freedoms if you
30:09
Speaker 1: don't agree with everything they agree with.
30:12
Speaker 2: The Biden campaign is going to air an ad on
30:15
Speaker 2: Thursday night during the NBA finals that is about, it's
30:20
Speaker 2: called Flag. It's about freedom and democracy. It doesn't address
30:22
Speaker 2: this specifically, but it is about uh, this election is
30:26
Speaker 2: a battle for freedom and democracy in American values against
30:29
Speaker 2: this extremist movement that wants to overturn elections, take away
30:31
Speaker 2: your freedoms. And that is like, you will have to
30:35
Speaker 2: build this story into it, but that is the larger frame.
30:37
Speaker 2: I think, I think it's a very good spot.
30:39
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is, again, the reason it
30:41
Speaker 1: didn't happen last time is because he didn't have the
30:43
Speaker 1: right people in place. Trump will next time have plenty
30:46
Speaker 1: of administration officials and outside advisors encouraging him to take revenge.
30:50
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller, who has been floated as Trump's next White
30:54
Speaker 1: House chief of staff, potentially. How fun would that be?
30:56
Speaker 1: Good times. Is urging Republican district attorneys openly to start
31:00
Speaker 1: prosecuting Democrats now. As you mentioned, potential vice president Marco
31:04
Speaker 1: Rubio tweeted that it's time to fight fire with flame emoji,
31:08
Speaker 1: flame emoji, flame emoji. And here's MAGA podcaster Tim Poole
31:13
Speaker 1: and self-described Islamophobe Laura Loomer talking about jailing and executing Democrats.
31:19
Speaker 1: Should Democrats be in jail?
31:20
Speaker 2: No question. When Donald Trump gets elected, should he start
31:23
Speaker 2: locking them up? No question. Should there be lists of
31:25
Speaker 2: Democrats that need to go to jail?
31:26
Speaker 1: 100%. Not just jail. They should get the death penalty.
31:29
Speaker 1: You know, we actually used to have the punishment for
31:31
Speaker 1: treason in this country. Death penalty. A reminder, Trump lets
31:36
Speaker 1: Laura Loomer ride around with him on his plane. He
31:39
Speaker 1: calls her very special. Tried to hire her to work
31:42
Speaker 1: on the campaign until some of his staff found out
31:45
Speaker 1: and they put the kibosh on it last minute. She
31:49
Speaker 1: says she wants to be press secretary in the in
31:51
Speaker 1: the next Trump White House. Does this seem like information
31:53
Speaker 1: we should get in front of American voters about all
31:56
Speaker 1: these all these kooks connected to Trump? We just talked
31:58
Speaker 1: about Joe Arpaio. I mean, it's just I do wonder
32:02
Speaker 1: if at some point as part of the story that
32:06
Speaker 1: we want to tell is it's not just Trump in power,
32:09
Speaker 1: but the people around Trump and what they're going to do.
32:12
Speaker 1: Much like, you know, in contrast, some people who are
32:14
Speaker 1: worried that Joe Biden is too old for the job.
32:18
Speaker 1: something that reassures people, and I've heard this in focus
32:21
Speaker 1: groups as well, is that he's got a lot of
32:23
Speaker 1: really good qualified people around him. And I think you
32:26
Speaker 1: probably want to make the case that Trump does not.
32:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. And I was going to,
32:30
Speaker 2: you raised the exact point I was going to say,
32:32
Speaker 2: which is when you hear of people debating Trump versus
32:35
Speaker 2: Biden in focus groups, and they're legitimately trying to process
32:38
Speaker 2: how they're going to make that decision. One of the
32:40
Speaker 2: points almost always in Biden's favor you hear from voters is,
32:44
Speaker 2: He surrounds himself with good people, right? It's like serious people.
32:47
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump certainly does not. It's the exact opposite.
32:50
Speaker 2: And I think it's like, obviously, no one's going to
32:52
Speaker 2: know who Laura Loomer or Tim Pool or even Stephen
32:54
Speaker 2: Miller is, right? No actual persuadable voter is going to
32:57
Speaker 2: know that. But the fact that they are all members
32:59
Speaker 2: of this extremist MAGA movement that supported the big lie
33:03
Speaker 2: that was part of January 6th, that I think does
33:06
Speaker 2: matter to people. It's why the MAGA extremist Republican message
33:10
Speaker 2: was so powerful in 2022. is that there is a
33:13
Speaker 2: large swath of voters, and particularly among persuadable voters, who
33:16
Speaker 2: are very concerned about that sort of extremist movement having
33:19
Speaker 2: power in this country. And it's the extremist movement that
33:22
Speaker 2: took away abortion access, all these things. I think that's
33:26
Speaker 2: how we have to do it, is that those are
33:27
Speaker 2: the people who are going to be running the country
33:29
Speaker 2: with Donald Trump. It's not going to be serious people.
33:30
Speaker 2: It's not going to be people who put the country first.
33:32
Speaker 2: It's going to be people who put Donald Trump first.
33:35
Speaker 1: I would, at the very least, create and probably test
33:38
Speaker 1: a couple ads that that include some of the most
33:43
Speaker 1: extreme characters who may reappear in a second Trump term
33:49
Speaker 1: and just use their voice and the things they've said,
33:51
Speaker 1: whether it's Mike Flynn, Stephen Miller, Laura Loomer. I do
33:54
Speaker 1: think that kind of ad could work with some of
33:57
Speaker 1: the college educated independents, Republicans who were maybe Biden voters
34:01
Speaker 1: who are now sort of slipping away a little bit
34:04
Speaker 1: and thinking maybe Trump wasn't so bad. Like you could
34:06
Speaker 1: see And, you know, in some suburbs around big cities
34:11
Speaker 1: and these swing states, you could see ads like that
34:13
Speaker 1: working with those voters.
34:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. You could just use the, like Rick
34:17
Speaker 2: Rennell is another example.
34:19
Speaker 1: Mike Flynn talking about QAnon. And I mean, it's like,
34:21
Speaker 1: there's some crazy shit out there.
34:23
Speaker 2: The Biden campaign frequently, when they pull clips that they're
34:27
Speaker 2: going to share on social of Trump supporters, they will
34:29
Speaker 2: often use the rumored cabinet position of that person, like
34:34
Speaker 2: potential Trump attorney general, so-and-so.
34:36
Speaker 3: Smart.
34:37
Speaker 2: Potential rumored Trump Secretary of State Rick Grinnell saying X.
34:41
Speaker 2: And I think that's an interesting way of doing that.
34:44
Speaker 1: There's one Trump advisor thirsting for revenge who I saved
34:47
Speaker 1: for last because we found out today that before Steve
34:50
Speaker 1: Bannon can help put any Democrats in jail, he's heading
34:53
Speaker 1: there himself, Dan. A judge ordered Bannon to surrender by
34:57
Speaker 1: July 1st so he can begin serving a four-month sentence
35:00
Speaker 1: after being convicted for contempt of Congress in 2022. when
35:04
Speaker 1: he refused a subpoena to provide documents and testimony to
35:07
Speaker 1: the January 6th committee. Bannon will now be in prison
35:09
Speaker 1: through the election, through early November. But then when he
35:13
Speaker 1: gets out, he also has a fraud trial, separate fraud trial,
35:15
Speaker 1: scheduled for later this year. Might have to move because
35:18
Speaker 1: I think he'll be in jail when it's supposed to
35:19
Speaker 1: start in September. What a shame. What a shame. My
35:23
Speaker 1: biggest question, though, is what do you think is going
35:25
Speaker 1: to happen to his podcast... the war room, do you
35:27
Speaker 1: think they're going to let Tommy co-host or guest host?
35:30
Speaker 2: I would say that I have no sympathy for Steve Bannon,
35:33
Speaker 2: but a brief, just sort of like a understanding for
35:36
Speaker 2: the people who run the war room podcast. Cause you know,
35:39
Speaker 2: what do you do if in the run-up to the elections,
35:42
Speaker 2: one of your posts just go, just disappears for a while.
35:46
Speaker 3: Right.
35:46
Speaker 2: Just all of a sudden decides.
35:48
Speaker 1: Thanks to a, thanks to a jury of his peers.
35:51
Speaker 3: Yes. Yes.
35:53
Speaker 2: I mean, is it really that dissimilar, Steve Bannon going
35:55
Speaker 2: to jail, Donald Trump? Sorry, Steve. You know what the
35:57
Speaker 2: really funny thing is? When I was writing my answers
36:02
Speaker 2: to this, I kept writing Trump instead of Lovett every
36:04
Speaker 2: time I tried to break this joke out.
36:06
Speaker 1: You know what? It's understandable. It's understandable.
36:09
Speaker 2: So let me try that again, but we should leave
36:11
Speaker 2: all of this in. Is Steve Bannon going to jail
36:14
Speaker 2: really that different than John Lovett going on Survivor in
36:16
Speaker 2: the middle of the election?
36:17
Speaker 1: No, not really. That's the question you all have to
36:19
Speaker 1: answer for yourself.
36:19
Speaker 2: Yes.
36:20
Speaker 1: Trump had a response to this, the Bannon go to jail.
36:22
Speaker 1: And his response is that the January 6th committee, the
36:26
Speaker 1: entire committee should be indicted. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jamie Ray,
36:30
Speaker 1: everyone who was on the committee, indict them. That's what
36:33
Speaker 1: we got. That's what we got going. Because Steve Bannon
36:35
Speaker 1: going to jail for the stupidest fucking reason ever, by
36:38
Speaker 1: the way, all he had to do was come testify
36:40
Speaker 1: before a congressional committee, which everyone else does. Everyone else
36:45
Speaker 1: gets to do, but not Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon said no.
36:47
Speaker 1: Because he wanted to make himself a martyr, so you
36:49
Speaker 1: know what? Now he's in jail for four months. Could
36:52
Speaker 1: have easily avoided it. He's going to complain it's a
36:54
Speaker 1: political prosecution. Could have easily avoided it by just going
36:57
Speaker 1: and answering a few questions.
36:58
Speaker 2: United States Chief Bannon, mission accomplished.
37:15
Speaker 1: So just in case you're concerned that Trump and his
37:18
Speaker 1: gang of criminals aren't getting a fair shake from the
37:21
Speaker 1: justice system, fear not. The Supreme Court majority Trump created still,
37:26
Speaker 1: still hasn't ruled on the apparently very difficult question of
37:31
Speaker 1: whether presidents are allowed to commit crimes, which means that
37:35
Speaker 1: the chance of a verdict in Jack Smith's January 6th
37:38
Speaker 1: case before the election is nearly gone. The all-Republican Georgia
37:44
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals just froze that state's election interference case
37:47
Speaker 1: against Trump until well after the election while they decide
37:51
Speaker 1: whether District Attorney Fannie Willis should be disqualified from the case.
37:54
Speaker 1: You could say that one is both the Court of
37:57
Speaker 1: Appeals' fault and maybe Fannie Willis' fault as well. And
38:00
Speaker 1: Trump's favorite judge, Eileen Cannon, who he appointed, has frozen
38:06
Speaker 1: the classified documents case in Florida until after the election
38:10
Speaker 1: as well. I'm sure any criminal defendant facing 54 more
38:14
Speaker 1: felony counts would have that kind of luck, right, Dan?
38:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems totally fair and not at all surprising
38:20
Speaker 2: that a bunch of Republican judges, some of them appointed
38:23
Speaker 2: by Trump, are rigging the system to ensure he faces
38:26
Speaker 2: no legal accountability before the voters must decide who their
38:28
Speaker 2: next president is. The Supreme Court thing, I just have
38:30
Speaker 2: to say, is un-fucking-conscionable. This is, by every legal expert's judgment,
38:39
Speaker 2: an open-and-shut case.
38:42
Speaker 3: Open a shot.
38:42
Speaker 2: They could have done this in five minutes.
38:44
Speaker 1: I will disagree with that. They have fucked this and
38:48
Speaker 1: they have done it. I do think there's intentional delay here,
38:52
Speaker 1: especially among the conservative members. But I think that the
38:56
Speaker 1: case raises questions. Questions, by the way, that could come
39:01
Speaker 1: up again if Donald Trump wins and he tries to
39:04
Speaker 1: prosecute Joe Biden, right? Which is what acts of a
39:09
Speaker 1: president during office... can be prosecuted and which cannot, and
39:13
Speaker 1: how do you draw the line and where do you
39:15
Speaker 1: draw the line? Now, it should be a pretty fucking
39:17
Speaker 1: easy line for them to draw, but I.
39:19
Speaker 2: Think they- That's my point.
39:21
Speaker 1: When you listen to the oral arguments, they clearly were
39:24
Speaker 1: thinking like they have to they have to create a
39:27
Speaker 1: ruling here that is like that goes just beyond the
39:31
Speaker 1: narrow question and seeks to understand like what acts a
39:36
Speaker 1: president can or can't be prosecuted for, which is totally bullshit.
39:40
Speaker 1: And again, they could have taken the case earlier. They
39:42
Speaker 1: could have not let it go through the whole fucking
39:45
Speaker 1: process and just taken it originally when Jack Smith asked
39:47
Speaker 1: them to take it. and skipped over the Court of Appeals.
39:50
Speaker 1: They could have put all the other fucking decisions aside
39:53
Speaker 1: and written a decision by now. It's crazy.
39:56
Speaker 3: Right.
39:56
Speaker 2: That's my point. There are so many ways to dispense
39:59
Speaker 2: of this without even wrestling with those questions because you
40:01
Speaker 2: could do that at a later date. Knowing that the
40:05
Speaker 2: direct immediate consequence of their delay is that Donald Trump
40:09
Speaker 2: will not face legal accountability, that they are essentially giving
40:11
Speaker 2: him de facto immunity by their delay. They could, I
40:15
Speaker 2: don't know, work into the evening, people. Work a little harder.
40:19
Speaker 2: They are specifically trying to delay this. Now, either... This is,
40:26
Speaker 2: I think, just an absolute indictment of John Roberts as
40:29
Speaker 2: Chief Justice. Either he is going along with this plan
40:34
Speaker 2: or he does not have enough control of the court
40:36
Speaker 2: to avoid just further corruption in the court. You have
40:40
Speaker 2: seen trust in the court just plummet under John Roberts' leadership.
40:45
Speaker 2: And if you really, truly care about the court, about
40:50
Speaker 2: the institution of the court, which he claims to do so,
40:52
Speaker 2: You would have found a way to resolve this case
40:55
Speaker 2: in some way, shape, or form in a timeline that
40:58
Speaker 2: allowed the trial courts to do their business on Trump.
41:02
Speaker 2: But he did not do that, right? And it's just–
41:04
Speaker 2: it is– it's truly– like we should be screaming about this.
41:08
Speaker 2: Democrats should be screaming about this, right? This is way
41:11
Speaker 2: more important, although– and certainly related to– which flags Sam
41:15
Speaker 2: Alito flies at his house, right?
41:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, very much so.
41:18
Speaker 2: And I just, it just, it's infuriating. And we've just
41:23
Speaker 2: sort of accepted it. Just like another day goes by,
41:25
Speaker 2: another decision day, no opinion released on this case that
41:28
Speaker 2: they could have resolved if they had wanted to much,
41:31
Speaker 2: much faster.
41:32
Speaker 1: The weird thing is it is pretty, it's going to
41:34
Speaker 1: be pretty close to, like they're going to have the
41:37
Speaker 1: decision in the next couple of weeks before the end
41:40
Speaker 1: of the term, as they often do. And at that point, like,
41:45
Speaker 1: Judge Chuckin will still be able to begin the trial
41:48
Speaker 1: if she wants, not until maybe like mid-September. At that point,
41:54
Speaker 1: it's very tough to get a verdict by election day.
41:56
Speaker 1: But then we're in a situation where the final month
42:00
Speaker 1: and a half of the election could be Trump on
42:03
Speaker 1: trial for January 6th and we might not get a
42:05
Speaker 1: verdict till afterwards. So we don't really know how this
42:08
Speaker 1: is going to go. I don't think they're going to succeed.
42:10
Speaker 1: They may not succeed in completely delaying the case until
42:14
Speaker 1: after the election, but certainly it's not going to be
42:17
Speaker 1: very timely at this point. So let's talk about the
42:21
Speaker 1: other president running for a second term who hasn't been
42:23
Speaker 1: charged or convicted of any crimes. That's the low bar, though.
42:28
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. President is in France right now with other
42:31
Speaker 1: world leaders to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. He
42:35
Speaker 1: sat down with ABC's David Muir for an interview where
42:38
Speaker 1: he pledged not to pardon his son Hunter if he's convicted.
42:43
Speaker 1: He also said that Trump got a fair trial. He
42:45
Speaker 1: also gave a nice speech on Thursday. Let's hear a clip.
42:48
Speaker 4: And make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are
42:50
Speaker 4: watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see
42:55
Speaker 4: if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked. We cannot
43:00
Speaker 4: let that happen. To surrender to bullies, to bow down
43:05
Speaker 4: to dictators is simply unthinkable.
43:14
Speaker 2: Were we to.
43:15
Speaker 4: Do that, it means we'd be forgetting what happened here
43:18
Speaker 4: in these hallowed beaches. Make no mistake, we will not
43:22
Speaker 4: bow down. We will not forget.
43:26
Speaker 1: So Politico reports that Biden aides have been pretty open
43:30
Speaker 1: about their desire to see Biden compared to Ronald Reagan,
43:33
Speaker 1: who delivered the famous Boys of Pondahawk speech at the
43:36
Speaker 1: D-Day anniversary in 1984. One of the better speeches, one
43:40
Speaker 1: of the better presidential speeches, I would say. Why do
43:43
Speaker 1: you think they want that comparison? The New York Times
43:46
Speaker 1: also just wrote a piece about this as well. I
43:47
Speaker 1: think you sent it to me.
43:49
Speaker 2: There was always a tension between the communications department's desire
43:54
Speaker 2: to get the speech coverage and the speechwriter's desire to
43:57
Speaker 2: manage expectations for said speech. You are a very level-headed guy.
44:02
Speaker 2: You're frankly a pleasure to work with in any environment,
44:04
Speaker 2: White House, media company. But the times when you would
44:08
Speaker 2: get a little heated would be when you felt like
44:11
Speaker 2: we were overselling the speech and I can imagine this
44:15
Speaker 2: is just really putting a lot of pressure.
44:16
Speaker 1: Oftentimes you oversold the speech.
44:20
Speaker 3: Well, you know what?
44:21
Speaker 2: Trying to keep your tree from falling in the woods
44:23
Speaker 2: and no one hearing it.
44:26
Speaker 1: But it just feels like we're so, even from when
44:30
Speaker 1: we were in the white house, we're like, so the
44:32
Speaker 1: media environment is just so different now. Just the idea that,
44:37
Speaker 1: because I said it's like the campaign sees this, this
44:39
Speaker 1: is like a tent pole event for the campaign. this,
44:42
Speaker 1: this Normandy thing. It's like, I mean, I wish that
44:44
Speaker 1: were so, but like we can barely get, you know,
44:47
Speaker 1: primetime speeches, his state of the union, which was excellent.
44:51
Speaker 1: The news cycle was like a day after that. And like,
44:55
Speaker 1: now we're going to get a Normandy speech is a bit,
44:57
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just, it's tough.
44:58
Speaker 2: Like I had some real like white house, uh, PTSD
45:03
Speaker 2: over this whole thing. Cause there is just in general,
45:08
Speaker 2: If you were someone who works– who's– where domestic political
45:11
Speaker 2: considerations in an election year are part of your job
45:14
Speaker 2: portfolio and the president is headed to France for five days,
45:18
Speaker 2: like that drives you insane. And then you're always working
45:21
Speaker 2: with your– with the national security folks, always Ben and Tommy,
45:26
Speaker 2: to try to find a way to reverse engineer some
45:30
Speaker 2: domestic thing in there of value even though the time
45:33
Speaker 2: zone is all fucked up. Your speech is in the
45:35
Speaker 2: middle of the day or if you're in Asia, it's
45:36
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night. No one ever sees it.
45:38
Speaker 2: We're going to go visit a place where they're offloading
45:41
Speaker 2: cars made in America. Or we went to Ireland to
45:45
Speaker 2: do a thing at an Irish pub because there are
45:47
Speaker 2: a lot of Irish voters in Pennsylvania or whatever. And
45:51
Speaker 2: so you're always trying to do it. I can't imagine
45:53
Speaker 2: this is actually anyone believes this to actually be a tentpole.
45:56
Speaker 2: But I will say there was a CNN story today
46:00
Speaker 2: about how the Biden campaign has hired a specific person
46:04
Speaker 2: to do outreach to Republicans. And I think there may
46:08
Speaker 2: be some synergy there between using the Reagan illusions, the
46:15
Speaker 2: old school, non-isolationist foreign policy views as a way to
46:20
Speaker 2: reach out to some of those never-Trump Republicans that you
46:23
Speaker 2: want to move into your column. So I think that's
46:25
Speaker 2: probably it. But man, these foreign trips are tough for
46:29
Speaker 2: domestic politics. If you could do those for like David
46:33
Speaker 2: Plouffe and I in 2012, like if you could get
46:35
Speaker 2: to a red eye and get back in a day,
46:37
Speaker 2: like that's what the people working on the campaign would want.
46:40
Speaker 1: I am going to speak on behalf of my fellow
46:44
Speaker 1: speechwriters and try to do them a favor and lower
46:46
Speaker 1: expectations on this. Every president tries to redo the famous
46:53
Speaker 1: Reagan speech when they go to Normandy. Like we remember
46:56
Speaker 1: we went twice. We went in 2009. I wrote that one.
47:01
Speaker 1: And then I think Cody and Ben probably wrote one
47:05
Speaker 1: for the 70th anniversary because that was the big one
47:07
Speaker 1: when Obama won. 2014, yeah.
47:09
Speaker 3: 2014, yeah.
47:10
Speaker 1: So they did that one. And every speechwriter has read
47:14
Speaker 1: the Reagan speech. Again, you should go read it. It's
47:17
Speaker 1: a fantastic speech. It's not like a Republican speech. It's
47:19
Speaker 1: just a good speech. And... even because we've all read it,
47:25
Speaker 1: you like start echoing the speech as you're writing and
47:28
Speaker 1: you have to stop yourself because you're like, that sounds
47:30
Speaker 1: too much like Reagan, but then how do you make
47:32
Speaker 1: it different? Because it was like, it was a given
47:34
Speaker 1: speech at a given moment that was fantastic and it's
47:37
Speaker 1: hard to replicate those. Now I will say for Biden,
47:41
Speaker 1: because democracy all over the world, once again, really is
47:46
Speaker 1: at stake, probably more so than at any time since
47:48
Speaker 1: World War II, I would say the context and the
47:50
Speaker 1: setting is, is better for him to give a really
47:53
Speaker 1: great speech. But, you know, it's just hard. Reagan did it.
47:57
Speaker 1: You know, you could give your great speech somewhere else.
48:00
Speaker 1: That's what I would say.
48:01
Speaker 2: I mean, we talk about the difference.
48:02
Speaker 1: And I'm speaking, by the way, you're going to hear
48:04
Speaker 1: this on Friday, everyone. You're hearing this on Friday. And
48:07
Speaker 1: that's when Biden gives the big Ponda Hawk speech. He
48:11
Speaker 1: gave one on Thursday as well. That was the clip
48:13
Speaker 1: you just heard. But you're right. I think the effort
48:15
Speaker 1: that you mentioned that CNN reported on, that they're reaching
48:19
Speaker 1: out to Republicans, because a lot of these never-Trump Republicans,
48:22
Speaker 1: whether you're Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney or whatever, Chris Christie,
48:27
Speaker 1: have talked about how the Biden White House or campaign,
48:30
Speaker 1: more likely, hasn't really reached out to them. It's good
48:34
Speaker 1: that that process has begun, I think, because you're going
48:37
Speaker 1: to need a big tent and every last voter to
48:40
Speaker 1: beat Donald Trump. Finally, and yet another reminder of what's
48:43
Speaker 1: at stake in this election, Donald Trump's Senate loyalists blocked
48:47
Speaker 1: for the second time a bill that would protect access
48:49
Speaker 1: to birth control for all Americans. Susan Collins and Lisa
48:52
Speaker 1: Murkowski were the only Republicans to join Democrats in supporting
48:56
Speaker 1: the bill. In case you're wondering why there's a need
48:58
Speaker 1: to protect access to birth control, Republican legislatures in Missouri
49:02
Speaker 1: and Idaho are already pushing bills to block Plan B
49:06
Speaker 1: and IUDs. while Republicans in Nevada, Virginia, Arizona, and Wisconsin
49:11
Speaker 1: have also blocked bills that would protect birth control in
49:14
Speaker 1: those states. Republicans in the Senate gave several reasons for
49:18
Speaker 1: not supporting the bill, that include the claim that it
49:20
Speaker 1: would force Catholic schools to hand out condoms to little kids.
49:24
Speaker 1: It would not. That it could be used by a
49:27
Speaker 1: judge to mandate gender change procedures. That was from Marco Rubio.
49:32
Speaker 1: Also not true. And that the bill is unnecessary because
49:35
Speaker 1: there's just no real threat to birth control. What do
49:37
Speaker 1: you think, Dan? No real threat?
49:39
Speaker 2: Well, I'd say politicians are political animals, right? And the
49:44
Speaker 2: right to contraception polls at like 80%. So if there
49:47
Speaker 2: was no real threat and a poll at 8%, it
49:49
Speaker 2: really kind of makes you wonder why they wouldn't just
49:50
Speaker 2: vote for it. Maybe it's because they don't want to
49:54
Speaker 2: protect contraception and they want to take it away and
49:56
Speaker 2: they want to leave them that out.
49:59
Speaker 1: It's just, I mean, you know what? You can go
50:02
Speaker 1: through plenty of quotes from people. Oh, abortion's safe. Roe
50:06
Speaker 1: is safe. It's not going to go away. It's never
50:08
Speaker 1: going to go away. And then Dobbs happens. And if you, again,
50:12
Speaker 1: you've got to look at some of these, like the
50:14
Speaker 1: real red states, the super red legislatures, states like Idaho,
50:18
Speaker 1: where you're starting to see some interest groups, some activists,
50:22
Speaker 1: some super right-wing legislators. And they're starting with IUDs and
50:28
Speaker 1: Plan B because there's, you know, real hardcore anti-abortion advocates
50:33
Speaker 1: believe that life begins at fertilization rates. And so that's
50:37
Speaker 1: how they'll start targeting it. And it's just going to
50:40
Speaker 1: go from there. And the fact that Republicans look, if
50:43
Speaker 1: they if Republicans are running around saying this is just
50:46
Speaker 1: fear mongering and and we actually support birth control and
50:49
Speaker 1: this is crazy and Democrats are just trying to score
50:51
Speaker 1: political points. OK, well, then vote for a bill that
50:55
Speaker 1: would protect birth control access.
50:56
Speaker 2: Seems pretty obvious. I mean, Roe was first. And Griswold v.
51:00
Speaker 2: Connecticut is second. That's the original decision which ensured the
51:05
Speaker 2: right to access contraception. The right has been talking about
51:08
Speaker 2: going after that for a long time. In some of
51:10
Speaker 2: the discussion after Dobbs, that was seen as what is next.
51:13
Speaker 2: And so no one should be surprised if the court
51:16
Speaker 2: is hearing a case about the right to contraception in
51:19
Speaker 2: the first couple of years of the Donald Trump presidency.
51:21
Speaker 2: And think about what happens if Donald Trump gets to
51:24
Speaker 2: appoint three new judges, right? Which is a real possibility.
51:27
Speaker 1: Who all think, like Clarence Thomas did, that we should
51:30
Speaker 1: reconsider Griswold. And also, you know, because Trump can say
51:33
Speaker 1: whatever he wants. Trump's like, oh, no, I like birth control.
51:36
Speaker 1: You know, just today, just before he brought Joe Arpaio
51:40
Speaker 1: up on stage for a kiss, he was introduced at
51:43
Speaker 1: the Turning Points USA town hall by Charlie Kirk, the
51:46
Speaker 1: founder of Turning Points USA. Charlie Kirk, who says birth control, quote,
51:50
Speaker 1: screws up female brains and creates a bitterness that leads
51:54
Speaker 1: them to become Democrats. And then he told people to
51:57
Speaker 1: make sure their loved ones aren't on birth control. He
51:59
Speaker 1: introduced Trump. Trump said he's great. Charlie Kirk also, by
52:02
Speaker 1: the way, said that Martin Luther King Jr. was awful
52:05
Speaker 1: and that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. These
52:07
Speaker 1: are the people around Donald Trump. Where are they going
52:12
Speaker 1: to end up if he's president? Some in the White House,
52:14
Speaker 1: some in the administration, some will be in all of
52:17
Speaker 1: the agencies when he purges all of the nonpolitical appointees
52:21
Speaker 1: in the federal government and replaces them with MAGA loyalists.
52:24
Speaker 1: And of course, some of them will just be his
52:26
Speaker 1: media allies outside. So that's what we got. That's what
52:30
Speaker 1: we got. Hey, everyone. Vote Save America. Check it out.
52:33
Speaker 1: If you haven't signed up, go sign up. You want
52:36
Speaker 1: to be Team East, Team West. Vote Save America folks
52:39
Speaker 1: will give you plenty of work to do. You can
52:41
Speaker 1: help volunteer. You can talk to voters who are. Like
52:44
Speaker 1: some of the voters that we have talked about today,
52:46
Speaker 1: maybe they're undecided now. Maybe they were Trump-curious, and now
52:51
Speaker 1: the verdict's making them question things, but they're still not ready.
52:53
Speaker 1: Maybe they're thinking about voting for RFK Jr. now, and
52:57
Speaker 1: you can convince them to vote for Joe Biden. Either way,
53:00
Speaker 1: Vote Save America will have stuff for you to do,
53:01
Speaker 1: so go ahead, votesaveamerica.com slash 2024, sign up, and everyone
53:06
Speaker 1: else have a fantastic weekend, and we'll all see you
53:09
Speaker 1: next week.
53:10
Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
53:12
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