Latest / Pod Save America / President of Peace Invades Chicago (feat. JB Pritzker)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by Uplift Desk.
- 0:04Speaker 1: Tommy and John Lovett and I, we sit in an
- 0:06Speaker 1: office together. We just sit on our asses.
- 0:08Speaker 2: On our chairs.
- 0:09Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not good.
- 0:10Speaker 1: And we're just scrolling through the news, watching the downfall
- 0:13Speaker 1: of America, live tweeting it, talking about it on mics.
- 0:17Speaker 1: And lo and behold, we all get Uplift Desks. And boy,
- 0:21Speaker 1: has it changed our lives.
- 0:22Speaker 4: Yeah, it's good to kind of be on your feet
- 0:24Speaker 4: from time to time while you're watching the downfall of America.
- 0:26Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 0:26Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 0:27Speaker 4: And now because we're all in.
- 0:28Speaker 1: The same office, we try to switch it up so
- 0:29Speaker 1: that like someone's standing, someone's sitting, and then they go
- 0:32Speaker 1: down and then the other one goes up. I love
- 0:34Speaker 1: the Uplift desk.
- 0:35Speaker 4: It's a really great desk. And it's also got lots
- 0:37Speaker 4: of plugs and things. Like there's, you know, places you
- 0:40Speaker 4: can charge your phone. There's just cords. Like it's comfortable.
- 0:44Speaker 4: I don't know. It's just really well designed.
- 0:45Speaker 1: Cup holder, which I do make use of. The all-new
- 0:48Speaker 1: Uplift V3 standing desk transforms your desk into a productivity engine.
- 0:53Speaker 1: The V3 combines the best of Uplift's V2 and V2
- 0:56Speaker 1: commercial into one stronger, smarter frame. V3 provides unmatched stability.
- 1:01Speaker 1: Redesigned feet and steel reinforcements make this the most stable
- 1:04Speaker 1: standing desk yet. Fast assembly, assembles in minutes, no stress,
- 1:08Speaker 1: no mess. The new flex mount cable manager comes with
- 1:10Speaker 1: every desk to keep cords hidden and tidy. Gotta find that.
- 1:14Speaker 1: V3 features smarter integrated design, which means upgraded everything. Speed, stability, ergonomics,
- 1:19Speaker 1: and design. And as always, you get the ultimate customization
- 1:21Speaker 1: options with the most extensive range of desktop styles and
- 1:25Speaker 1: accessories in the industry. I never thought I'd be a
- 1:27Speaker 1: standing desk person.
- 1:28Speaker 4: Me either, but it's nice.
- 1:29Speaker 1: And I thought when we got it, I was like,
- 1:30Speaker 1: am I going to really use this? Am I going
- 1:31Speaker 1: to stand up that much? All the time.
- 1:33Speaker 4: You're the number one proponent of standing, I think.
- 1:35Speaker 1: Yeah, I love standing. I'm sitting too much.
- 1:37Speaker 5: Sitting too much.
- 1:37Speaker 1: It's bad for your body.
- 1:39Speaker 4: You realize it when you stop.
- 1:40Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely. Transform your workspace and unlock your full potential
- 1:43Speaker 1: with the all-new Uplift V3 Standing Desk. Go to upliftdesk.com
- 1:47Speaker 1: slash Cricut and use our code Cricut to get four
- 1:50Speaker 1: free accessories. Free same-day shipping, free returns, and an industry-leading
- 1:54Speaker 1: 15-year warranty that covers your entire desk, plus an extra
- 1:56Speaker 1: discount off your entire order. That's U-P-L-I-F-T-D-E-S-K dot com slash
- 2:04Speaker 1: crooked for this exclusive offer. It's only available through our link.
- 2:29Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
- 2:32Speaker 5: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
- 2:32Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to talk about what Oregon
- 2:34Speaker 1: and Illinois are doing to fight back against the president
- 2:37Speaker 1: invading their states with the US military. I'm also going
- 2:40Speaker 1: to talk to Governor J.B. Pritzker later in the show
- 2:44Speaker 1: about everything he's doing to fight back. We're also going
- 2:47Speaker 1: to talk about the fact that they just indicted Letitia
- 2:49Speaker 1: James as the next political prosecution for Donald Trump. James
- 2:54Speaker 1: Comey was also arraigned this week. We're going to talk
- 2:57Speaker 1: about that. I'm going to talk about the shutdown, which
- 3:01Speaker 1: is in its 10th day as of this recording. We'll
- 3:04Speaker 1: see if there's any end in sight to that. There's
- 3:07Speaker 1: also a potential peace deal in Gaza. And more importantly,
- 3:13Speaker 1: we'll talk about whether that means that Donald Trump will
- 3:16Speaker 1: be getting the Nobel Peace Prize. That's what matters, not
- 3:19Speaker 1: actual peace. But let's start with the president of peace's
- 3:23Speaker 1: war against Americans. On Wednesday, Trump hosted what the White
- 3:26Speaker 1: House called a roundtable on Antifa. What a phrase. A
- 3:31Speaker 1: roundtable on Antifa that featured Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel,
- 3:36Speaker 1: and a slew of right-wing influencers who allegedly cover Antifa.
- 3:41Speaker 1: They're journalists, which again, Antifa, not an actual organization. Nonetheless,
- 3:46Speaker 1: the participants told stories about being assaulted by black-clad mobs,
- 3:50Speaker 1: which then gave Trump and the cabinet an opportunity to
- 3:52Speaker 1: push their favorite new conspiracy, that actually Antifa has its
- 3:56Speaker 1: tentacles everywhere and that the government will not rest until
- 4:00Speaker 1: its imaginary network of funders and supporters is destroyed. Here's
- 4:06Speaker 1: a sampling.
- 4:07Speaker 6: Just like we did with cartels, we're going to take
- 4:09Speaker 6: the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa, destroy the entire
- 4:15Speaker 6: organization from top to bottom.
- 4:19Speaker 7: One of the individuals we arrested recently in Portland was
- 4:23Speaker 7: the girlfriend of one of the founders of Antifa. This
- 4:25Speaker 7: network of Antifa is just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA,
- 4:31Speaker 7: as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them.
- 4:34Speaker 2: We're going to be very threatening to them, far more
- 4:36Speaker 2: threatening to them than they ever were with us, and.
- 4:38Speaker 5: That includes the people that fund them.
- 4:40Speaker 3: These are not people that write out their signs in
- 4:43Speaker 3: a basement that believe in something. These are paid anarchists.
- 4:48Speaker 2: Another group right now that is behind Antifa and working
- 4:51Speaker 2: with Antifa very closely, based on the research that we
- 4:54Speaker 2: have right now that we're going to give to you
- 4:56Speaker 2: and your team, are the Democratic Socialists of America.
- 5:01Speaker 1: It's helpful to see all these goobers together because Kristi
- 5:06Speaker 1: Noem is definitely the dumbest.
- 5:10Speaker 6: You know?
- 5:10Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, listening to her talk about, like, they're like,
- 5:15Speaker 1: first of all, Antifa's like ISIS?
- 5:18Speaker 3: It's like.
- 5:19Speaker 1: Hezbollah, Trinidad and Arragua, and Al-Qaeda. The girlfriend of the
- 5:24Speaker 1: founder of Antifa. There is no founder of Antifa. This
- 5:29Speaker 1: is like having a roundtable about fascists. Where it's going
- 5:32Speaker 1: to be like, how are we going to go get
- 5:33Speaker 1: the fascists? I guess we have a roundtable about fascists.
- 5:38Speaker 1: Monday and Thursdays.
- 5:39Speaker 5: That was a roundtable by fascists.
- 5:40Speaker 1: Two different things.
- 5:41Speaker 5: But that is... It's not an organization.
- 5:49Speaker 1: It's an ideology.
- 5:50Speaker 5: It's not even that. It's barely an ideology.
- 5:53Speaker 1: It's loosely an ideology, yeah.
- 5:55Speaker 5: Yeah, it is a.
- 5:56Speaker 1: It's anti-fascist, but it's people who are more militant. That's
- 6:01Speaker 1: basically what it is.
- 6:02Speaker 5: Sort of. I guess, but it's really primarily a creation
- 6:07Speaker 5: of right-wing media. This is, I mean, might be the dumbest,
- 6:13Speaker 5: but also most dangerous event held in the White House
- 6:16Speaker 5: in a very long time.
- 6:17Speaker 1: As is everything.
- 6:18Speaker 5: Because these people, I just, you just have to like,
- 6:21Speaker 5: I watched the coverage of this. I watched it in
- 6:24Speaker 5: real time, which I'd like to thank you for alerting
- 6:26Speaker 5: me that it was on. So I decided to do that.
- 6:28Speaker 1: Can't miss the Antifa round table.
- 6:30Speaker 5: You know, you really can't. Then I watched some of
- 6:33Speaker 5: the coverage afterwards. Then I read some of the stories
- 6:35Speaker 5: about it. And I feel like everyone is losing their mind.
- 6:38Speaker 5: Like this is like patently ridiculous. It's absurd. I'm not
- 6:42Speaker 5: saying the press coverage treated it seriously. It did not.
- 6:46Speaker 5: But it did not treat it unseriously enough because you
- 6:49Speaker 5: have– like you just have to step back sometimes and
- 6:51Speaker 5: like describe what this is, right? Which is the president
- 6:54Speaker 5: got together his top advisors with a group of third-tier
- 7:00Speaker 5: right-wing influencers to talk about how to use America's massive
- 7:04Speaker 5: post-9-11 counterterrorism apparatus to take down a group they made up.
- 7:10Speaker 5: It doesn't exist.
- 7:11Speaker 1: Don't you remember we went through this in 2020 when
- 7:13Speaker 1: like Bill Barr– sort of helped out the president in
- 7:17Speaker 1: saying that they were an organization. And then there was
- 7:20Speaker 1: like a few yahoos in Congress that were trying to
- 7:22Speaker 1: designate it a domestic terrorist organization, which isn't a thing.
- 7:25Speaker 1: And then Christopher Wray, the FBI director, was like, no, no, no,
- 7:29Speaker 1: it's not an organization. It's more like a loosely affiliated
- 7:33Speaker 1: groups with different ideologies and decentralized here in the United
- 7:38Speaker 1: States and all over the world.
- 7:39Speaker 5: I mean, they're just creating a threat to justify oppression.
- 7:45Speaker 5: of people they just screw with.
- 7:47Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're trying to do it so they can say, oh,
- 7:52Speaker 1: you know, the mention of the DSA, or the Democratic Socialists, right?
- 7:55Speaker 1: It's like, oh, you're DSA? Actually, you're Antifa. And so
- 7:58Speaker 1: now they're going to blur the line between that, and
- 8:00Speaker 1: then they're going to say, for Democrats, oh, you say
- 8:03Speaker 1: you're a Democrat, but I think you're just Antifa. Like
- 8:05Speaker 1: during fucking Pam Bondi's hearing earlier this week when she
- 8:08Speaker 1: said that Senator Hirono had been outside protesting with a
- 8:14Speaker 1: group that had a couple Antifa next to it. I
- 8:17Speaker 1: don't even know what that means. She was like, are
- 8:20Speaker 1: you Antifa, Senator Hirono?
- 8:22Speaker 7: Yes.
- 8:24Speaker 5: I mean, the dumb part is these people are fucking
- 8:28Speaker 5: stupid with the barest grasp on reality of what's actually
- 8:32Speaker 5: happening in the world. They truly, their brains are so
- 8:35Speaker 5: pickled by the right-wing bubble they live in. I'm confident
- 8:40Speaker 5: that Christie knows. Stephen Miller makes a lot of shit
- 8:42Speaker 5: ups in order to justify his true goals. Chrissy Noem
- 8:45Speaker 5: fucking believes that Antifa is like Hezbollah. And she really
- 8:48Speaker 5: believes they're going to send in a SEAL team to
- 8:52Speaker 5: Antifa HQ to disrupt the sleeper cells.
- 8:55Speaker 1: It's like, what? By the way, if you know the
- 8:58Speaker 1: address of Antifa HQ, please let the federal government know
- 9:00Speaker 1: because they are.
- 9:02Speaker 5: They're looking.
- 9:03Speaker 1: They are looking. It's like the Red Scare if... there
- 9:06Speaker 1: weren't really communists.
- 9:08Speaker 5: Yes, yes, that's exactly right. The dangerous part, like they
- 9:11Speaker 5: actually stumbled ass backwards into something that is quite dangerous,
- 9:14Speaker 5: potentially effective for their fascistic goals, which is if no
- 9:18Speaker 5: one's Antifa, then everyone's Antifa.
- 9:22Speaker 1: That we don't like. Right, exactly.
- 9:23Speaker 5: So it's just like you can make, because if you're
- 9:26Speaker 5: going after a real organization, there is like evidence as
- 9:28Speaker 5: to whether this person is a part of that organization, right? Like,
- 9:30Speaker 5: are they a part of this mob family or this
- 9:32Speaker 5: drug cartel? Like you have to present evidence of that.
- 9:35Speaker 5: Here you just have to assert that they're loosely associated
- 9:37Speaker 5: with this philosophy, and therefore you can go rooting around
- 9:40Speaker 5: into the financial records of their foundation, or you can
- 9:43Speaker 5: investigate them for these crimes, or even more likely just
- 9:46Speaker 5: accuse them of being part of domestic terrorists or domestic
- 9:50Speaker 5: extremists as Stephen Miller has done.
- 9:53Speaker 1: Do you think we can get the Trump administration to
- 9:56Speaker 1: start calling themselves PROFA?
- 10:02Speaker 5: It is a little on the fucking nose.
- 10:06Speaker 1: Antifa is short for anti-fascist. You guys are clearly, they're
- 10:12Speaker 1: all profa. The MAGA supporters are profa.
- 10:15Speaker 5: Do not call us fascists. Also, our top priority is
- 10:17Speaker 5: to take out anti-fascists. enemies of our non-fascist state are
- 10:22Speaker 5: called anti-fascists it really is a laugh it's a laugh
- 10:26Speaker 5: or cry moment it really.
- 10:28Speaker 1: Is like we're we're all gonna the whole country's gonna
- 10:30Speaker 1: go down for the stupidest fucking reasons by the stupidest
- 10:34Speaker 1: fucking people this is we've I mean I don't know
- 10:38Speaker 1: if I wanted more intellectually serious people to take down
- 10:40Speaker 1: the country it's not like I'm asking for that but
- 10:42Speaker 1: it is rather ironic it's stupid I don't know is
- 10:46Speaker 1: it ironic I don't even know if that's the right
- 10:47Speaker 1: word anyway It seems like this is more than just
- 10:50Speaker 1: a threat. Reuters dropped a big investigative report on Thursday
- 10:54Speaker 1: that has aides from the White House, Department of Justice,
- 10:56Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security talking on background about a specific
- 11:00Speaker 1: plan to go after left-leaning groups. They had a list
- 11:03Speaker 1: of nine groups that they shared with Reuters. Potential targets
- 11:06Speaker 1: include George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, as we've
- 11:10Speaker 1: mentioned before. Also, ActBlue, Indivisible, and Jewish Voice for Peace.
- 11:16Speaker 1: And I'll quote from the article here. Potential tools to
- 11:19Speaker 1: defund or shut down these groups include IRS investigations to
- 11:23Speaker 1: strip them of tax-exempt status, criminal probes by the Justice
- 11:26Speaker 1: Department and FBI, surveillance by federal law enforcement agencies, the
- 11:30Speaker 1: use of RICO statutes, typically used for organized crime and
- 11:33Speaker 1: financial investigations under anti-terror laws to identify donors and funders.
- 11:39Speaker 1: The person directing all of it, according to the officials,
- 11:42Speaker 1: is our friend Stephen Miller. who now regularly uses the
- 11:45Speaker 1: term domestic extremists to describe American citizens who didn't vote
- 11:50Speaker 1: for Donald Trump.
- 11:51Speaker 5: And judges appointed by Trump in many cases.
- 11:53Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. And judges. What did you make
- 11:56Speaker 1: of the Reuters piece?
- 11:57Speaker 5: Well, I'd say a couple of things. One, I read
- 11:59Speaker 5: the whole thing two, three, four or five times. At
- 12:02Speaker 5: no point did I find any evidence that there was
- 12:06Speaker 5: any sort of left-wing conspiracy funding violence. That seems to
- 12:09Speaker 5: be lacking in this.
- 12:11Speaker 1: We were, we, we, We work with Indivisible. We've worked
- 12:14Speaker 1: with Indivisible for years. They're good friends and partners. It
- 12:19Speaker 1: is laughable to think that Indivisible, which has also just
- 12:25Speaker 1: grassroots chapters all across the country that get together to
- 12:30Speaker 1: help register voters and go to town hall meetings and
- 12:34Speaker 1: get people organized, has anything to do with any kind
- 12:39Speaker 1: of even close to violent activity.
- 12:42Speaker 5: I mean, also the idea they're going after ActBlue, which
- 12:44Speaker 5: is a payment processor.
- 12:45Speaker 1: It's a payment processor.
- 12:46Speaker 7: Yes.
- 12:47Speaker 5: We're going to take down PayPal next. Like, what are
- 12:49Speaker 5: we doing here? And then the other sort of funny
- 12:52Speaker 5: insider baseball part of the story is they talked to
- 12:53Speaker 5: two different White House officials on background. And one White
- 12:57Speaker 5: House official was clearly like Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller, Jason
- 12:59Speaker 5: was like, this is who says, this is how we're
- 13:01Speaker 5: going to take down the Soros network. And then the
- 13:03Speaker 5: other White House official who clearly probably worked in the
- 13:05Speaker 5: counsel's office and does not want to go to prison
- 13:06Speaker 5: in a subsequent administration was like, no, we are only
- 13:10Speaker 5: going to go after actual plots to fund violence. And
- 13:15Speaker 5: it's like the first administration official would be back in–
- 13:17Speaker 5: first White House official would be back in like, no,
- 13:18Speaker 5: we're taking down the lefties. It's like it was very– it's.
- 13:21Speaker 1: Very clear that– bumbling incompetence that's going on in the
- 13:31Speaker 1: government you get this because you know trump's twin directives
- 13:34Speaker 1: on domestic political violence have caused confusion lawyers for the
- 13:37Speaker 1: department of homeland security are scrambling to figure out how
- 13:39Speaker 1: to implement them legally according to two dhs officials not
- 13:43Speaker 1: authorized to speak publicly so trump also at that event
- 13:46Speaker 1: with antifa um and mentioned this in the reuters story
- 13:50Speaker 1: trump requested participants to name groups and funders they claim
- 13:53Speaker 1: carry out violence effectively crowdsourcing potential targets in real time
- 13:59Speaker 1: He then vowed to pursue these. Anyone got any Antifa?
- 14:03Speaker 1: Any Antifa out there that's pissing you off? Pam, go
- 14:07Speaker 1: get them. I mean, the- Just name names.
- 14:10Speaker 5: The craziest part of that hearing or that round table
- 14:13Speaker 5: was when the guy was like, I have a burnt
- 14:15Speaker 5: American flag and I know the guy who burned it.
- 14:18Speaker 5: And Trump was like, give his name to Pam so
- 14:20Speaker 5: she can press charges.
- 14:22Speaker 1: And then Trump gives this very strange- This is constituent
- 14:23Speaker 1: services now.
- 14:24Speaker 5: So we're doing it right there in real time. But
- 14:26Speaker 5: then Trump's like, well, that's why we got rid of
- 14:27Speaker 5: freedom of speech. Because he has now decided against all
- 14:33Speaker 5: Supreme Court decisions and the Constitution itself that flag burning
- 14:36Speaker 5: is now a crime punishable by a year in prison.
- 14:39Speaker 1: Right.
- 14:40Speaker 5: There's no law on the book that suggests that.
- 14:42Speaker 1: Yeah, which they can't do that. It's not going to
- 14:43Speaker 1: work because it's constitutionally protected. And their legal argument, which is,
- 14:48Speaker 1: I would say flimsy, but it's more than flimsy. It's
- 14:50Speaker 1: fucking absurd, is that, and Trump tried to make it,
- 14:54Speaker 1: I wouldn't say eloquently, is that burning the flag causes
- 14:59Speaker 1: the people around the flag burner to become agitated and violent.
- 15:04Speaker 5: Can I make a small point? I'm not President Trump's
- 15:07Speaker 5: personal attorney, but it would seem to me that if
- 15:10Speaker 5: I was Donald Trump, one thing that I would not
- 15:13Speaker 5: try to encourage is prosecution of speech that leads to violence.
- 15:18Speaker 5: Just by chance, you gave us a speech on the mall,
- 15:22Speaker 5: then the attendees of that speech then marched on the
- 15:25Speaker 5: Capitol and tried to hang the vice president Just as
- 15:28Speaker 5: one example.
- 15:28Speaker 1: Well, I don't think his lawyer would tell him anything
- 15:31Speaker 1: about that because John Roberts and the court gave it
- 15:34Speaker 1: a stamp of approval. Can't be prosecuted. Official act.
- 15:38Speaker 5: Wait till prison AOC expands the court, my friend. Jesus Christ.
- 15:46Speaker 1: I mean, it's really like, what if anything, democratic leaders
- 15:51Speaker 1: have been sort of quiet on the Antifa stuff. You know,
- 15:54Speaker 1: there was initially when they put out the, The EOs,
- 15:57Speaker 1: when they first announced the EOs, I think there were,
- 15:59Speaker 1: you know, the typical round of statements and, you know,
- 16:02Speaker 1: the same people who are always speaking out or speaking out.
- 16:04Speaker 1: Is there anything anyone can do about this? Like, it
- 16:07Speaker 1: does seem like you don't, what you don't want is
- 16:10Speaker 1: to get into this situation where, so yeah, they don't
- 16:13Speaker 1: go arrest everyone at ActBlue and Indivisible and all these groups, OpenSociety.
- 16:19Speaker 1: But suddenly they open an investigation or there's FBI surveillance
- 16:23Speaker 1: of these groups or suddenly someone gets a subpoena. And
- 16:26Speaker 1: it's more drip, drip, drip than it is a big
- 16:30Speaker 1: event that can focus everyone's attention. And I don't know.
- 16:34Speaker 1: I just worry about that part of it.
- 16:37Speaker 5: Well, it's also the shoe you never hear drop, which
- 16:40Speaker 5: is so it's like Trump named Reid Hoffman, right? The
- 16:42Speaker 5: founder of LinkedIn, who's a huge Democratic donor. He's like,
- 16:47Speaker 5: we'll go after Reid Hoffman. There's no allocation that Reid
- 16:48Speaker 5: Hoffman's involved in anything at all. But like, who is
- 16:51Speaker 5: the other rich people out there who would think about
- 16:54Speaker 5: becoming donors like Reid Hoffman, who now don't want to
- 16:56Speaker 5: do that because they do not want to be on
- 16:59Speaker 5: the anti-Antifa task force list, right? I mean, so the
- 17:03Speaker 5: question is, what do Democrats do about it? I mean,
- 17:06Speaker 5: it's like, how many things can they yell about at
- 17:07Speaker 5: one time, right? You have one of our, a significant
- 17:10Speaker 5: part of our party, which is dealing with the government
- 17:11Speaker 5: shutdown we'll talk in about a minute. You have our
- 17:13Speaker 5: most prominent governors who are one is fighting a redistricting battle,
- 17:17Speaker 5: the other one is having a state invaded by troops
- 17:20Speaker 5: from Texas right now. I think the challenge for Democrats here,
- 17:23Speaker 5: and this is a longer conversation I want us to
- 17:24Speaker 5: have on a less newsy podcast at some point, but
- 17:27Speaker 5: is about how you take all that's happening here and
- 17:33Speaker 5: tie it into one story, not a slogan, not a sentence.
- 17:38Speaker 1: You came to the right place, Dan.
- 17:40Speaker 5: One story about how, like what Trump is doing, why
- 17:44Speaker 5: he's doing it, what it means and how it affects
- 17:46Speaker 5: people like that. That is the message. And there is like,
- 17:50Speaker 5: we've talked about this before. There is this like huge
- 17:52Speaker 5: debate within the party about this. You put yourself in
- 17:54Speaker 5: the middle of this debate by arguing the Democrats should
- 17:58Speaker 5: make the shutdown about more than healthcare and to take
- 18:00Speaker 5: on all these issues. That's a debate. You and I
- 18:03Speaker 5: can also have a different point, but there's a whack-a-mole
- 18:06Speaker 5: element to all of these things where the way you
- 18:08Speaker 5: get out of that and the way you ultimately deal
- 18:09Speaker 5: with the flood the zone strategy is you need a,
- 18:12Speaker 5: compelling narrative about Trump, this moment, this Republican Party, and
- 18:16Speaker 5: how Democrats are different, under which you could fit all
- 18:19Speaker 5: of these things. So you're not just putting out a
- 18:20Speaker 5: fire here. What's our anti-Antifa statement right now? What's our
- 18:26Speaker 5: statement on the troops? You know, all of that. Newsom
- 18:31Speaker 5: has done some of this. Chris Murphy's done a lot
- 18:33Speaker 5: of it.
- 18:34Speaker 1: AOC has done some of this. Speaking of Chris Murphy,
- 18:36Speaker 1: I had forgotten about this because it was a headline from,
- 18:39Speaker 1: I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, which might
- 18:40Speaker 1: as well have been a couple of years ago. that
- 18:42Speaker 1: he's donating $ 100, 000 from his political fund to progressive organizing
- 18:46Speaker 1: group Indivisible. And I do think elected Democrats coming out
- 18:50Speaker 1: and standing with some of these groups... that could be
- 18:53Speaker 1: potential targets publicly is probably important as well.
- 18:56Speaker 5: Well, there's great news because- Because ActBlue- ActBlue's on all
- 19:00Speaker 5: their websites, so if you donate- Here's what they're.
- 19:01Speaker 3: Going to do.
- 19:02Speaker 5: They're not just going to text you seven times in ActBlue.
- 19:04Speaker 5: They're going to text you 14 times in ActBlue.
- 19:06Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, maybe they have.
- 19:08Speaker 3: No, just kidding.
- 19:09Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. So Trump, come talk to- Pam, come
- 19:11Speaker 5: talk to me about ActBlue for a sec. No. The
- 19:14Speaker 5: reality is that the No Kings rally is coming up
- 19:16Speaker 5: next weekend.
- 19:17Speaker 1: Which everyone should fucking go to.
- 19:19Speaker 5: That is an opportunity. Indivisible is very involved in organizing.
- 19:21Speaker 5: That's a group too. That is a number where every
- 19:23Speaker 5: Democratic official should stand publicly with people.
- 19:26Speaker 3: Go to it.
- 19:27Speaker 1: Be proud that you're going to it. Let everyone know.
- 19:30Speaker 1: Publicize it. And because I do think that's going to
- 19:33Speaker 1: be a moment to show that like no one is
- 19:35Speaker 1: scared and no one is backing down. And yeah, because
- 19:40Speaker 1: this is, it's getting real. It's getting real. This podcast
- 19:52Speaker 1: is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform
- 19:55Speaker 1: designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success.
- 19:59Speaker 1: Squarespace provides all the tools you need to promote and
- 20:01Speaker 1: get paid for your services in one platform, create a
- 20:03Speaker 1: professional website to showcase your offerings and attract clients. Whether
- 20:06Speaker 1: you offer consultations, events, or other experiences, Squarespace can help
- 20:09Speaker 1: you grow your business. Squarespace offers a complete library of
- 20:11Speaker 1: professionally designed and award-winning website templates with options for every
- 20:15Speaker 1: use and category. No matter where you start, your website
- 20:18Speaker 1: is flexible to what you need with intuitive drag and
- 20:20Speaker 1: drop editing, beautiful styling options, unrivaled visual design effects, on-brand
- 20:25Speaker 1: AI content, and more ways to list what you offer.
- 20:27Speaker 1: No experience required. Every dream needs a domain. That's what
- 20:30Speaker 1: I always say. Squarespace domains makes it easy to find
- 20:33Speaker 1: the best name for your business at one fair, all-inclusive price.
- 20:36Speaker 1: No hidden fees or add-ons required. Every Squarespace domain comes
- 20:39Speaker 1: with Advanced privacy and security tools included to ensure your
- 20:43Speaker 1: domain remains online and protected. Plus, Squarespace provides everything you
- 20:46Speaker 1: need to bring more of your dream to life. Whether
- 20:48Speaker 1: that means building a website or adding a professional email service,
- 20:51Speaker 1: don't wait to claim your name. Invest in your dream
- 20:53Speaker 1: domain today. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And
- 20:56Speaker 1: when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash crooked
- 20:59Speaker 1: to save 10% off your first purchase of a website
- 21:01Speaker 1: or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked. Of course, our cities
- 21:08Speaker 1: are now the front lines in the battle against Antifa.
- 21:11Speaker 1: The deployment of Oregon and Texas National Guard troops to
- 21:14Speaker 1: Portland is still on hold for the moment, but that
- 21:17Speaker 1: may not last long. A panel of judges from the
- 21:19Speaker 1: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, two of the three of
- 21:22Speaker 1: whom are Trump appointees, seem to think the district judge
- 21:25Speaker 1: had overstepped. If you remember, the Ninth Circuit was also
- 21:29Speaker 1: the appeals court that heard Newsom and California's challenge to
- 21:35Speaker 1: the deployment of troops here in LA. And they basically
- 21:40Speaker 1: said that it would, the case hasn't been fully decided yet,
- 21:42Speaker 1: but they let the deployment continue because the judges decided
- 21:46Speaker 1: in the Ninth Circuit, it is likely that the government,
- 21:50Speaker 1: the federal government would win the case because it was under,
- 21:53Speaker 1: it was within President Trump's statutory authority to do so,
- 21:58Speaker 1: to deploy those troops. So Kristi Noem, visited Portland on
- 22:02Speaker 1: Tuesday where she was accompanied by an entourage that included
- 22:06Speaker 1: a pardoned January 6th insurrectionist. Did you know that, Dan?
- 22:10Speaker 1: That was part of it. She had a jacket on
- 22:13Speaker 1: that said staff on the back. That's who she took
- 22:17Speaker 1: with her to Portland to, I guess, monitor Antifa, which
- 22:22Speaker 1: they did from a roof. They stood on the roof
- 22:23Speaker 1: of an ICE facility to watch the Antifa mob from
- 22:27Speaker 1: a safe distance and The Antifa mob being a tiny
- 22:31Speaker 1: crowd of protesters that included a guy in a chicken suit.
- 22:35Speaker 1: I encourage you all to go look for that footage.
- 22:37Speaker 1: There's Kristi Noem and her January 6th insurrectionists and a
- 22:41Speaker 1: bunch of other goobers up on a fucking roof. And
- 22:43Speaker 1: they're looking down at a guy in a chicken suit.
- 22:45Speaker 1: And that's America 2025. That's the civil war that's going
- 22:49Speaker 1: on right now. During Thursday's cabinet meeting, Noem told Trump
- 22:52Speaker 1: that she met with, when she was in Oregon, the governor.
- 22:55Speaker 1: the mayor of Portland, the chief of police in Portland,
- 22:57Speaker 1: the head of the highway patrol, and she called all
- 23:00Speaker 1: of them lying and disingenuous and dishonest people for merely
- 23:05Speaker 1: reporting to her that the protest was small, low energy,
- 23:09Speaker 1: and under control, which of course it is. She also
- 23:13Speaker 1: said the DHS would be purchasing more property in Portland
- 23:16Speaker 1: to operate out of and sending more federal agents. She
- 23:19Speaker 1: plans to do the same in Chicago, where a federal
- 23:22Speaker 1: judge on Thursday heard arguments from lawyers from the city
- 23:24Speaker 1: and state about blocking the guard deployments there just a
- 23:28Speaker 1: day after Trump posted a demand that J.B. Pritzker, who, well,
- 23:31Speaker 1: you'll hear from in a minute, uh, and Mayor Brandon
- 23:33Speaker 1: Johnson should both be jailed, quote, for failing to protect
- 23:37Speaker 1: ICE officers. Uh, the judge didn't seem overly warm to
- 23:42Speaker 1: the Justice Department's arguments, but as of this recording, she
- 23:45Speaker 1: hadn't issued a ruling. Guys, just give us a thumbs
- 23:48Speaker 1: up or something if you hear it. Uh, What's your
- 23:51Speaker 1: take on what's happening in these cities? And who do
- 23:54Speaker 1: you think is making the better argument?
- 23:56Speaker 5: I think, I mean, we talked about this when it
- 24:00Speaker 5: happened in LA. We have talked about what happened in DC.
- 24:02Speaker 5: And there is this surreal element to all of this,
- 24:05Speaker 5: because this is the thing that if you said Trump
- 24:07Speaker 5: was going to do, as Kamala Harris did in the campaign,
- 24:09Speaker 5: then everyone would laugh at you and say, you're insane
- 24:11Speaker 5: for thinking that. You have TDS. But I think what
- 24:15Speaker 5: is clear, particularly in Chicago and Portland, is the pattern
- 24:19Speaker 5: here and the plan which is Trump and his administration
- 24:23Speaker 5: and his right-wing goons, they make up a threat, they
- 24:27Speaker 5: fabricate a threat, or they exaggerate a real problem like
- 24:30Speaker 5: crime or disorder, then send in masked ICE agents who
- 24:35Speaker 5: essentially operate as a paramilitary organization with social media influencers
- 24:39Speaker 5: in tow to capture it to create chaos and backlash.
- 24:44Speaker 5: Then they exaggerate that chaos and backlash and use that
- 24:46Speaker 5: as a pretext to send in American troops.
- 24:50Speaker 6: Right.
- 24:50Speaker 5: And this is where, and this is, this is an
- 24:53Speaker 5: A plus answer to a poli-sci 101 question about how
- 24:57Speaker 5: fascism starts.
- 24:58Speaker 2: Right.
- 24:58Speaker 5: This is, this is like, this is the exact formula.
- 25:00Speaker 5: This is exactly what they do. It's exactly what's happening.
- 25:02Speaker 5: It's happened in LA. It's happened in DC. It's Chicago, Portland,
- 25:05Speaker 5: and it's going to be everywhere by 2026. Like that,
- 25:08Speaker 5: that is the path we are on.
- 25:10Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 25:11Speaker 1: And I think it's also important to point out having
- 25:14Speaker 1: gone through this here in LA, it can seem like
- 25:17Speaker 1: it's not a big deal at first. We didn't notice
- 25:20Speaker 1: really the National Guard deployed here in Los Angeles because
- 25:23Speaker 1: they were defending like two federal buildings, defending from no one. And,
- 25:29Speaker 1: you know, they were out with ICE on some raids,
- 25:32Speaker 1: I guess. But, you know, you wouldn't have seen them really.
- 25:35Speaker 1: And same in D.C. People in D.C. will tell you
- 25:38Speaker 1: this too. And they were like taking pictures with tourists
- 25:40Speaker 1: and they didn't have anything to do. And so they
- 25:41Speaker 1: were cleaning up trash. And so I think there is
- 25:43Speaker 1: this sense that, okay, the guards here, It's crazy that
- 25:47Speaker 1: Trump's doing this. There's no reason for him to do this.
- 25:49Speaker 1: He's clearly doing this because he is power hungry and
- 25:53Speaker 1: wants to, you know, prove a point or whatever. But
- 25:56Speaker 1: is it really causing much harm? But with each deployment,
- 26:00Speaker 1: it gets a little more serious and the deployment gets
- 26:03Speaker 1: bigger and the facts on the ground are much more intense, right?
- 26:09Speaker 1: And so I think Chicago, of all the cities so far,
- 26:12Speaker 1: like the way that ICE has been operating in Chicago
- 26:14Speaker 1: is completely out of fucking control. And we have all
- 26:17Speaker 1: seen the videos and you've heard us talk about it here.
- 26:19Speaker 1: You've seen it all on our, on our socials and
- 26:21Speaker 1: we've been, you know, reposting them and all that. There's fucking, they,
- 26:25Speaker 1: they shot a pastor in the head with a pepper
- 26:29Speaker 1: ball who was merely praying and actually asking the ice
- 26:33Speaker 1: agents to join him in prayer, doing nothing. And they
- 26:37Speaker 1: shot him in the head with a pepper ball. And
- 26:40Speaker 1: they just, they, they dragged a woman out of her
- 26:43Speaker 1: car yesterday and who was, she's a legal resident who
- 26:46Speaker 1: was picking up her child at elementary school, dragged her
- 26:49Speaker 1: out of the car. And this is happening. There's just
- 26:52Speaker 1: a million stories like this right now. And so when
- 26:55Speaker 1: you deploy troops in that situation, where ICE is terrorizing neighborhoods, detaining,
- 27:03Speaker 1: arresting people who are citizens, legal residents, or undocumented immigrants
- 27:09Speaker 1: who are not dangerous by any measure, but using riot
- 27:14Speaker 1: gear and flashbang grenades and pepper ball spray, and they're
- 27:19Speaker 1: shooting pepper balls at journalists. And when you do that then,
- 27:22Speaker 1: and Pritzker talks with me about this, then of course,
- 27:26Speaker 1: residents and neighbors are going to get mad and they're
- 27:28Speaker 1: going to start shouting at ICE. And now you deploy
- 27:31Speaker 1: troops into that situation. And now you've also got Trump
- 27:36Speaker 1: flirting with invoking the Insurrection Act. And I talk about
- 27:40Speaker 1: that with Pritzker as well, which would suddenly give the
- 27:43Speaker 1: troops on the ground, law enforcement power, so they're not
- 27:46Speaker 1: just defending buildings or defending ICE agents, but now they
- 27:51Speaker 1: can go carry out law enforcement actions, which they are
- 27:53Speaker 1: not trained to do, now you've got a really explosive situation.
- 27:57Speaker 5: Yeah, and in that case, it doesn't have to be
- 27:58Speaker 5: the National Guard anymore, right?
- 28:00Speaker 1: Right, exactly, exactly.
- 28:01Speaker 5: You could actually do what Trump said he would do
- 28:03Speaker 5: at the speech at Quantico with Hegseth and the generals
- 28:06Speaker 5: is use U.S. cities as training grounds for the troops
- 28:09Speaker 5: that he expects to fight wars overseas.
- 28:11Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 28:12Speaker 1: And I mean, we'll see.
- 28:13Speaker 5: This is how you get the Navy SEALs kicking on
- 28:15Speaker 5: the doors of Antifa HQ.
- 28:18Speaker 1: Right, right. Antifa HQ, right. Which is, again, let us
- 28:21Speaker 1: know where it is. You see the Pope's involved? Wilke
- 28:24Speaker 1: Marx's Pope?
- 28:25Speaker 5: I mean, you don't come to his city. He's a Chicagoan.
- 28:28Speaker 1: I love our American Pope. Yeah. I thought I loved
- 28:31Speaker 1: Pope Francis as my favorite Pope, I think because, you know, Jesuit,
- 28:34Speaker 1: big Jesuit guy. But our American Pope from Chicago, who
- 28:39Speaker 1: is now, and I guess he's pushing the bishops to
- 28:41Speaker 1: make like a really clear moral statement on this, on
- 28:46Speaker 1: what's happening in the United States around immigration, because he
- 28:49Speaker 1: wants like unity. And so he wants all the bishops
- 28:50Speaker 1: on the same page, which I think is a good move.
- 28:54Speaker 1: But he is apparently, you know, he had some advocates
- 28:58Speaker 1: and activists, immigration activists visit him, I believe from Texas,
- 29:02Speaker 1: and was quite moved by some of these stories. And
- 29:06Speaker 1: like emotionally moved. And I think that it's good to
- 29:10Speaker 1: see that the Pope is getting involved in this. It's
- 29:11Speaker 1: crazy that the Pope has to get involved in this,
- 29:13Speaker 1: but it's good.
- 29:14Speaker 6: To see it.
- 29:15Speaker 3: All right.
- 29:15Speaker 1: So Austin just sent us this story from Axios. President
- 29:20Speaker 1: Trump is temporarily barred from sending the National Guard to
- 29:23Speaker 1: Illinois to aid his immigration crackdown after a federal judge
- 29:27Speaker 1: in part granted the state a temporary restraining order against
- 29:30Speaker 1: the deployment. So there you go.
- 29:33Speaker 5: That's great news.
- 29:35Speaker 1: One other major front in the war against America's enemies,
- 29:37Speaker 1: the political prosecutions of people the president doesn't like. News
- 29:41Speaker 1: broke right before we started recording that a grand jury
- 29:43Speaker 1: in the Eastern District of Virginia has indicted New York
- 29:46Speaker 1: Attorney General Tish James for one count of bank fraud
- 29:50Speaker 1: and one count related to false statements. All right, so
- 29:54Speaker 1: this was related to another alleged mortgage fraud case, Dan.
- 30:00Speaker 1: that the mortgage fraud czar Bill Pulte has been pushing
- 30:03Speaker 1: for quite some time. And once again, there was reporting
- 30:07Speaker 1: leading up to this that all the attorneys, all the
- 30:11Speaker 1: prosecutors who work in the Eastern District of Virginia didn't
- 30:15Speaker 1: really see a case here, didn't think there was evidence
- 30:17Speaker 1: for a case, didn't think there was evidence that she
- 30:19Speaker 1: broke any laws. And so when Lindsey Halligan, Donald Trump's
- 30:24Speaker 1: random staffer who had never prosecuted a case before, was installed,
- 30:29Speaker 1: and then she indicted Comey. She went after Letitia James
- 30:33Speaker 1: as well, and apparently has won an indictment from a
- 30:37Speaker 1: grand jury on two charges. How strong or weak do
- 30:41Speaker 1: you think this case is against Letitia James?
- 30:43Speaker 5: I think the fact that Lindsay Halligan presented the indictment
- 30:45Speaker 5: herself suggests that no actual qualified prosecutor in the office
- 30:49Speaker 5: is willing to do so. So that says a lot
- 30:50Speaker 5: about it. It's also, you know it's weak because one
- 30:54Speaker 5: of the reasons Trump fired the original U.S. attorney for
- 30:57Speaker 5: the he and his staff did not think there was
- 31:00Speaker 5: a case you could bring here. And the third reason
- 31:02Speaker 5: why we also know it's a bad case is that
- 31:05Speaker 5: people are almost never, ever prosecuted for making this mistake.
- 31:10Speaker 5: It is almost always handled civilly. The only time it's
- 31:13Speaker 5: ever done criminally is if it is seemed to be
- 31:17Speaker 5: part of a pattern where someone has done it many times,
- 31:19Speaker 5: or it's part of, or it's like an obvious move
- 31:21Speaker 5: and they like use a fake name or a fake
- 31:23Speaker 5: disguise or something like that. Like this is, Something happens
- 31:25Speaker 5: all the time. We know it happens all the time.
- 31:26Speaker 5: It happens to a lot of people in the Trump
- 31:27Speaker 5: administration because of the pro-publica reporting that looked at it.
- 31:31Speaker 5: So this is absurd. But this is what Trump wants.
- 31:33Speaker 5: He wants another way he can go and say he
- 31:35Speaker 5: went after his enemies. And everyone else on that list
- 31:39Speaker 5: should be concerned because even if they did not commit
- 31:43Speaker 5: the fake crime in the Eastern District of Virginia, Trump
- 31:45Speaker 5: will just fire the U.S. attorney wherever he wants to
- 31:48Speaker 5: bring the case, install some other crony there, and do
- 31:51Speaker 5: this same thing. This is where we are as a
- 31:53Speaker 5: country now.
- 31:54Speaker 1: This one seems even worse when you look into it
- 31:58Speaker 1: because it's saying that she allegedly tried to declare somewhere
- 32:03Speaker 1: her primary residence that wasn't so she could get a
- 32:07Speaker 1: more favorable loan. But she, in this case, it was
- 32:11Speaker 1: like one document that a third party checked a box
- 32:16Speaker 1: that said primary residence. But in another email, she wrote,
- 32:20Speaker 1: this will not be my primary residence very clearly. And
- 32:23Speaker 1: on another form, she said, this will not be my
- 32:25Speaker 1: primary residence. So then you'd have to believe that she
- 32:29Speaker 1: tried to lie about this, but then told the truth
- 32:32Speaker 1: about it as well. Like that is just fucking insane.
- 32:34Speaker 5: This happens all the time. This was a big thing
- 32:37Speaker 5: in politics in the early 2000s where people who, members
- 32:40Speaker 5: of Congress who also owned homes in DC would often
- 32:45Speaker 5: check a box that said they wanted to claim the
- 32:47Speaker 5: homestead exemption. And then people would get hammered in their
- 32:49Speaker 5: districts for claiming that they live in DC. But it's
- 32:52Speaker 5: because- the settlement, do people who prepare the papers just
- 32:56Speaker 5: fill it out that way and everyone just signs it, right?
- 32:58Speaker 5: Without actually looking at it. This is exactly what happened
- 33:01Speaker 5: in this case. There was reporting in the Washington Post
- 33:03Speaker 5: that the house was, I believe, this residence was bought
- 33:06Speaker 5: for her niece.
- 33:07Speaker 7: Yes.
- 33:07Speaker 5: Her niece actually testified to the grand jury and reportedly
- 33:11Speaker 5: gave testimony that was quite exculpatory of Letitia James, yet
- 33:16Speaker 5: they proceeded anyway.
- 33:16Speaker 1: It does seem like the indictment now they're saying that
- 33:19Speaker 1: the problem is that it was always meant as a
- 33:22Speaker 1: rental property for her niece. And so she shouldn't have
- 33:26Speaker 1: even said it was her second home, her second property.
- 33:30Speaker 5: Because then it's an investment property, which is a different thing.
- 33:34Speaker 5: This stuff happens all the time. These are not crimes.
- 33:37Speaker 5: They are problems that have to get addressed. And they
- 33:39Speaker 5: are addressed with the bank. They are addressed civilly. This
- 33:41Speaker 5: is not how it happens.
- 33:42Speaker 1: This is just And it also it always like drives
- 33:44Speaker 1: me nuts even going into the details of the case
- 33:46Speaker 1: because it's so fucking like it's a political prosecution.
- 33:49Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah.
- 33:50Speaker 1: That that career attorneys from Republicans and Democrats appointed by
- 33:55Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats over the years all said, no, this
- 33:58Speaker 1: is crazy, too. And then fucking Lindsey Halligan comes in
- 34:02Speaker 1: after Donald Trump said to Pam Bondi, go white. What's
- 34:06Speaker 1: taken so long? Go prosecute my enemies. And they did.
- 34:09Speaker 1: And you have to be a fucking genius to figure
- 34:10Speaker 1: that out. You don't need a law degree. Tish James
- 34:13Speaker 1: is in good company. Former FBI Director James Comey, who
- 34:15Speaker 1: was indicted two weeks ago, was arraigned in federal court
- 34:17Speaker 1: in Alexandria on Wednesday morning. He pleaded not guilty, and
- 34:20Speaker 1: his lawyers indicated that they will seek to have the
- 34:23Speaker 1: case thrown out on the grounds that the prosecution is
- 34:26Speaker 1: vindictive and selective. It is, of course, both. Apparently, Lindsay
- 34:31Speaker 1: Halligan in this one brought in a prosecutor from North
- 34:33Speaker 1: Carolina to help her with the case because they couldn't
- 34:36Speaker 1: find anyone in the Eastern District who would do it.
- 34:40Speaker 1: I don't know if the jurors will even know about
- 34:43Speaker 1: that or the judge will, but it doesn't bode well
- 34:46Speaker 1: for their case, I think.
- 34:47Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right. I have no idea if that's something
- 34:50Speaker 5: that a jury will ever know about, but it just
- 34:53Speaker 5: says how weak the case is. There's plenty of ambitious
- 34:58Speaker 5: Republican career prosecutors who have eyes on bigger jobs who,
- 35:03Speaker 5: if there was a real case here, they would prosecute it.
- 35:07Speaker 5: The problem is there is no real case. and they
- 35:08Speaker 5: care about their reputation and their ethics. And so they're
- 35:11Speaker 5: not going to do it.
- 35:12Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 35:13Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal had an amazing report on Wednesday that the, uh,
- 35:17Speaker 1: the famous truth social posts that Trump addressed to Pam, uh,
- 35:21Speaker 1: which said, you know, delays in charging Comey were killing
- 35:24Speaker 1: our reputation and credibility was in fact meant to be
- 35:28Speaker 1: a DM.
- 35:30Speaker 5: I feel vindicated.
- 35:31Speaker 1: Me too. Yes. Although I would, this is what happened.
- 35:34Speaker 1: I was, uh, We were just hanging out with the neighbors.
- 35:39Speaker 1: All the kids were there. One of my neighbors is Tommy.
- 35:45Speaker 1: And I saw the news broke and I was like, oh,
- 35:47Speaker 1: my God. I think this was supposed to be a DM.
- 35:51Speaker 1: And he's like, no, there's no way that was a DM.
- 35:55Speaker 1: You know Trump. He would just say Pam in a
- 35:58Speaker 1: Truth Social post. And I was like, you know what?
- 36:00Speaker 1: You're right. That's crazy to think that. So I did
- 36:03Speaker 1: give up pretty soon.
- 36:04Speaker 5: I mean, like anything is possible with Trump. But it's
- 36:07Speaker 5: just– I know caring about the information security habits of
- 36:11Speaker 5: high government officials is like very 2016. But it is
- 36:14Speaker 5: fucking bananas that Trump communicates with his cabinet through direct
- 36:18Speaker 5: messaging on his janky social media site.
- 36:22Speaker 1: I'm surprised. Like I didn't know– He might as well.
- 36:24Speaker 5: BCC every foreign intelligence agency in the world. I mean,
- 36:29Speaker 5: I think how many other DMs there are. Do you
- 36:31Speaker 5: think this is just the first time he decided to
- 36:32Speaker 5: DM someone was about a political prosecution? He's just like,
- 36:36Speaker 5: I got to communicate at this Watergate level crime and
- 36:39Speaker 5: abuse of power. Why don't I do it by DM?
- 36:40Speaker 5: I'll do my first DM. No, he must be DMing
- 36:42Speaker 5: people all the time, which we know he was DMing
- 36:45Speaker 5: people on Twitter because that was a part of the
- 36:46Speaker 5: Jack Smith investigation was subpoenaing his DMs.
- 36:51Speaker 1: It's funny that you went to the OPSEC thing because
- 36:54Speaker 1: my first reaction was there's not a lot that can
- 36:57Speaker 1: shock me about Donald Trump. But the fact that he
- 36:59Speaker 1: knows how to use the direct message function on his
- 37:02Speaker 1: janky platform.
- 37:03Speaker 5: Well, he doesn't, obviously.
- 37:06Speaker 2: Yes.
- 37:07Speaker 1: I mean, not well, not well, but at least he
- 37:10Speaker 1: knows it.
- 37:10Speaker 5: I mean, that's the one thing you can't do is
- 37:13Speaker 5: do it publicly.
- 37:14Speaker 1: Also, it's like, why isn't he texting Pam Bondi? Why
- 37:17Speaker 1: isn't he calling Pam Bondi?
- 37:19Speaker 5: He has an entire military unit whose job it is
- 37:22Speaker 5: to connect him on the phone with people no matter
- 37:24Speaker 5: where he is.
- 37:24Speaker 1: This is what I'm saying. What? I don't understand it.
- 37:27Speaker 5: It is the classic Stringer Bell, don't take notes on
- 37:31Speaker 5: a motherfucking criminal conspiracy, that he wrote this down and
- 37:34Speaker 5: then sent it out publicly by accident.
- 37:36Speaker 1: The report has officials saying that Trump was, quote, surprised
- 37:39Speaker 1: to learn it was public.
- 37:40Speaker 5: I bet he was.
- 37:42Speaker 1: And notes that, quote, Bondi grew upset and called White
- 37:45Speaker 1: House aides in Trump, who then agreed to ascend a
- 37:47Speaker 1: second post, praising Bondi as doing a great job.
- 37:51Speaker 5: See, that's what I knew it was a DM, was
- 37:53Speaker 5: when he said the second post. That was my, that
- 37:57Speaker 5: seemed definitely like, oh, I got to clean up here.
- 38:00Speaker 1: Also notable that the Attorney General of the United States
- 38:03Speaker 1: did not seem upset that the president- accidentally, publicly directed
- 38:09Speaker 1: her to prosecute his enemies, but that he didn't seem
- 38:12Speaker 1: to think she was doing a great job.
- 38:15Speaker 5: Yes, she knows what her job is.
- 38:16Speaker 1: In the post. And so what she really wanted was
- 38:19Speaker 1: a follow-up that said, great job, not the president deciding
- 38:23Speaker 1: not to direct her to prosecute his political enemies.
- 38:26Speaker 5: I want you to think about how this would have
- 38:27Speaker 5: played out differently if he had written a memo. or
- 38:30Speaker 5: an email to Pam Bondi, or an email from Susie
- 38:33Speaker 5: Wiles or Stephen Miller to Pam Bondi that said almost
- 38:36Speaker 5: that exact same thing, and then the New York Times
- 38:38Speaker 5: had gotten a.
- 38:39Speaker 1: Hold of it. These days? I don't know. Who knows?
- 38:42Speaker 5: I think it would have been, at least in the
- 38:44Speaker 5: traditional media world, it would have been 10x the story.
- 38:49Speaker 5: Just think about the original perfect phone call to Ukraine,
- 38:52Speaker 5: because Trump was doing crimes all the time, but when
- 38:54Speaker 5: they got wind of a secret phone call through, then
- 38:58Speaker 5: they reacted that way.
- 39:00Speaker 1: Attorney General Loretta Lynch, under the Obama administration, was sitting
- 39:06Speaker 1: on a plane in the tarmac while the Hillary Clinton
- 39:09Speaker 1: email investigation was going on, and Bill Clinton was on
- 39:13Speaker 1: a plane next door, got off the plane, went onto
- 39:15Speaker 1: her plane, said hello, walked off the plane, and it
- 39:20Speaker 1: was such a scandal that everyone was calling for her
- 39:25Speaker 1: to recuse herself from the whole investigation?
- 39:28Speaker 5: So, yes, and it's... a couple of important points here.
- 39:31Speaker 5: One is Bill Clinton not present at the time.
- 39:34Speaker 1: Not present at the time.
- 39:35Speaker 5: Very important. Like no influence at all on what was happening. Second.
- 39:41Speaker 5: That really is butterfly effect to where we are right now,
- 39:44Speaker 5: because that leads to her recusing herself. It leads to
- 39:47Speaker 5: Jim Comey sending the insane memo announcing the investigation of
- 39:50Speaker 5: Hillary Clinton, which leads to Donald Trump getting elected, which
- 39:53Speaker 5: then leads to Jim Comey ending up in a court
- 39:55Speaker 5: this week.
- 39:57Speaker 6: Wow.
- 39:59Speaker 1: Someone should just do a documentary just on that.
- 40:02Speaker 5: If you know someone who owns a media company, you
- 40:04Speaker 5: should talk to them.
- 40:06Speaker 1: I guess we just did it. There's nothing else to say.
- 40:07Speaker 5: That's right.
- 40:09Speaker 1: The fact that that was, oh my God, it's insane.
- 40:13Speaker 1: It's insane. All right, let's get to the government shutdown,
- 40:15Speaker 1: which will be in its 10th day by the time
- 40:17Speaker 1: you're hearing this. On Thursday, the Senate voted again on
- 40:20Speaker 1: two different versions of a funding bill. Neither of them passed.
- 40:22Speaker 1: Democrats are clearly beginning to feel they've got the upper
- 40:25Speaker 1: hand because they have a simple message. Republicans won't budge
- 40:28Speaker 1: on gutting your health care. Republicans are more all over
- 40:31Speaker 1: the place. They're going to fire federal workers. No, they aren't.
- 40:34Speaker 1: They're going to deny back pay to furloughed workers. Maybe not.
- 40:38Speaker 1: Trump is talking to Democrats about cutting a deal on
- 40:40Speaker 1: health care. No, he isn't. Even on Thursday in that
- 40:42Speaker 1: cabinet meeting, Trump tried to say that Republicans were the
- 40:45Speaker 1: ones trying to save health care and also tried his
- 40:48Speaker 1: tough guy approach once again. Take a listen.
- 40:50Speaker 5: We'll be making cuts that will be permanent.
- 40:53Speaker 2: And we're only going to cut Democrat programs.
- 40:55Speaker 5: I hate to tell you.
- 40:55Speaker 3: I guess that makes sense.
- 40:57Speaker 8: But we're only cutting Democrat programs.
- 40:59Speaker 5: They wanted to do this.
- 41:01Speaker 7: So we'll give them a little taste of their own medicine.
- 41:04Speaker 1: At least one prominent Republican is getting frustrated by this
- 41:06Speaker 1: lack of a clear plan. Here's Marjorie Taylor Greene on
- 41:09Speaker 1: CNN on Thursday morning.
- 41:11Speaker 5: So you're putting the blame on the leadership of your party?
- 41:13Speaker 3: Absolutely.
- 41:14Speaker 9: We control the House. We control the Senate. We have
- 41:17Speaker 9: the White House. When it comes to hearing from senior
- 41:20Speaker 9: citizens or my own friends and neighbors and my own
- 41:23Speaker 9: family members and people that voted for me, and they're
- 41:27Speaker 9: just saying, Marjorie, we just really want somebody to do
- 41:30Speaker 9: something about health insurance premiums. I don't think it's good
- 41:33Speaker 9: advice that a government shutdown is going to help Republicans
- 41:36Speaker 9: in the midterms. I don't agree with that. I also
- 41:39Speaker 9: don't think it's good advice that Republicans ignoring the health
- 41:42Speaker 9: insurance crisis is going to be good for midterms. I
- 41:45Speaker 9: actually think that would be very bad for midterms.
- 41:47Speaker 4: Yeah, and on that note, are you concerned about the
- 41:50Speaker 4: cost of living?
- 41:52Speaker 9: Very.
- 41:52Speaker 5: That President Trump said he would lower?
- 41:55Speaker 9: Inflation crushed people in the past four and a half years,
- 41:58Speaker 9: and the costs have not come down.
- 42:01Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene, welcome to the resistance.
- 42:04Speaker 5: It's like, what is happening?
- 42:06Speaker 1: What a world.
- 42:07Speaker 5: That was an out-of-body experience to watch that.
- 42:09Speaker 1: From Jewish space lasers to that?
- 42:11Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, she used to run around the hall
- 42:13Speaker 5: screaming at Sandy Hook victims, and now she is just
- 42:18Speaker 5: talking about the cost of living.
- 42:19Speaker 1: Someone tweeted, it's just wild seeing her sitting on a
- 42:23Speaker 1: CNN set like this. Like an animal who learned to
- 42:28Speaker 1: use a knife and a fork.
- 42:29Speaker 2: Yes.
- 42:33Speaker 1: She's just sitting there all nice with Wolf Blitzer. What?
- 42:36Speaker 5: Just being friendly. I mean, it's truly something.
- 42:40Speaker 1: So that's cool, I guess.
- 42:42Speaker 3: Yeah. Right?
- 42:43Speaker 1: What does it say? We're about to play another clip.
- 42:45Speaker 1: But like, what does it say that you've got Marjorie
- 42:47Speaker 1: Taylor Greene now pushing for Republicans to make a deal
- 42:51Speaker 1: to extend the ACA subsidies? And then someone who's like
- 42:54Speaker 1: a frontliner in a vulnerable seat, Mike Lawler, who's just like,
- 42:58Speaker 1: you know, yelling at Hakeem Jeffries. Like, what is going on?
- 43:03Speaker 5: I think it's notable that the 10 incumbent House Republicans
- 43:08Speaker 5: in toss-up races are to the right of Marjorie Taylor
- 43:12Speaker 5: Greene on health care.
- 43:13Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 43:13Speaker 5: The politics of these Obamacare tax credits are abysmal for Republicans. Abysmal.
- 43:19Speaker 1: Right.
- 43:19Speaker 5: So you have the Kaiser Family Foundation poll, which shows
- 43:21Speaker 5: that 78% of people want them extended. That includes, and
- 43:25Speaker 5: this is like a truly stunning number, 57% of self-identified
- 43:30Speaker 5: MAGA supporters want them extended.
- 43:32Speaker 6: 57%.
- 43:34Speaker 5: And it's pretty interesting as to why. Because if you
- 43:37Speaker 5: look at.
- 43:37Speaker 1: The- Isn't like three quarters of the premium increases are
- 43:40Speaker 1: going to hit red states?
- 43:41Speaker 5: Well, yes. Because so the Kaiser Family Foundation has been
- 43:43Speaker 5: tracking Obamacare approval since the law passed. And it's never
- 43:47Speaker 5: been more popular. Nearly 2,000 Americans now support it. What's
- 43:50Speaker 5: interesting is that disapproval among Republicans has come down pretty
- 43:54Speaker 5: sharply by about 10 points in the last four years.
- 43:56Speaker 5: And that lines up pretty closely with the passage of
- 43:59Speaker 5: the enhanced premiums in 2021. And the reason why those
- 44:02Speaker 5: two things are probably connected is because if you live
- 44:06Speaker 5: in a state that did not expand Medicaid, you're going
- 44:09Speaker 5: to be more likely to be eligible for these tax credits.
- 44:13Speaker 5: And so there's been a huge increase in Obamacare enrollment
- 44:16Speaker 5: since the passage of these enhanced tax credits. Most of
- 44:20Speaker 5: that is in red states. Right now, 10% of the
- 44:24Speaker 5: population in Texas and Florida is on the Affordable Care Act.
- 44:27Speaker 5: And so- any of these tax credits will cause a
- 44:29Speaker 5: massive premium spike that is going to disproportionately hit Republicans
- 44:32Speaker 5: in Republican states. Somehow, Marjorie Taylor Greene is the only
- 44:35Speaker 5: Republican who gets that because Georgia is a confusing case
- 44:39Speaker 5: because they partially expanded Medicaid, but there is a disproportionate
- 44:42Speaker 5: number of people who have signed up for the Obamacare
- 44:46Speaker 5: since the tax credits in Georgia too. So her constituents
- 44:48Speaker 5: will be hit by this.
- 44:50Speaker 1: Do you think that other House Republicans are just they
- 44:54Speaker 1: feel like Marjorie Taylor greenfields, but they just don't want
- 44:56Speaker 1: to say anything. Cause they are either thinking that there
- 45:00Speaker 1: will be a deal at some point or have like
- 45:04Speaker 1: promised Mike Johnson that they wouldn't cause trouble and that
- 45:06Speaker 1: they'd all stay strong and, and, and stay quiet for
- 45:09Speaker 1: a while.
- 45:10Speaker 5: I mean, there must be some, right.
- 45:11Speaker 1: There has to be, it has to be like, not
- 45:14Speaker 1: because like they're, you don't have to guess their motivations, but, um,
- 45:18Speaker 1: they know how to read polls.
- 45:21Speaker 5: I mean, you, Well, we've talked about the poll from
- 45:24Speaker 5: Tony Fabrizio, Trump's pollster, which showed a massive swing in
- 45:27Speaker 5: the generic ballot if the Republicans let these tax credits expire.
- 45:30Speaker 5: So there have to be a bunch of people who
- 45:32Speaker 5: think that, right? There are some of them who are
- 45:34Speaker 5: coming up with like fig leaf solutions to try to
- 45:36Speaker 5: say they're for something without actually being for something. So
- 45:39Speaker 5: there are people who want it. Now, there's a huge
- 45:41Speaker 5: part of his caucus who are in safe seats, who
- 45:44Speaker 5: do not care about anything other than owning the libs
- 45:47Speaker 5: and will let these things expire, whether they're can actually
- 45:49Speaker 5: get a deal that can pass the House is an
- 45:51Speaker 5: interesting question, but there are definitely people who agree with her.
- 45:53Speaker 5: And the question is, will Marjorie Taylor Greene, Marjorie Taylor
- 45:55Speaker 5: Greene is probably not the best person to create a
- 45:57Speaker 5: permission structure for other people, because I think most Republicans
- 46:01Speaker 5: hate her too, but it does give some space or
- 46:04Speaker 5: room for someone else to come out.
- 46:07Speaker 1: I imagine that to get a deal to pass the House,
- 46:10Speaker 1: you would need mostly Democratic votes, Yeah.
- 46:14Speaker 5: I mean, essentially.
- 46:15Speaker 1: Right? I mean, you're not going to– he's not going
- 46:17Speaker 1: to get most of his caucus on board. He's not
- 46:18Speaker 1: going to get a majority of his caucus on board.
- 46:20Speaker 5: But would Johnson put a bill on the floor that
- 46:23Speaker 5: violates the Hastert rule is the question. The Hastert rule
- 46:25Speaker 5: being the rule named after the former Speaker of the
- 46:29Speaker 5: House in prison for pedophilia.
- 46:32Speaker 1: Which is now an issue that Republicans are once again
- 46:35Speaker 1: on the wrong side of.
- 46:36Speaker 5: Yeah. It all comes together.
- 46:38Speaker 1: It all comes once again.
- 46:39Speaker 5: But that rule says that you can't– you cannot bring
- 46:41Speaker 5: a bill to the floor that doesn't have a majority
- 46:43Speaker 5: of the majority.
- 46:45Speaker 1: Interesting. So let's talk about how this might end. Furloughed
- 46:49Speaker 1: workers are going to start missing paychecks on Friday. Troops
- 46:53Speaker 1: are going to start missing paychecks this Wednesday, the 15th.
- 46:56Speaker 1: There's some reporting that that will ultimately get a gang together,
- 47:01Speaker 1: bipartisan gang, to figure this all out. Though there's also
- 47:05Speaker 1: some reporting that even after the missed paychecks, Democrats are
- 47:08Speaker 1: planning to stand firm. How are you feeling about this?
- 47:11Speaker 1: How do you think this shakes out?
- 47:13Speaker 5: I think that's I really have no idea. But I
- 47:16Speaker 5: think the shutdown probably either comes to some sort of
- 47:18Speaker 5: temporary end next week, or it's around for months, potentially.
- 47:24Speaker 1: Wow. You think it's possible to do months, huh?
- 47:26Speaker 5: Well, it's really hard to see what the thing that
- 47:30Speaker 5: ends it is. Now, Thune floated today an idea that
- 47:35Speaker 5: we'd open the government with a guaranteed vote on these
- 47:39Speaker 5: tax credits at some point. Gallego, I think, just happened
- 47:43Speaker 5: to be walking by reporters at the time this came up,
- 47:45Speaker 5: and he said he would be open to that idea
- 47:47Speaker 5: depending on the time, because he wants to make sure
- 47:49Speaker 5: that the vote happens, like the vote and the temporary
- 47:54Speaker 5: funding bill line up so the Democrats could walk away
- 47:57Speaker 5: again if the Republicans didn't fulfill their end of it
- 48:00Speaker 5: or whatever else.
- 48:01Speaker 1: Right. Because just to remind people again, this is about
- 48:04Speaker 1: a seven-day CR, right?
- 48:05Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 48:07Speaker 1: That we're fighting over. So you could say, I was wondering,
- 48:11Speaker 1: apparently Gallego had said this before, something like this before,
- 48:13Speaker 1: and there have been no takers. But it does seem
- 48:16Speaker 1: like a way for everyone to save face where Republicans
- 48:21Speaker 1: can say, okay, well, we didn't negotiate while the government
- 48:23Speaker 1: was closed. And we just said we'd work with them
- 48:26Speaker 1: and promise a vote. And then they do the vote.
- 48:28Speaker 1: And then if Republicans don't provide the votes to extend
- 48:32Speaker 1: the tax credit, then... the CR only lasts a week
- 48:36Speaker 1: and then we're just back into the shutdown.
- 48:38Speaker 5: You could do that to get troops paid. The other
- 48:40Speaker 5: thing that could happen is in a normal world where
- 48:43Speaker 5: the Republicans were not staying out of Washington to avoid
- 48:47Speaker 5: voting on the Epstein files, the House would come in,
- 48:50Speaker 5: would today be voting on a bill to fund the troops.
- 48:53Speaker 5: This happens every single time. And then Democrats have to
- 48:55Speaker 5: make a decision, which is, do they vote for that
- 48:58Speaker 5: and essentially give up some leverage in the shutdown or
- 49:01Speaker 5: but also then take on the political pain of denying
- 49:03Speaker 5: pay to the troops. But they can't do that because
- 49:06Speaker 5: Mike Johnson won't bring the house back.
- 49:16Speaker 1: Positive America is brought to you by Armra. Why are
- 49:19Speaker 1: elite athletes business moguls, and high performers using Armra Colostrum?
- 49:23Speaker 1: Armra Colostrum is nature's first whole food with over 400
- 49:26Speaker 1: bioactive ingredients working at the cellular level to build lean muscle,
- 49:30Speaker 1: accelerate recovery, and fuel performance, all without artificial stimulants or
- 49:34Speaker 1: synthetic junk. Whether you're running a business, training hard, or
- 49:37Speaker 1: just want an edge, Armra optimizes your body for peak output.
- 49:41Speaker 1: Probiotics and other supplements are touted as a gut health solution,
- 49:43Speaker 1: but most products on the market are dead before they
- 49:45Speaker 1: even reach your gut. Armra Colostrum naturally fortifies your entire
- 49:49Speaker 1: gut wall system and optimizes your whole body microbiome, which
- 49:51Speaker 1: helps guard against irritants that can trigger digestive issues and
- 49:54Speaker 1: compromise your immune system. Research has shown that Colostrum also
- 49:58Speaker 1: helps to enhance nutrient absorption. Let Armra Colostrum help you
- 50:01Speaker 1: reach your goals by promoting lean muscle building and fueling
- 50:03Speaker 1: better performance and faster recovery. Colostrum bioactives have also been
- 50:06Speaker 1: shown to reactivate hair follicle stem cells and activate collagen production,
- 50:10Speaker 1: promoting hair growth and enhancing skin radiance.
- 50:12Speaker 4: You know, John, I have a friend who has small
- 50:14Speaker 4: kids and he was getting sick all the time. And
- 50:16Speaker 4: he started taking Armra colostrum and he said he's like
- 50:19Speaker 4: not gotten sick since.
- 50:20Speaker 3: Really?
- 50:20Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like miraculous for this person. Also, he said
- 50:23Speaker 4: taking the Armra is much easier than sucking on an
- 50:26Speaker 4: actual cow teat.
- 50:28Speaker 1: That's true. In terms of your health. Well, you do
- 50:30Speaker 1: get it right from the source.
- 50:30Speaker 4: Well, you get trampled. That's the problem.
- 50:32Speaker 1: Yes. We've worked out a special offer for our audience.
- 50:35Speaker 1: Receive 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armra.com
- 50:39Speaker 1: slash crooked or enter crooked to get 30% off your
- 50:41Speaker 1: first subscription order. That's armra.com slash crooked. Well, let's talk
- 50:50Speaker 1: about how, in case this drags on for quite a while,
- 50:53Speaker 1: let's talk about how Democrats are handling the messaging. There
- 50:56Speaker 1: have been plenty of of standard videos and press conferences
- 51:00Speaker 1: of varying quality, but we should note that they are
- 51:03Speaker 1: getting quite a bit of views, quite a bit of
- 51:05Speaker 1: traction on social media. I think Peter Hamby at Puck
- 51:09Speaker 1: had a piece about, and the firm Resonate tracks this,
- 51:13Speaker 1: that for once, a lot of the democratic created content,
- 51:18Speaker 1: whether by politicians or influencers or groups or whatever, is
- 51:22Speaker 1: just outperforming A lot of the Republican content on social
- 51:26Speaker 1: media and has actually shut down content has gone quite far.
- 51:29Speaker 1: So that's good. Democrats also seem to be having real
- 51:32Speaker 1: luck taking the fight to Republicans in these ambush moments,
- 51:35Speaker 1: I guess is what we're calling them now, that have
- 51:38Speaker 1: been happening in the Capitol. In one of them, New
- 51:40Speaker 1: York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler confronted Akeem Jeffries about extending
- 51:43Speaker 1: the ACA subsidies. And in another, Arizona Democratic Senators Mark
- 51:47Speaker 1: Kelly and Ruben Gallego held a press conference outside Mike
- 51:50Speaker 1: Johnson's office to pressure him to swear in newly elected
- 51:53Speaker 1: Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva from their state, and Johnson walked into
- 51:58Speaker 1: the middle of the press conference. Here's a taste of
- 52:00Speaker 1: how both of those exchanges went.
- 52:02Speaker 3: Did you get permission from your boss?
- 52:04Speaker 2: Did your boss Donald Trump?
- 52:06Speaker 5: Did your boss Donald Trump give you permission?
- 52:08Speaker 7: Yes, he is.
- 52:09Speaker 8: You're chasing a cloud.
- 52:10Speaker 3: You're an embarrassment.
- 52:12Speaker 5: You're not going to talk to me and talk over
- 52:15Speaker 5: me because you don't want to hear what I have
- 52:16Speaker 5: to say.
- 52:17Speaker 3: So why don't you just keep your mouth shut?
- 52:19Speaker 8: Because you showed up, you showed up, you showed up,
- 52:23Speaker 8: and so you voted for For this one.
- 52:25Speaker 3: Big, ugly bill.
- 52:27Speaker 8: A permanent extension of massive tax breaks for your billionaire donors.
- 52:34Speaker 3: Let's be clear.
- 52:35Speaker 8: The reason Adelita Grijalva is not here is because Mike
- 52:38Speaker 8: Johnson wants to do two things. Number one, cover up
- 52:40Speaker 8: for pedophiles on the Epstein list. And number two, put
- 52:44Speaker 8: his members in a really rough position when it comes
- 52:47Speaker 8: to voting for and extending these ACA tax credits. This
- 52:51Speaker 8: is an excuse so she doesn't sign on to that.
- 52:53Speaker 3: This is absurd.
- 52:54Speaker 8: This is the longest time the.
- 52:55Speaker 1: House has been out of session.
- 52:55Speaker 5: Do you want me to answer the question?
- 52:56Speaker 8: Because you're not actually answering the question.
- 52:58Speaker 5: I'm not blocking her.
- 52:59Speaker 3: I just told you.
- 53:00Speaker 8: This is the longest time that the House has been
- 53:03Speaker 8: out of session that's not in a regular August session.
- 53:06Speaker 8: This is the longest time it's taken for someone to
- 53:07Speaker 8: be sworn in. And it all has to coincide with
- 53:09Speaker 8: the fact that she's going to be the deciding vote.
- 53:12Speaker 1: Wow. That's democracy for you right there. What do you think?
- 53:17Speaker 1: What do you think of how the whole– all the
- 53:18Speaker 1: messaging is going right now?
- 53:20Speaker 5: I think that we should give Democrats credit here because
- 53:26Speaker 5: they have done better than at any point– in a
- 53:30Speaker 5: couple of years now actually at actually communicating the message,
- 53:33Speaker 5: thinking about how to get their message out, playing the
- 53:37Speaker 5: games of the attention economy. And like I think it's good.
- 53:41Speaker 5: Like is it perfect? Of course not. Are some of
- 53:42Speaker 5: these scenes like really cringy and painful to watch? Absolutely not.
- 53:46Speaker 5: But they have done much better and we should give
- 53:47Speaker 5: them credit for it.
- 53:49Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
- 53:50Speaker 1: I agree. I think it's the right, look, it is
- 53:54Speaker 1: good that they made this about healthcare. As you know,
- 53:56Speaker 1: I think they should have made it about more. They
- 53:59Speaker 1: still should. But it is clear that healthcare is, you know,
- 54:03Speaker 1: they are right on both the substance and the politics
- 54:06Speaker 1: here in healthcare. I guess what I hadn't anticipated is
- 54:09Speaker 1: the notices that are coming out from the insurance companies
- 54:12Speaker 1: that are going to let people know that their premiums
- 54:13Speaker 1: are going up are a forcing mechanism that I hadn't
- 54:19Speaker 1: anticipated would be as powerful as it is.
- 54:21Speaker 3: Right.
- 54:21Speaker 1: Because I do think that without that, like if they
- 54:23Speaker 1: were just arguing about reversing Medicaid cuts that aren't going
- 54:26Speaker 1: to take effect for a couple of years, I don't
- 54:29Speaker 1: know that, uh, the fight would be as clearly defined
- 54:34Speaker 1: as it is right now. I think, and I think that,
- 54:36Speaker 1: I think what's making Republicans nervous is those notices as
- 54:39Speaker 1: well too, because this is something that they're going to
- 54:41Speaker 1: have to deal with very soon. And so it's more
- 54:43Speaker 1: of a cliff than, um, another fight over healthcare might've been. Yeah.
- 54:48Speaker 5: This is the, they were right to pick this, make
- 54:51Speaker 5: this the fight to pick, I think. I mean, there's
- 54:53Speaker 5: a world where possibly they could have stitched together the
- 54:56Speaker 5: larger argument you wanted people to make, but I don't
- 54:58Speaker 5: think in this political environment with this caucus in this
- 55:01Speaker 5: media environment, they could have pulled that off. And there
- 55:02Speaker 5: was real advantage in having something simple. I actually wish
- 55:05Speaker 5: they would ditch all the talk about the big ugly bill,
- 55:06Speaker 5: the Medicaid cuts and focus only on this because it's
- 55:10Speaker 5: a one thing.
- 55:11Speaker 1: They got you calling it the big ugly bill, huh?
- 55:13Speaker 1: How did it get to you?
- 55:14Speaker 5: Because you just need to listen to that clip. It's
- 55:16Speaker 5: funny because I've actually been part of presentations where the
- 55:19Speaker 5: argument is you should just– there's been this huge debate
- 55:21Speaker 5: within the party about what you call it, right? Do
- 55:23Speaker 5: you call it the big beautiful bill? Do you call
- 55:26Speaker 5: it the big ugly bill? Do you call it the
- 55:28Speaker 5: Republican budget plan or whatever else? And then one of
- 55:31Speaker 5: the real arguments is you just use the same language
- 55:32Speaker 5: that they use so that you're fighting on the same
- 55:33Speaker 5: territory and voters know you're talking about the same thing.
- 55:36Speaker 5: And so I've been an advocate for using the big
- 55:37Speaker 5: beautiful bill. So I just fucked up is what I'm saying.
- 55:43Speaker 1: What do you think would be happening right now if
- 55:46Speaker 1: Democrats said, we are not going to vote to fund
- 55:48Speaker 1: the government unless we make sure that ICE, federal agents,
- 55:55Speaker 1: cannot raid people's homes without a warrant, that they cannot
- 56:00Speaker 1: hold American citizens and legal residents for more than two hours,
- 56:05Speaker 1: that they cannot use military tactics and military weapons to
- 56:09Speaker 1: invade communities in Blackhawk helicopters, just like basic constitutional rights
- 56:15Speaker 1: due process, no unreasonable search and seizure, focused on American citizens,
- 56:21Speaker 1: legal residents, and all of these videos are out there
- 56:25Speaker 1: that have gone probably more viral than the healthcare stuff.
- 56:30Speaker 1: Of course, of course. And I'm just like, what do you,
- 56:32Speaker 1: because I genuinely don't know, but what do you think
- 56:36Speaker 1: would happen?
- 56:37Speaker 5: I think the challenge of that approach is twofold. One is,
- 56:42Speaker 5: Can you keep a caucus that spans from Jared Golden
- 56:45Speaker 5: to AOC on board for that? Probably not.
- 56:47Speaker 3: Because you have to. Right.
- 56:48Speaker 5: That's one. Two is what you– this is a legislative fight.
- 56:53Speaker 5: And you need a legislative solution to a legislative fight.
- 56:55Speaker 5: So what– and I spend a lot of time thinking
- 56:58Speaker 5: about this. I talk to some people about how you
- 56:59Speaker 5: would possibly construct this. Like let's say you wanted to–
- 57:01Speaker 5: you're going to demand that funding can't go to some
- 57:05Speaker 5: of these activities. It's a very hard thing to police.
- 57:07Speaker 5: Like you– You really need a specific, I think in
- 57:10Speaker 5: a shutdown fight, a specific legislative vehicle to solve the
- 57:14Speaker 5: problem you want solved, right? Whether that is cut Medicaid
- 57:18Speaker 5: like Newt Gingrich wanted, fund a wall like Trump wanted,
- 57:20Speaker 5: defund Obamacare like Ted Cruz wanted, or extend these tax
- 57:24Speaker 5: cuts like Democrats want.
- 57:26Speaker 1: I mean, you could just say ICE loses the extra
- 57:30Speaker 1: funding it got in Trump's budget bill.
- 57:33Speaker 5: I think that that's a fight you're not going to win, unfortunately.
- 57:36Speaker 5: And so you're going to have two choices. The government
- 57:38Speaker 5: stays closed forever, which eventually will blow back on Democrats,
- 57:42Speaker 5: I imagine, or you're going to reopen the government by
- 57:45Speaker 5: having gotten nothing.
- 57:47Speaker 1: Here's my other question. If we win this fight and
- 57:52Speaker 1: get the health care, the Affordable Care Act subsidies extended,
- 57:57Speaker 1: do you think there is a political benefit for Democrats
- 58:02Speaker 1: in the midterms? or even leading up to the midterms?
- 58:05Speaker 5: I think that people are thinking about the political benefit
- 58:08Speaker 5: of this in a very simplistic, one-dimensional way. What Democrats
- 58:12Speaker 5: needed to do here was to show that they had
- 58:15Speaker 5: the strength to fight to lower costs for people. And
- 58:18Speaker 5: so if we can actually do that and achieve it
- 58:20Speaker 5: in a moment where people are paying attention, and not
- 58:22Speaker 5: enough people are paying attention yet, to be clear, but
- 58:25Speaker 5: this is a moment where we actually have a chance
- 58:27Speaker 5: to look strong and look like we are fighting for
- 58:30Speaker 5: people on an issue that nearly 80% of the country wants.
- 58:33Speaker 5: And I think that can have benefits on how people
- 58:35Speaker 5: see Democrats. Because the problem we have here is, if
- 58:38Speaker 5: you want to understand the difference between 2018 and 2026
- 58:39Speaker 5: right now, is that Trump is just as unpopular as
- 58:44Speaker 5: he was at this point in 2017. He is doing
- 58:48Speaker 5: more unpopular stuff, frankly, now than he was doing then.
- 58:52Speaker 5: He was above water in the economy back then. He's
- 58:54Speaker 5: really far underwater in the economy right now. But the
- 58:56Speaker 5: reason why the generic ballot was Democrats plus seven then
- 58:59Speaker 5: and Democrats plus three now is because people don't trust
- 59:02Speaker 5: us to be an alternative. And so the political benefit here,
- 59:07Speaker 5: if we can pull it off, is that people have
- 59:10Speaker 5: a better trust in us to be someone who can
- 59:12Speaker 5: fight for them.
- 59:13Speaker 1: And when you say people, do you think it helps
- 59:16Speaker 1: with our voters, like people who are already Democrats who
- 59:18Speaker 1: are just pissed at the Democratic Party? Because we know
- 59:23Speaker 1: that most of the people who are actually going to
- 59:24Speaker 1: be helped by this are Trump voters, or at least... 75%, right?
- 59:30Speaker 1: And I don't think that they're going to change their
- 59:33Speaker 1: opinion of Democrats, even though they got helped by premium increases,
- 59:37Speaker 1: though I hope so. Maybe a few will. Maybe it's
- 59:39Speaker 1: independents who are just looking for a party that actually
- 59:42Speaker 1: is going to fight for something they care about.
- 59:44Speaker 5: I think it's a couple of different audiences. But one,
- 59:47Speaker 5: this is probably not super connected to how we would
- 59:49Speaker 5: do in the midterms, but it has a real chance
- 59:50Speaker 5: of improving the Democratic Party's approval rating because more Democrats
- 59:53Speaker 5: might like the Democratic Party, which would just be nice.
- 59:56Speaker 5: We can spend less time talking about our brand crisis
- 59:57Speaker 5: all the time. But the people who you were looking
- 1:00:01Speaker 5: to see that are the Biden-Trump voters. You were looking
- 1:00:06Speaker 5: at the younger voters who supported Trump, whose approval rating
- 1:00:11Speaker 5: of him has dropped significantly. You're looking at Latino voters
- 1:00:14Speaker 5: whose approval rating of Trump has dropped significantly since 2024.
- 1:00:17Speaker 5: And you're looking at a wider swath of working class
- 1:00:21Speaker 5: non-white voters. All the groups that Trump made gains with,
- 1:00:25Speaker 5: many of whom voted for Biden in 2020. And even
- 1:00:28Speaker 5: if they didn't vote in 2020, probably would have picked
- 1:00:30Speaker 5: Biden if they had. Those are the voters that we
- 1:00:33Speaker 5: have a chance to make inroads with. And that's who
- 1:00:35Speaker 5: we need to sell ourselves to. I don't also think
- 1:00:38Speaker 5: it's like, it's not as specific as these, there are
- 1:00:42Speaker 5: 15 million people who use these tax credits. 7 million
- 1:00:45Speaker 5: of them are Democrats and 8 million are Republicans or
- 1:00:48Speaker 5: 5 million are Democrats, and we're going to get those
- 1:00:50Speaker 5: 5 million. No, I think it's more people are seeing
- 1:00:53Speaker 5: us fight for something. And health care premiums are so
- 1:00:55Speaker 5: confusing anyway that just being seen as the people fighting
- 1:00:58Speaker 5: to lower them and Republicans being either opposing lowering them
- 1:01:03Speaker 5: or being dragged to lowering them is helpful to us.
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: Do you think we'll be able to run on this
- 1:01:10Speaker 1: in the midterms?
- 1:01:11Speaker 5: I think we will be able to, I think we
- 1:01:13Speaker 5: will have to run on a lot of things. One
- 1:01:15Speaker 5: of those things is the people who can actually address
- 1:01:18Speaker 5: inflation and high prices. And this is a data point
- 1:01:20Speaker 5: in that case. I don't think that we fought for it.
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: We did something.
- 1:01:24Speaker 5: We did it or we fought for it. Either we
- 1:01:27Speaker 5: did it or they jacked your premiums up. Those are
- 1:01:31Speaker 5: the two options here. And it's like a data point
- 1:01:33Speaker 5: in that larger argument. Do I think what happens in
- 1:01:35Speaker 5: October of 2025 is going to be top of mind
- 1:01:37Speaker 5: in November of 2026? Probably not. Although I will say
- 1:01:43Speaker 5: it was much earlier in the year when Trump tried
- 1:01:46Speaker 5: to repeal the ACA in 2017. And that was still
- 1:01:49Speaker 5: pretty resonant when people went to vote in 2018.
- 1:01:53Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: I do think that even if this is about making
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: the Democrats in Congress who took part in this feel
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: confident that they can fight and that fighting is a
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: good thing and that taking a risk is a good thing,
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: then that's positive. Good for them that they got positive
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: reinforcement for taking that risk.
- 1:02:14Speaker 5: I mean, this is sort of small ball part of it,
- 1:02:16Speaker 5: but you'll remember this from having been in the Senate
- 1:02:18Speaker 5: at the time. But the Democrats were a fucking mess
- 1:02:22Speaker 5: after the 2004 election. And one of the things that
- 1:02:24Speaker 5: actually taught Democrats how to fight back against Bush was
- 1:02:27Speaker 5: the fight to defeat social security privatization. This is akin
- 1:02:30Speaker 5: to that. It created unity in the party. It reminded
- 1:02:33Speaker 5: the base that we can fight. It reminded Democrats in
- 1:02:35Speaker 5: Congress they could fight And I think this has the
- 1:02:38Speaker 5: potential to have a similar effect.
- 1:02:40Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: I'm shocked that Republicans have not looked to make a
- 1:02:45Speaker 1: deal and get out of this at this point.
- 1:02:47Speaker 5: Well, it's hard because Trump doesn't understand the issue. And so, like,
- 1:02:50Speaker 5: that's the forcing mechanism here.
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: But he's probably the one with the best politics on
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: this internally. He's got, like, an instinct that because he's, like,
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: accidentally saying, yeah, I want to do a deal on
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: health care. And then he has to walk it back
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: and all that kind of shit. But, like, he doesn't
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: want this issue on the table.
- 1:03:05Speaker 5: I would imagine not.
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: And I can't imagine that Republicans in the House and
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: Senate who are trying to keep the House and Senate
- 1:03:14Speaker 1: want this on the table. And so it's like if
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: I'm a Republican or Republican strategist, like I look for
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: a way that it doesn't look like I lost and
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: just gave in to the Democrats, but that we can
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: take the issue off the table and extend the fucking
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: subsidies if I'm looking at the polling and want to
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: win the midterms.
- 1:03:30Speaker 5: One of the things that's keeping a deal from getting
- 1:03:32Speaker 5: done is the lack of vulnerable incumbents in either party.
- 1:03:37Speaker 5: basically you have Susan Collins.
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: Right, who's looking for a deal.
- 1:03:41Speaker 5: Looking for a deal. John Ossoff, who's not looking for
- 1:03:43Speaker 5: a deal. Because you remember what ended the Waffle House
- 1:03:47Speaker 5: shutdown of 2018 was Claire McCaskill, Joe Manchin, all these
- 1:03:52Speaker 5: people were up in 2018 in red states were like,
- 1:03:54Speaker 5: get me the fuck out of this. There's just no
- 1:03:56Speaker 5: one in that situation because the other Senate races don't
- 1:03:59Speaker 5: have incumbents, right? North Carolina, Iowa, Texas, you have an incumbent,
- 1:04:03Speaker 5: but that incumbent's in the middle of a primary where
- 1:04:05Speaker 5: they're basically trying to see who could be the bigger
- 1:04:08Speaker 5: fascists right now. So that person's not going to cut
- 1:04:10Speaker 5: an Affordable Care Act deal. And so that's why it's
- 1:04:13Speaker 5: hard to get a gang together because you don't have
- 1:04:14Speaker 5: people whose own political immediate self-interest is affected by this.
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: Yeah, it's wild.
- 1:04:19Speaker 7: All right.
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: We want to spend just a bit of time on
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: the good news that's being celebrated literally around the world.
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: Hopefully you've listened to Tommy and Ben on this already,
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: but on Wednesday evening, Hamas accepted the first phase of
- 1:04:29Speaker 1: the Gaza peace plan brokered by the Trump team. As
- 1:04:32Speaker 1: of this recording, Israel's government was doing the same If
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: that happens, the IDF will pull back to a first
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: designated perimeter and Hamas will release the remaining hostages, which
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: Trump says could happen as early as Monday or maybe Tuesday.
- 1:04:47Speaker 1: He also said he'll be traveling to Israel in the
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: coming days and that he'll meet with hostages once they return.
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: What do you think? What do you think? How about this?
- 1:04:58Speaker 5: I think, as you mentioned, there's a lot further to
- 1:05:00Speaker 5: do here, right? This is just the beginning of a process.
- 1:05:02Speaker 5: But if this means that the hostages are released... If
- 1:05:05Speaker 5: it means that Palestinian political prisoners are released, if it
- 1:05:09Speaker 5: means that the genocide pauses, if it means that more
- 1:05:14Speaker 5: aid gets into Gaza, then this is a great thing
- 1:05:17Speaker 5: and that everyone involved, we should be grateful to the
- 1:05:19Speaker 5: people involved who got this done, even if that means
- 1:05:21Speaker 5: Donald Trump.
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible news. The hostages can come home. And
- 1:05:26Speaker 1: it's also incredible news if like just, I mean, it's
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: a pause to all hostilities, right? Yeah. the bombing.
- 1:05:33Speaker 5: And that's why I said, that's why I said, pause,
- 1:05:34Speaker 5: not stop.
- 1:05:36Speaker 1: That's the big question because, you know, releasing the hostages that,
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: you know, that they don't really have any more leverage anymore. And,
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: you know, you hope that Israel and Bibi Netanyahu keeps
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: their end of the deal here and does not resume hostilities.
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: And you hope that Hamas does not resume hostilities as well.
- 1:05:57Speaker 3: Right.
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: And, Um, but the idea that you could stop the killing,
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: stop the slaughter and stop the starvation and that aid
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: could come back in because that's part of the deal too,
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: that immediately aid is rushed in with, you know, no
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: limits like it was before. Um, it'd be huge. It
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: would be huge. This is a, this is a smaller thing,
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: maybe a little picky, but, um, how are you feeling
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: about reading all the tributes to, uh, not just Trump,
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: but Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, the real estate team from
- 1:06:26Speaker 1: New York got it done.
- 1:06:29Speaker 5: I'll tell you, John, I read that story about Kushner,
- 1:06:34Speaker 5: where he just talked about how he's a deal guy.
- 1:06:36Speaker 5: And this is actually Middle East people a lot like
- 1:06:37Speaker 5: doing real estate deals. And that's why he and Wyckoff
- 1:06:39Speaker 5: could get it done. And it got about two thirds
- 1:06:42Speaker 5: of the way through it. I decided to do something fun,
- 1:06:44Speaker 5: which is send it to Tommy and Ben and see
- 1:06:46Speaker 5: how they'd react to it.
- 1:06:47Speaker 1: That's what I've been doing is because it's making me mad.
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: And so I'm like, I can't imagine how it's, well,
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: I can now because Tommy all day is just like,
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: what the fuck?
- 1:06:56Speaker 3: Yes.
- 1:06:58Speaker 5: And so I've decided to stop reading them. Decided I
- 1:07:00Speaker 5: can take a pause. I don't need this.
- 1:07:02Speaker 1: But it's also, and Tommy and Ben were saying this too, Trump,
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: and good for Trump on this, was able to put
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: pressure on Bibi.
- 1:07:10Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:07:11Speaker 7: Right?
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: Which we were told a million times that Joe Biden
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: just couldn't do and wouldn't work. All right? And Donald
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: Trump came in and he took too long to put
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: the pressure on Bibi. Way too long. And how many
- 1:07:22Speaker 1: more people fucking died over the last year? because he wasn't,
- 1:07:26Speaker 1: he didn't do what he did now and finally told BB,
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: knock it the fuck off, you know, but he did
- 1:07:31Speaker 1: and it worked.
- 1:07:32Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:07:33Speaker 1: You know, or at least we hope it works.
- 1:07:35Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:07:36Speaker 5: It is, it is an indictment of Biden's strategy for sure.
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: For sure.
- 1:07:39Speaker 7: All right.
- 1:07:40Speaker 1: How about the peace prize, peace prize, the peace prize,
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: which is they, they immediately it's, it's basically all Trump
- 1:07:48Speaker 1: cares about. And it's like, all right, if that's your
- 1:07:50Speaker 1: incentive and the incentive, which is, you know, typical narcissistic
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: incentive perverse, but if it leads to a good outcome,
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: who are we to judge?
- 1:08:01Speaker 5: I mean, we can judge.
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: We can judge, but the outcome would be good, right?
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: Not the outcome of him getting the peace prize, but
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: the outcome of the war being over. That's the good outcome.
- 1:08:10Speaker 5: And by the time you're listening to this, we'll know.
- 1:08:13Speaker 5: It'll be out. Yeah, because it gets announced tomorrow morning.
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: And what we did find out is the Guardian said that, um,
- 1:08:21Speaker 1: I think they have sources in the Nobel Prize Committee
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: saying that they picked the winner on Monday.
- 1:08:26Speaker 5: Yeah, final meeting was Monday.
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: Yeah, before this whole deal came about.
- 1:08:32Speaker 5: I'm excited for the Axios story about Trump yelling at
- 1:08:35Speaker 5: Kushner and Wyckoff for not getting this done over the
- 1:08:38Speaker 5: weekend so that he could get in before the vote.
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: I'm worried for the Norwegians.
- 1:08:44Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. As you're listening to this, one of
- 1:08:45Speaker 5: two things could be happening. Trump could have the Nobel
- 1:08:47Speaker 5: Peace Prize, or we could be at war with Norway.
- 1:08:48Speaker 5: Those are the two options.
- 1:08:50Speaker 1: Which is, again, deeply ironic that to go to war
- 1:08:54Speaker 1: with a country whose committee did not give you the
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: Peace Prize. That would be...– and if I were a Norwegian,
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: I would just– I would not get in a boat
- 1:09:03Speaker 1: around those fjords anytime soon if this doesn't go well.
- 1:09:06Speaker 5: I would just say to the Nobel Prize committee, you
- 1:09:10Speaker 5: have to keep dangling in front of him for as
- 1:09:12Speaker 5: long as possible. You want him to... Because if he
- 1:09:16Speaker 5: gets it, he's going to stop caring about peace. The
- 1:09:20Speaker 5: carrot's always going to be one foot out of his reach.
- 1:09:24Speaker 5: So he continues. We still got to deal with Russia-Ukraine.
- 1:09:27Speaker 5: There are other things in the world. Because even while
- 1:09:30Speaker 5: he was trying to get the Nobel Peace Prize, he
- 1:09:34Speaker 5: has started multiple conflicts around the world and started just
- 1:09:36Speaker 5: bombing boats everywhere. So if he doesn't have that incentive,
- 1:09:39Speaker 5: what do we think is going to happen?
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: President of peace, president of extrajudicial executions at sea.
- 1:09:46Speaker 4: Right?
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: It's just, it's the same thing.
- 1:09:49Speaker 5: Peace through war, as they always say.
- 1:09:50Speaker 1: Speaking of which, speaking of which, on Thursday afternoon, final
- 1:09:54Speaker 1: thing we'll leave you with here. On Thursday afternoon, Kristi
- 1:09:58Speaker 1: Noem tweeted out an AI parody video, all the rage
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: these days, among the Trump, in the Trump administration, of, um,
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: the Love Boat theme song featuring Trump as the captain, um,
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: tailor-made to go viral piss off libs like us and
- 1:10:17Speaker 1: uh you know what it worked here it is.
- 1:10:23Speaker 5: The drug boats, now are destroyed and our ocean shown.
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: The drug boats, perfectly blown into oblivion.
- 1:10:39Speaker 6: Why then I'm not go terror President Trump and J.D.
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: Vance.
- 1:10:47Speaker 5: America below. I mean, it's just worth pointing out in
- 1:10:57Speaker 5: this absurd time that that is a video of people
- 1:11:00Speaker 5: being killed.
- 1:11:02Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: People being murdered.
- 1:11:04Speaker 5: People being executed through with no due process, no evidence,
- 1:11:09Speaker 5: just killed. As it's set out as a joke by
- 1:11:13Speaker 5: the Secretary of Homeland Security.
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: And they are saying merely that they are narco-terrorists that
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: they killed, which... even if that's true, is not a
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: legal basis to kill people. They have not, the government
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: has not even bothered to say who they are, who
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: they were, has not even bothered to, like you said,
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: offer any evidence whatsoever, offer the identities of the people.
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: The president of Columbia this week said, actually, one of
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: the boats was a bunch of Colombian citizens in the boat.
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: And is that true? We don't know because the U.S.
- 1:11:50Speaker 1: government will not provide any information about this. They are
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: just saying, trust us, we are murdering people at sea,
- 1:11:58Speaker 1: and we're saying they're narco-terrorists, and we don't have to
- 1:12:01Speaker 1: tell you anything else. All we have to do is
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: make AI parody videos to the fucking Love Boat, which
- 1:12:08Speaker 1: is a song that is probably on Donald Trump's iPad
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: that he plays in the new Rose Garden Cafe and
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: dance hall or whatever it is. this fucking political system
- 1:12:25Speaker 1: sucks the profile the profiles have been just really really
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: bad that's all i have to say but when we
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: come back you will hear my conversation with governor jb
- 1:12:42Speaker 1: pritzker who's wonderful we love jb pritzker and we talk
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: about everything's going on in chicago before we get to
- 1:12:48Speaker 1: that two quick things A reminder that we moved CrookedCon, a.k.a.
- 1:12:54Speaker 1: Antifa HQ, to.
- 1:12:55Speaker 5: That's not funny. That's not funny. That's not funny in
- 1:12:59Speaker 5: any way, shape, or form.
- 1:13:04Speaker 1: No? To a bigger venue. A bigger venue. The Ronald
- 1:13:08Speaker 1: Reagan Building. Unlikely place for Antifa HQ, right? The place
- 1:13:13Speaker 1: you least expect. It's the Reagan Building.
- 1:13:16Speaker 4: We.
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: We need... We need some lightness. Come on. Bigger venue
- 1:13:23Speaker 1: to accommodate more speakers, more panels, more tickets. Dan and
- 1:13:27Speaker 1: I are just going to do a one-on-one panel just
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: all about the larger story we have to tell. I
- 1:13:31Speaker 1: actually think I am doing a panel on that.
- 1:13:33Speaker 5: You are doing a panel on that.
- 1:13:34Speaker 1: I am doing a panel on that. Though you and
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: I could do, we could do a whole pod on that.
- 1:13:38Speaker 5: If only we had a weekly podcast to talk about
- 1:13:39Speaker 5: it on.
- 1:13:40Speaker 3: I know.
- 1:13:40Speaker 1: We'll have to do it next time. Too much news.
- 1:13:42Speaker 1: There's also the VSA Action Hub. Dan, you haven't had
- 1:13:46Speaker 1: a chance to make a joke about the Action Hub yet.
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: Care to try?
- 1:13:50Speaker 5: No, because I applaud people trying to save our democracy.
- 1:13:53Speaker 1: Okay. All right. No action hub for you. Head to cricketcon.com
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: to grab your tickets if you haven't already. Also, Lovett's
- 1:14:02Speaker 1: got this great new limited series going in the Lovett
- 1:14:05Speaker 1: or Leave It feed. It's called Bravo America, all about
- 1:14:08Speaker 1: how reality TV explains the world we're living in, including
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: our politics. Seems a little self-serving to me. Yeah. You're
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: a Bravo guy, right?
- 1:14:18Speaker 5: I am a Bravo guy.
- 1:14:20Speaker 3: Yes.
- 1:14:20Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: So you might, you might like this. I don't, I
- 1:14:23Speaker 1: don't know some of the, any of the people, some
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: of the people, any of the people that he's interviewed.
- 1:14:27Speaker 5: He's only had one, right?
- 1:14:28Speaker 7: Right.
- 1:14:28Speaker 3: Right.
- 1:14:29Speaker 1: He, he, he gave me some other names and I,
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: I was not aware.
- 1:14:31Speaker 5: It was Terry Dubrow, um, husband of Heather Dubrow of, uh,
- 1:14:36Speaker 5: Orange County fame.
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
- 1:14:38Speaker 5: He was also a reality star on his own on
- 1:14:39Speaker 5: the TV show Botched, I think it was called. Just
- 1:14:41Speaker 5: not a show you want to see about plastic surgery
- 1:14:43Speaker 5: gone wrong.
- 1:14:45Speaker 1: Reality stars being interviewed by a reality guest star.
- 1:14:49Speaker 5: That's right. No, he's a reality star.
- 1:14:53Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:14:54Speaker 5: Yeah, briefly.
- 1:14:55Speaker 1: That's true.
- 1:14:55Speaker 3: That's briefly.
- 1:14:58Speaker 5: That's his joke. It's his own joke from his own show.
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: Yes. The series is full of great interviews and insights.
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: New episodes drop Tuesdays on the Lover to Leave It
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: feed and on YouTube. Pod Save America is brought to
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: you by Article. We love Article. We have Article furniture
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: all over this office.
- 1:15:19Speaker 3: All over this office.
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: Couch. Got some chairs. I think we got some bookcases. Yeah.
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: I have some patio furniture from Article.
- 1:15:27Speaker 4: It's really, it's super comfortable. It's good looking. It all
- 1:15:31Speaker 4: seems to match with the other stuff, even though we
- 1:15:33Speaker 4: bought it at different times.
- 1:15:34Speaker 1: It looks good.
- 1:15:35Speaker 4: And yeah, it ships really fast.
- 1:15:37Speaker 1: Article makes it effortless to create a stylish, long-lasting home
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: at an unbeatable price with a curated range of mid-century
- 1:15:42Speaker 1: modern coastal and Scandi-inspired pieces. Article products are designed to
- 1:15:46Speaker 1: shine on their own or pair seamlessly with nearly any
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: other Article product. This thoughtful design approach makes it incredibly
- 1:15:51Speaker 1: easy to mix and match, helping you create a space
- 1:15:53Speaker 1: that feels cohesive and stylish. Every item is chosen for
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: its craftsmanship, design, and lasting value. Article carefully curates its collection,
- 1:16:00Speaker 1: selecting only high-quality, meaningful, and enduring pieces. Article offers fast,
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: affordable shipping across the U.S. and Canada with options for
- 1:16:06Speaker 1: professional assembly if you prefer a hands-off experience. Have a
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: question or need help with your design choices? Article's customer
- 1:16:12Speaker 1: care team is available seven days a week, offering knowledgeable
- 1:16:14Speaker 1: support and even free interior design services to help you
- 1:16:17Speaker 1: get your home just right. With Article's 30-day satisfaction guarantee,
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: you can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: return it. This peace of mind ensures you can invest
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: in your home without hesitation. Article's offering our listeners $ 50
- 1:16:29Speaker 1: off your first purchase of $ 100 or more. To claim,
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: visit article.com slash Cricut, and the discount will be automatically
- 1:16:35Speaker 1: applied at checkout. That's article.com slash Cricut for $ 50 off
- 1:16:38Speaker 1: your first purchase of $ 100 or more. Governor Pritzker, welcome
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: back to Pod Save America.
- 1:16:46Speaker 3: Great to see you, John.
- 1:16:48Speaker 1: I'm glad to see that you're not in jail, despite
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: the president's best wishes to the contrary. He and Kristi
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: Noem were just in a cabinet meeting today. They said
- 1:16:57Speaker 1: that the reason you're pushing back on the guard deployment
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: is because you're scared and threatened by the anarchists and
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: the politics of doing the right thing. Care to respond?
- 1:17:08Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, often when the president and his minions...
- 1:17:14Speaker 3: say anything. It's really a reflection of how they're feeling.
- 1:17:18Speaker 3: They're just projecting on other people. So I would just
- 1:17:20Speaker 3: say the same right back at them. I think they're afraid.
- 1:17:24Speaker 3: And frankly, I don't think they really understand the implications
- 1:17:30Speaker 3: of what they're doing, some of them. And certainly, Kristi
- 1:17:34Speaker 3: Noem has absolutely no idea what law enforcement really means.
- 1:17:39Speaker 3: And she's the head of Homeland Security.
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: How does it feel when you see the President of
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: the United States say that you should be in jail?
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: What was your reaction to that?
- 1:17:49Speaker 3: Well, it's never happened to me before.
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: I was going to say, yeah.
- 1:17:52Speaker 3: Oh, it's a new feeling, whatever it is. Look, the
- 1:17:57Speaker 3: thing is, we've heard Donald Trump speak about things he
- 1:18:01Speaker 3: knows nothing about and often makes crazy assertions. And And
- 1:18:10Speaker 3: I mean, over time, I guess we've all become a
- 1:18:13Speaker 3: little bit deafened to, you know, the idea that he
- 1:18:18Speaker 3: actually means anything. Because from one moment to the other,
- 1:18:22Speaker 3: he says things that he will then change, you know,
- 1:18:26Speaker 3: five minutes later. He knows he's lying. So you don't
- 1:18:29Speaker 3: exactly know which one is a lie, which one is
- 1:18:31Speaker 3: a feeling, you know, which one is something he's actually
- 1:18:35Speaker 3: going to act on. So it's to my mind anyway,
- 1:18:42Speaker 3: I all I can say is the rhetoric itself is dangerous.
- 1:18:48Speaker 3: There's no basis upon which to come after me or
- 1:18:51Speaker 3: the mayor of Chicago or Gavin Newsom. I know that
- 1:18:54Speaker 3: he's talked about jailing him or any other elected officials
- 1:18:58Speaker 3: that I know of that he's mentioned that are just
- 1:19:01Speaker 3: speaking out. And look, he hates everyone on the left.
- 1:19:06Speaker 3: He hates any critic of his. and so I'm a critic.
- 1:19:12Speaker 3: I'm going to get criticism. I don't think that it's
- 1:19:15Speaker 3: going to have any real impact, and so I kind
- 1:19:19Speaker 3: of thumb my nose at the guy because I just
- 1:19:21Speaker 3: don't think that he's a serious individual. By the way,
- 1:19:25Speaker 3: the rest of the world knows that he is not
- 1:19:28Speaker 3: a serious individual. He's got a lot of power, and
- 1:19:31Speaker 3: I know that too, but But as if the guy
- 1:19:35Speaker 3: says something on a day and means it, you can't
- 1:19:38Speaker 3: take that for granted.
- 1:19:40Speaker 1: So he and Noam continue to describe Chicago as some
- 1:19:44Speaker 1: kind of a crime-ridden, lawless hellhole where brave ICE agents
- 1:19:48Speaker 1: are being assaulted by anarchists. For people who aren't in Chicago,
- 1:19:52Speaker 1: who have only seen headlines and posts here and there,
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: what's the situation on the ground right now?
- 1:19:58Speaker 3: Well, day before yesterday, Condé Nast named us the best
- 1:20:01Speaker 3: big city in America. So let's start with that.
- 1:20:04Speaker 1: I love Chicago. It was one of the best places
- 1:20:06Speaker 1: I've ever lived.
- 1:20:07Speaker 3: Thank you. And I have to say, you know, we've
- 1:20:09Speaker 3: had truly an amazing summer. And I would point out
- 1:20:14Speaker 3: we've had a greater tourism than ever before in the
- 1:20:18Speaker 3: history of Chicago and in the state of Illinois. So
- 1:20:21Speaker 3: the idea that people are, you know, continuing to come
- 1:20:24Speaker 3: to Chicago to visit us And yet somehow it's a
- 1:20:27Speaker 3: hellhole and crime ridden and, you know, people are wearing
- 1:20:30Speaker 3: flak jackets and, you know, murders are happening right and
- 1:20:34Speaker 3: left around you. It's ludicrous. And now I recognize we're
- 1:20:38Speaker 3: a big city. We've had crime in the past. I
- 1:20:41Speaker 3: think every big city's had, you know, a wave of
- 1:20:43Speaker 3: crime that they've had to deal with. But, you know,
- 1:20:46Speaker 3: four years ago to today, half the number of homicides
- 1:20:50Speaker 3: in the state of Illinois, in the city of Chicago rather,
- 1:20:53Speaker 3: The state, by the way, the state of Illinois, including
- 1:20:55Speaker 3: the city, doesn't rank in the bottom half in terms
- 1:20:59Speaker 3: of violent crime. We're 19th. I would like to be first, best, most,
- 1:21:04Speaker 3: you know, safest. That would be first. We're 19th safest. So,
- 1:21:09Speaker 3: you know, working on the rest. But the point is,
- 1:21:12Speaker 3: everything that he's saying about Chicago and Illinois is just
- 1:21:15Speaker 3: something that he's got drilled into his head from I
- 1:21:17Speaker 3: don't know when. And the man doesn't read anything. He
- 1:21:21Speaker 3: doesn't know anything except what he gets told by Stephen
- 1:21:23Speaker 3: Miller or by Kristi Noem or by I don't know
- 1:21:26Speaker 3: who in the White House who have their own designs
- 1:21:29Speaker 3: on what the world order should look like with Donald
- 1:21:33Speaker 3: Trump as their leader.
- 1:21:35Speaker 1: Well, and what is going on in Chicago and outside
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: Chicago seems to be, at least for the last several weeks,
- 1:21:42Speaker 1: if not months, ICE agents sort of terrorizing neighborhoods. It
- 1:21:47Speaker 1: seems like there's been like some protests around the Broadview
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: facility outside Chicago. And then, and now just so you know,
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: two blocks, two blocks of, of, of people protesting.
- 1:22:01Speaker 3: I'm talking about on the other side of the street
- 1:22:04Speaker 3: from the Broadview facility, two blocks of people. That's it.
- 1:22:07Speaker 3: I mean, now I will also tell you that when
- 1:22:09Speaker 3: they try to march up and down the streets, you know,
- 1:22:12Speaker 3: in their uniforms and with their automatic weapons, they, And
- 1:22:17Speaker 3: when they go into neighborhoods and try to arrest people, yeah,
- 1:22:19Speaker 3: people are yelling at them. I mean, there are instant
- 1:22:22Speaker 3: protests of just neighbors who are like, what are you doing? Like,
- 1:22:25Speaker 3: this person is my friend. He's lived here for 10 years.
- 1:22:28Speaker 3: Why are you taking him away? People are really upset
- 1:22:31Speaker 3: about this. And so there are kind of instant protests.
- 1:22:33Speaker 3: But this idea that there's some sort of like, I
- 1:22:36Speaker 3: don't know, fires or, you know, Antifa with masks on
- 1:22:41Speaker 3: or running around, just it's all so completely false. And
- 1:22:44Speaker 3: it's very upsetting to me. Sorry to interrupt you, but
- 1:22:47Speaker 3: the idea that the protests that people are talking about, yeah,
- 1:22:51Speaker 3: there are more and more people showing up because they're
- 1:22:53Speaker 3: getting more and more upset about what's happening. And ICE
- 1:22:56Speaker 3: is mistreating people, including U.S. citizens. They're running up to
- 1:23:01Speaker 3: people who are brown. You've seen the videos, but I'm
- 1:23:04Speaker 3: telling you, holding somebody who's brown and saying, like, I
- 1:23:07Speaker 3: need proof of your citizenship. John, you don't carry proof
- 1:23:10Speaker 3: of citizenship. I bet you don't.
- 1:23:12Speaker 1: No, I do not.
- 1:23:13Speaker 3: I do not. I mean, we have a driver's license.
- 1:23:14Speaker 3: That's not proof of citizenship. And we've never had to
- 1:23:18Speaker 3: do that in this country. And yet that is what
- 1:23:20Speaker 3: is now being demanded or you will be detained and
- 1:23:23Speaker 3: possibly arrested.
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: And now the guard has been deployed and he's federalized
- 1:23:29Speaker 1: the Illinois National Guard and Texas has sent 200 troops.
- 1:23:35Speaker 1: What is the status of that? I know that there
- 1:23:38Speaker 1: was a court hearing today. Yeah, probably there may be
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: a ruling by the time you're all hearing this. But
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: what's the status of the guard right now?
- 1:23:45Speaker 3: Well, I think two things. One is that they've also
- 1:23:48Speaker 3: deployed California National Guard to Illinois. That's news, by the way.
- 1:23:53Speaker 3: I don't think anybody knows that yet. There are 14
- 1:23:57Speaker 3: of them so far from California, we found out today.
- 1:24:01Speaker 3: The hearing that you're talking about has been going on
- 1:24:04Speaker 3: since earlier this afternoon. They took a little break in
- 1:24:09Speaker 3: the middle because I think that the feds needed to
- 1:24:12Speaker 3: get some information demanded by the judge. to present them,
- 1:24:15Speaker 3: but they're coming back in about an hour and a
- 1:24:19Speaker 3: half from now. And we're expecting that there will be
- 1:24:22Speaker 3: a ruling, but it's hard to tell.
- 1:24:25Speaker 1: Have you spoken to Greg Abbott at all since the
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: deployment of the Texas National Guard to Illinois?
- 1:24:32Speaker 3: No, he has not called me. And Greg Abbott, I
- 1:24:36Speaker 3: want to remind you, is the same Greg Abbott who
- 1:24:39Speaker 3: signed a letter last year to President Biden saying, do
- 1:24:43Speaker 3: not federalize our National Guard for the purposes of using
- 1:24:47Speaker 3: them with Space Force, that you should have very limited
- 1:24:51Speaker 3: authority to call our National Guard, the Texas National Guard,
- 1:24:57Speaker 3: into service for the federal government's purposes. And therefore, you know,
- 1:25:03Speaker 3: that's what his view was a year ago when there
- 1:25:06Speaker 3: was a Democratic president. Seems like things have changed a
- 1:25:08Speaker 3: year later. All of a sudden, he thinks it's just
- 1:25:11Speaker 3: fine To federalize his National Guard, to send them to
- 1:25:14Speaker 3: another state or to have the government, the federal government
- 1:25:17Speaker 3: and the president do whatever they want with them.
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: You said earlier this week that this is all a
- 1:25:23Speaker 1: pretext for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which, you know,
- 1:25:29Speaker 1: I think he probably has fewer limits legally. on that
- 1:25:35Speaker 1: if he invokes the Insurrection Act than even the deployment
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: of the Guard. But how would that look different than
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: what's happening right now? What should people know about that?
- 1:25:46Speaker 3: So, I mean, we're going to get into some legal
- 1:25:49Speaker 3: matters that, although I'm an attorney, I would say I
- 1:25:52Speaker 3: mostly play one on TV these days. But I can
- 1:25:56Speaker 3: say this, that the Insurrection Act, let's start with, it's
- 1:26:00Speaker 3: called the Insurrection Act for a reason.
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: Right. It needs to be an insurrection.
- 1:26:04Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, or a foreign invasion. I mean, we have
- 1:26:08Speaker 3: an invasion going on in Chicago. It is by federal
- 1:26:12Speaker 3: agents at the moment and potentially by federal troops or
- 1:26:16Speaker 3: federalized troops. But the Insurrection Act really can only be
- 1:26:21Speaker 3: invoked in those circumstances. Truly a foreign invasion, an insurrection,
- 1:26:27Speaker 3: those are basically the circumstances or something that is truly
- 1:26:30Speaker 3: a national emergency. So he legally can't invoke the Insurrection Act.
- 1:26:38Speaker 3: I know, again, he woke up this morning with a
- 1:26:40Speaker 3: new idea, you know, or yesterday morning. So he's saying it. Meanwhile,
- 1:26:47Speaker 3: we have to rely upon the courts to protect us
- 1:26:51Speaker 3: from a president just saying things and then doing it,
- 1:26:55Speaker 3: even though it's unconstitutionally illegal. How would it look different? Well,
- 1:27:00Speaker 3: to be honest with you, it would look different in
- 1:27:03Speaker 3: the sense that today in court, the federal lawyers are
- 1:27:08Speaker 3: saying that the reason they want to bring in National
- 1:27:12Speaker 3: Guard is to protect the facilities of ICE and the
- 1:27:16Speaker 3: ICE agents. So they're not saying, the federal lawyers are
- 1:27:21Speaker 3: not saying this is about crime, which is what Donald
- 1:27:24Speaker 3: Trump continues to say, despite the fact that the something
- 1:27:29Speaker 3: completely different. So why are they sending troops in? Donald
- 1:27:32Speaker 3: Trump is telling them to, and they're coming up with
- 1:27:34Speaker 3: any argument that will work. But an insurrection act, if
- 1:27:39Speaker 3: the insurrection act were invoked, that could be for almost
- 1:27:44Speaker 3: any purpose to repel a foreign invasion, to put down
- 1:27:49Speaker 3: an insurrection. So it would be hard to determine any
- 1:27:52Speaker 3: difference between protecting facilities, potentially fighting crime, You know, it
- 1:27:59Speaker 3: would be martial law, essentially, that could be invoked in
- 1:28:03Speaker 3: the city of Chicago or the state of Illinois under
- 1:28:06Speaker 3: the Insurrection Act. Again, he has no right to do so.
- 1:28:10Speaker 3: The act is there for a purpose. By the same reason,
- 1:28:14Speaker 3: you know, separately that there's a Posse Comitatus Act, there
- 1:28:18Speaker 3: are reasons why these things were passed and are part
- 1:28:20Speaker 3: of our legal lexicon.
- 1:28:23Speaker 1: So you guys have taken... Legal action on the guard deployments.
- 1:28:30Speaker 1: What other options are you considering to help protect the
- 1:28:33Speaker 1: people of Illinois from ICE terrorizing the neighborhoods from? everything
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: else that Donald Trump is trying to do to Illinois
- 1:28:43Speaker 1: and Chicago specifically? I'm sure you get up every day
- 1:28:47Speaker 1: and your highest priority is to protect people in your state.
- 1:28:50Speaker 1: And this is obviously a pretty extreme situation that it
- 1:28:55Speaker 1: seems like Donald Trump wants to escalate even further. So
- 1:29:00Speaker 1: do you have other options or other tools that you
- 1:29:02Speaker 1: can consider?
- 1:29:04Speaker 3: So, look, there are limits on the power of states to,
- 1:29:08Speaker 3: you know, to overcome what the federal government is attempting
- 1:29:13Speaker 3: to do. So believe me, starting on November the 8th,
- 1:29:20Speaker 3: we began looking at all of the things that we
- 1:29:24Speaker 3: thought Donald Trump was capable of doing. and trying to
- 1:29:28Speaker 3: think through how we could respond, what all of the
- 1:29:32Speaker 3: available responses are. And still, there are things we didn't
- 1:29:37Speaker 3: imagine that are happening. And so we have to think
- 1:29:40Speaker 3: it through constantly. And thank God we've got a great
- 1:29:42Speaker 3: attorney general. I've got a great general counsel in my
- 1:29:45Speaker 3: office and terrific outside counsels that help us as well,
- 1:29:49Speaker 3: not to mention our teams. And they're basically a bunch
- 1:29:52Speaker 3: of things that we've been doing. And I've often sometimes
- 1:29:56Speaker 3: talked about you know, Trump-proofing our state. So we've passed
- 1:30:01Speaker 3: laws that have done things to protect people in our neighborhoods, again,
- 1:30:05Speaker 3: not knowing exactly what was going to happen, ice on
- 1:30:07Speaker 3: the ground for persistent, you know, months. But here are
- 1:30:13Speaker 3: some things that we're doing and will continue to do.
- 1:30:17Speaker 3: And then, of course, there are things we can contemplate.
- 1:30:20Speaker 3: One is we funded something that's, I guess, we're all
- 1:30:22Speaker 3: calling rapid reaction, which is.
- 1:30:27Speaker 3: Local nonprofit organizations that when ICE comes into a neighborhood,
- 1:30:33Speaker 3: they are texted or called by people in the neighborhood.
- 1:30:37Speaker 3: Everybody knows how to get a hold of them in
- 1:30:39Speaker 3: the neighborhoods where we think, you know, they're most targeted.
- 1:30:43Speaker 3: And those folks come in from wherever they are nearby. It's,
- 1:30:47Speaker 3: you know, they know who's nearby and they come as
- 1:30:51Speaker 3: fast as they can. And the idea is not to
- 1:30:55Speaker 3: interfere with ICE because you're not allowed, it's not legal
- 1:30:58Speaker 3: to stand in the way of a law enforcement officer
- 1:31:01Speaker 3: of federal government or state, but rather to make sure
- 1:31:06Speaker 3: that people in the neighborhood generally are warned what's going
- 1:31:11Speaker 3: on and also to help out people who are being ill-affected.
- 1:31:15Speaker 3: You know, there's a family, I'll just take an example,
- 1:31:18Speaker 3: a family where maybe there's a mixed status family where
- 1:31:22Speaker 3: one person is undocumented and another person is perhaps partially documented.
- 1:31:28Speaker 3: Another person yet still is a U S citizen and
- 1:31:32Speaker 3: ICE will come in, detain them all because they all
- 1:31:35Speaker 3: look alike and nobody has proof on them of their status.
- 1:31:41Speaker 3: And and then, you know, after perhaps an hour, they
- 1:31:44Speaker 3: will have detained them in a car or perhaps remove
- 1:31:47Speaker 3: them to another place. And then they'll let the U.S.
- 1:31:50Speaker 3: citizen go, you know, what have you. But the rapid
- 1:31:53Speaker 3: reaction force is there to assist. What about the children
- 1:31:56Speaker 3: that are there? What about the grandma who is not
- 1:32:00Speaker 3: being arrested, but she's now left by herself? And the
- 1:32:03Speaker 3: neighborhood is traumatized. One other thing. Remember that we've got,
- 1:32:07Speaker 3: I mean, real trauma going on where you've got kids,
- 1:32:11Speaker 3: children at elementary schools nearby. who's, they don't know, you know,
- 1:32:16Speaker 3: we all talk about whether a parent can, you know,
- 1:32:19Speaker 3: walk their child to school because they might get stopped
- 1:32:22Speaker 3: by ice. And that's one problem. Another is the children
- 1:32:27Speaker 3: at the school are traumatized by the idea, even now,
- 1:32:30Speaker 3: that they don't know if they go home, if anybody's
- 1:32:33Speaker 3: going to be home when they get there. And so
- 1:32:36Speaker 3: this is the world, this is the country, the city
- 1:32:38Speaker 3: that we're living in, the country that we're living in,
- 1:32:40Speaker 3: where that can be, can happen. So Rapid Reaction Force
- 1:32:44Speaker 3: is there to assist people in the neighborhoods. We've got
- 1:32:48Speaker 3: Illinois State Police that are working with local law enforcement
- 1:32:52Speaker 3: in Broadview. That's a separate suburb. It's not Chicago. And
- 1:32:56Speaker 3: it's a very small police department there. We're working with
- 1:32:59Speaker 3: them and we've brought in the Cook County Sheriff's Office
- 1:33:02Speaker 3: to protect the protesters who, as you've seen in some
- 1:33:06Speaker 3: of the videos, they're getting pelted with gas pellets, with
- 1:33:11Speaker 3: rubber bullets. Even when they're not doing anything wrong, I
- 1:33:14Speaker 3: think everybody now has seen the pastor just standing there
- 1:33:18Speaker 3: praying with his arms wide open and getting pelted. So
- 1:33:24Speaker 3: we're doing things to protect people on the ground as
- 1:33:27Speaker 3: best we can. We've advised ICE that they're doing it
- 1:33:30Speaker 3: wrong and explaining that they should be coordinating and talking
- 1:33:37Speaker 3: to us about where they're going, what they're doing. Not
- 1:33:40Speaker 3: because we're going to assist them or anything like that,
- 1:33:43Speaker 3: but rather because we want to make sure that there
- 1:33:46Speaker 3: isn't any misunderstanding or isn't any protest that gets out
- 1:33:51Speaker 3: of hand in any particular location. That's what we would like.
- 1:33:55Speaker 3: But they have done no communication with us.
- 1:33:59Speaker 7: Okay.
- 1:33:59Speaker 3: So you asked me, what are we doing? So the
- 1:34:02Speaker 3: rest of it is people knowing their rights, they're not
- 1:34:05Speaker 3: allowed to break down your door if they do not
- 1:34:07Speaker 3: have a judicial warrant.
- 1:34:09Speaker 6: Hmm.
- 1:34:09Speaker 3: And they almost never have a judicial warrant. Now the building,
- 1:34:13Speaker 3: the South shore building, probably well aware of that was,
- 1:34:16Speaker 3: you know, essentially taken over like a war zone. Um,
- 1:34:20Speaker 3: and under the guise that, that it was some headquarters
- 1:34:22Speaker 3: of trend de Aragua, what, what happened there? I mean,
- 1:34:30Speaker 3: they give us no notice. They gave nobody in the
- 1:34:32Speaker 3: building notice. Okay. They have to go get somebody they had.
- 1:34:36Speaker 3: As I understand it, they had judicial warrant on perhaps
- 1:34:39Speaker 3: a few, two, three Tren de Aragua members. Instead of
- 1:34:45Speaker 3: going after them, and we all understand police, if you
- 1:34:49Speaker 3: can isolate the apartment or area of a building, they're
- 1:34:53Speaker 3: going to go there and they're going to isolate it
- 1:34:55Speaker 3: and make sure that people are safe who they're not
- 1:34:57Speaker 3: looking at. Instead, they literally went in this building like
- 1:35:01Speaker 3: they were in a Fallujah. And repelling off of Black
- 1:35:06Speaker 3: Hawk helicopters, they ransacked the entire place. Doors are broken.
- 1:35:10Speaker 3: Windows are broken. They kept people, innocent U.S. citizens and
- 1:35:16Speaker 3: people who were documented, they kept them detained for hours,
- 1:35:21Speaker 3: some of them zip-tied, while they went and got the
- 1:35:24Speaker 3: few people that they were going after. And look, I
- 1:35:27Speaker 3: want them to get the bad guys. Please understand. Just
- 1:35:31Speaker 3: like I want our police and the FBI and DEA,
- 1:35:34Speaker 3: I want them to go after gang members, whether they're
- 1:35:37Speaker 3: Trend de Aragua or anything else. But for God's sakes,
- 1:35:41Speaker 3: the innocent people whose lives have been upended, the trauma
- 1:35:45Speaker 3: that the children have gone through, that shouldn't be allowed
- 1:35:48Speaker 3: in this country. And, you know, whether they are given
- 1:35:52Speaker 3: immunity by the president of the United States, they are
- 1:35:56Speaker 3: going to be held accountable. accountable when there is a
- 1:35:59Speaker 3: change in administration. They are. When there is a Democrat
- 1:36:03Speaker 3: in office or when the Congress takes over, the Democratic
- 1:36:08Speaker 3: Congress takes over and actually does something, they're going to
- 1:36:12Speaker 3: hold hearings. People are going to be held accountable and
- 1:36:14Speaker 3: they could be held accountable legally. And it might take
- 1:36:17Speaker 3: a few years, which is not at all satisfying to
- 1:36:21Speaker 3: any of us. But The people who are doing this
- 1:36:24Speaker 3: on the ground need to know that they may feel
- 1:36:26Speaker 3: safe now because the president and Kristi Noem and Tom
- 1:36:29Speaker 3: Holman say it's okay. But trust me, a few years
- 1:36:32Speaker 3: from now, this is going to hurt.
- 1:36:35Speaker 1: I mean, you mentioned Congress. So Democrats in Congress have
- 1:36:40Speaker 1: made the government shut down about health care. They won't
- 1:36:42Speaker 1: vote to fund the government unless Trump and Republicans agree
- 1:36:45Speaker 1: to reverse health care cuts that will lead to huge
- 1:36:48Speaker 1: premium spikes for millions as well as people losing their
- 1:36:50Speaker 1: health care. I think this is a worthy fight. both
- 1:36:54Speaker 1: on the substance. I think it's going to help people
- 1:36:57Speaker 1: if they win. And it's also, and I think it's
- 1:36:59Speaker 1: good politically. I also think that they should be saying
- 1:37:03Speaker 1: they won't fund the government unless Trump and Republicans agree
- 1:37:06Speaker 1: to some basic restrictions on ICE. And, you know, a
- 1:37:12Speaker 1: federal judge in Illinois, just before we started talking, just
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: imposed temporary restrictions on that, you know, prevent ICE from
- 1:37:19Speaker 1: using force or arresting journalists or nonviolent protesters or unless
- 1:37:23Speaker 1: there's probable cause they've committed a crime. They also prevent
- 1:37:26Speaker 1: ICE from using riot control weapons and throwing people to
- 1:37:28Speaker 1: the ground unless there's an imminent risk of public safety.
- 1:37:31Speaker 1: Do you think the Democrats in Congress should be demanding
- 1:37:34Speaker 1: reforms like these around ICE? We could name a few
- 1:37:38Speaker 1: more as a condition for funding the government.
- 1:37:41Speaker 3: Look, I think we should be demanding those things. But
- 1:37:43Speaker 3: I also think that you've got to have some strategy
- 1:37:46Speaker 3: about getting to the end of a shutdown. And so
- 1:37:52Speaker 3: getting real results so that you can get to the
- 1:37:55Speaker 3: end of a shutdown. And I believe strongly that what
- 1:37:58Speaker 3: you just described is something that I've talked about with
- 1:38:01Speaker 3: some senators and congressmen before the shutdown took place. You know,
- 1:38:06Speaker 3: what should the strategy be? What should you be going after? Again,
- 1:38:12Speaker 3: I think we should be fighting for, as you just said,
- 1:38:14Speaker 3: like both sides of that, right? Healthcare, And I guess
- 1:38:18Speaker 3: I'll just probably say democracy. But I do think that
- 1:38:23Speaker 3: it's very difficult to get actual guarantees from a federal administration,
- 1:38:29Speaker 3: especially one that's being given carte blanche by the Supreme Court.
- 1:38:35Speaker 3: And as if they have ultimate executive power with very
- 1:38:40Speaker 3: few limitations, it's hard to get any agreement from them
- 1:38:44Speaker 3: that will hold. But what you can do is get
- 1:38:48Speaker 3: a piece of legislation that that says, you know, we're
- 1:38:51Speaker 3: going to give people or preserve people's health care and
- 1:38:55Speaker 3: make sure that they're not dying because they don't have
- 1:38:58Speaker 3: health care coverage or that their premiums will be doubled.
- 1:39:02Speaker 3: So I think there's a limit to what you can demand,
- 1:39:06Speaker 3: because otherwise, why not just put everything on the table
- 1:39:11Speaker 3: and say we're not opening up the government until we
- 1:39:13Speaker 3: get all of these things? So I think, you know, again,
- 1:39:17Speaker 3: I I am not suggesting that we shouldn't be very,
- 1:39:21Speaker 3: very vocal and fight very hard to make sure that
- 1:39:25Speaker 3: we're limiting what ICE and CBP are doing. But I
- 1:39:29Speaker 3: think there's just a limit to what can be done
- 1:39:31Speaker 3: by Congress right now. And this is actually, because you
- 1:39:34Speaker 3: raise it, I'll just tell you, it's why I think
- 1:39:37Speaker 3: that governors are so important in this moment. And I
- 1:39:42Speaker 3: know that sounds self-serving, but I just am saying, that governors,
- 1:39:46Speaker 3: whether it's Gavin Newsom or, you know, Maura Healey or
- 1:39:50Speaker 3: Michelle Lujan Grisham, we don't talk about all those folks
- 1:39:54Speaker 3: all the time, but governors have the ability to get
- 1:39:59Speaker 3: things done. And we have. I mean, Tim Walz, I
- 1:40:01Speaker 3: was just in Minnesota with him. Boy, look at the
- 1:40:04Speaker 3: things he's gotten done. And even with a divided, you know,
- 1:40:07Speaker 3: 50-50 legislature. But in Washington, I mean, It's so little
- 1:40:13Speaker 3: gets done that's positive for the American people. And I
- 1:40:17Speaker 3: think that it's a little bit like we need to
- 1:40:20Speaker 3: look back to the states. We banned prior authorizations for
- 1:40:25Speaker 3: mental health, for example. We've expanded health care in a
- 1:40:29Speaker 3: massive way since I've been governor. We raised the minimum
- 1:40:32Speaker 3: wage $ 15 here now from $ 8. 25 when I took office.
- 1:40:36Speaker 3: Just all of those things are things we got done
- 1:40:39Speaker 3: at the state level that really do help people. While
- 1:40:42Speaker 3: the federal government is kind of like either hurting or
- 1:40:45Speaker 3: just sitting silent and neutral and getting nothing done, it's
- 1:40:49Speaker 3: a sad state of affairs in the country. And I
- 1:40:51Speaker 3: do think the 2026 elections are going to be vital
- 1:40:54Speaker 3: for determining which direction we're really going to go.
- 1:40:57Speaker 1: For sure. And you have warned a few times now
- 1:41:00Speaker 1: that Trump might use the military in connection with the
- 1:41:04Speaker 1: 2026 elections. What specifically are you worried about and what
- 1:41:07Speaker 1: do you think can be done about it?
- 1:41:09Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I think we're seeing something very unusual, and
- 1:41:14Speaker 3: I guess I'm going to piece a few things together
- 1:41:16Speaker 3: for you just to make the point. So we're seeing
- 1:41:20Speaker 3: the agents themselves dressed as soldiers marching in a major city,
- 1:41:27Speaker 3: in several major cities, causing mayhem and hoping to bring
- 1:41:31Speaker 3: in more soldiers, right? These folks, nobody knows the difference
- 1:41:34Speaker 3: between somebody wearing camouflage and holding a an automatic weapon
- 1:41:38Speaker 3: who happens to be an ice agent and someone who's
- 1:41:41Speaker 3: doing this, wearing the same thing, you know, who's a soldier.
- 1:41:45Speaker 3: So the normalization of that is what's, what I think
- 1:41:49Speaker 3: their aim is. And, you know, they keep expanding more cities,
- 1:41:52Speaker 3: more cities, right? It's easier to do it in a,
- 1:41:55Speaker 3: in a red state, even in a blue city, but
- 1:41:58Speaker 3: a red state than it is in a blue state.
- 1:42:01Speaker 3: But that's, you know, so you're seeing them do it
- 1:42:03Speaker 3: in blue states and red states. Now, That's one thing
- 1:42:07Speaker 3: that's happening, normalization and militarization of cities. Another thing that's happened,
- 1:42:11Speaker 3: and very few people paying attention, you probably are, which
- 1:42:15Speaker 3: is they asked for, they demanded, the DOJ did, our
- 1:42:19Speaker 3: voter data. Not just ours. In Illinois. Every state's voter data. Why?
- 1:42:26Speaker 3: They won't tell us why. And actually, what they seem
- 1:42:31Speaker 3: to be looking for, remember back to the 2020 elections,
- 1:42:33Speaker 3: is is they want to be able to find voter fraud,
- 1:42:38Speaker 3: which lots of organizations have been looking for voter fraud,
- 1:42:42Speaker 3: as you know, for a long time. There's very little
- 1:42:45Speaker 3: voter fraud going on, very little. They're calling for all
- 1:42:49Speaker 3: these databases so that they can look through them, and
- 1:42:52Speaker 3: yet they won't tell you when they're going to come
- 1:42:53Speaker 3: up with any conclusion about whatever it is they're looking for.
- 1:42:57Speaker 3: Next year, when we have a November election, I think
- 1:42:59Speaker 3: you're going to see two things that occur. One, you
- 1:43:02Speaker 3: won't have had any results from this mass collection of data,
- 1:43:06Speaker 3: of voter data. And then the second is you're going
- 1:43:09Speaker 3: to have soldiers or people dressed as soldiers at polling
- 1:43:13Speaker 3: places saying, we're protecting your voting rights. You know, this
- 1:43:17Speaker 3: is about voter integrity. And then the possibility that they'll
- 1:43:22Speaker 3: be doing what Michael Flynn urged the president to do
- 1:43:24Speaker 3: back in 2020, which is seize the ballot boxes at
- 1:43:28Speaker 3: the polling places so that we can have the military
- 1:43:32Speaker 3: do a fair count. Now, if you put all the
- 1:43:36Speaker 3: things together that are happening right now, that wouldn't surprise
- 1:43:40Speaker 3: me at all. Think about how hard they fought on
- 1:43:44Speaker 3: this issue of whether the election had been stolen in 2020, right?
- 1:43:48Speaker 3: The January 6th riot being an example of that, but
- 1:43:51Speaker 3: lots of other things. And then all of those people
- 1:43:54Speaker 3: at January 6th being pardoned. All of that, put all
- 1:43:57Speaker 3: those together and ask yourself, Do you think what I
- 1:44:00Speaker 3: just said is completely ridiculous? Do you think what I
- 1:44:03Speaker 3: just said is something that's really possible with Trump as
- 1:44:07Speaker 3: president and Stephen Miller in the White House and, you know,
- 1:44:10Speaker 3: and all the same people kind of advising the president
- 1:44:12Speaker 3: that are at the, you know, at the edges of
- 1:44:15Speaker 3: the law?
- 1:44:16Speaker 1: I think it's definitely possible. It doesn't sound that far-fetched.
- 1:44:20Speaker 1: I think my concern is, A, so what do we
- 1:44:24Speaker 1: do about that? And B, it's like, I'm sure you
- 1:44:28Speaker 1: walk this fine line all the time, which is we
- 1:44:31Speaker 1: want to warn people like, Hey, wake up, this is
- 1:44:33Speaker 1: happening or this could happen, but also you don't want
- 1:44:37Speaker 1: to scare people into staying home and depressing turnout.
- 1:44:40Speaker 7: Right.
- 1:44:40Speaker 1: And so how do you think about like the way
- 1:44:43Speaker 1: to handle that this could be coming in 2026?
- 1:44:46Speaker 3: They're the ones who want to scare people to stay home, right?
- 1:44:49Speaker 3: That that's the purpose of having troops. Um, so that,
- 1:44:53Speaker 3: I mean, that's one of the purposes. Um, uh, but, uh, Look,
- 1:44:57Speaker 3: I think we've just got to make it plain to
- 1:44:59Speaker 3: people that now is a moment when you're going to
- 1:45:02Speaker 3: have to, you know, choose to, you know, are you
- 1:45:05Speaker 3: going to just let democracy go? And I might remind you,
- 1:45:09Speaker 3: because I know you're a political being, as any elected
- 1:45:13Speaker 3: official is too, you know, this is not how we
- 1:45:15Speaker 3: win elections. You know, like talking about democracy, I was
- 1:45:19Speaker 3: not a fan of what Joe Biden did at that
- 1:45:22Speaker 3: Valley Forge. I thought it was a great speech he
- 1:45:24Speaker 3: gave at Valley Forge in January of 2024. But I
- 1:45:27Speaker 3: didn't go in part because I didn't think that should
- 1:45:30Speaker 3: not be the theme of a campaign. And that's what
- 1:45:33Speaker 3: he was trying to make it. And because I don't
- 1:45:35Speaker 3: think democracy is the issue on which you win. I
- 1:45:38Speaker 3: do think that you can't win unless you have democracy.
- 1:45:42Speaker 3: So those of us who have any power to do
- 1:45:44Speaker 3: anything about it need to stand up and speak out
- 1:45:46Speaker 3: about the danger of losing democracy. And then we've also
- 1:45:50Speaker 3: got to run campaigns all across the United States. I'm
- 1:45:53Speaker 3: running for reelection, but the Congress in particular is we've
- 1:45:57Speaker 3: got to make sure that we're running campaigns about things
- 1:45:59Speaker 3: that really matter in everybody's life. I'll tell you a
- 1:46:01Speaker 3: quick story, if I can, about something that happened to
- 1:46:03Speaker 3: me when I was working on Capitol Hill. I worked
- 1:46:05Speaker 3: for two United States senators many years ago in my 20s.
- 1:46:10Speaker 3: I got offered the opportunity to go with this organization
- 1:46:13Speaker 3: you may have heard of called the American Council of
- 1:46:15Speaker 3: Young Political Leaders to a foreign country with, you know,
- 1:46:18Speaker 3: half Democrats, half Republicans, young people like me at the time. Uh,
- 1:46:23Speaker 3: where we learned about the, we, we got sent to
- 1:46:25Speaker 3: Argentina to learn about their political system and they would
- 1:46:28Speaker 3: bring people from other countries to learn about ours. We
- 1:46:31Speaker 3: went there, we landed in Buenos Aires and the minute
- 1:46:34Speaker 3: we landed, strangely, there was a military coup. I promise
- 1:46:37Speaker 3: I had nothing to do with it. Um, but, and
- 1:46:40Speaker 3: so we went to the, uh, to the, uh, hotel,
- 1:46:43Speaker 3: all of us together and watched on TV what was happening. Um,
- 1:46:47Speaker 3: and then we had to make a decision, or at
- 1:46:48Speaker 3: least the leader of our troop or group said, we
- 1:46:50Speaker 3: have to make a decision. Are we going to go
- 1:46:52Speaker 3: to the, to the embassy and wait it out? Or
- 1:46:55Speaker 3: are we going to go, there's going to be a
- 1:46:57Speaker 3: democracy rally the next day in, in the Plaza de
- 1:46:59Speaker 3: Mayo in Buenos Aires. Would we, should we go there
- 1:47:03Speaker 3: to learn about democracy? Like, you know, in person in
- 1:47:06Speaker 3: this situation. Um, and, uh, by the way, the vote
- 1:47:09Speaker 3: was basically half and half. The Republicans all wanted to
- 1:47:12Speaker 3: go to the embassy. The Democrats all wanted to go
- 1:47:14Speaker 3: to the democracy rally. Um, We went to the democracy rally,
- 1:47:18Speaker 3: the tiebreaker being the leader of the group. And we
- 1:47:23Speaker 3: got to see, you know, hundreds of thousands of people
- 1:47:25Speaker 3: carrying banners and, you know, talking about democracy, yelling, chanting
- 1:47:30Speaker 3: and so on. And there was a guy in the
- 1:47:33Speaker 3: middle of all of that with an ice cream cart
- 1:47:37Speaker 3: selling popsicles and ice cream. And I remember that vividly.
- 1:47:42Speaker 3: I'm 60 years old now. I was 23 at the time.
- 1:47:44Speaker 3: I still remember it vividly. Because I remember thinking at
- 1:47:48Speaker 3: the time and talking to a few of the people
- 1:47:50Speaker 3: I was with about the fact that that guy doesn't
- 1:47:52Speaker 3: mostly care about what the form of government is. What
- 1:47:56Speaker 3: he cares about is he's got to put food on it.
- 1:47:58Speaker 3: That's the number one consideration is the food on the table, right?
- 1:48:01Speaker 3: He's got to put gas in his car. He's got
- 1:48:04Speaker 3: to survive. And I think about that now, thinking about
- 1:48:08Speaker 3: our elections coming up next year, that the number one
- 1:48:11Speaker 3: issue in people's lives is, can I put food on
- 1:48:13Speaker 3: the table, get to work? Can I, you know, Can
- 1:48:15Speaker 3: I feed my family or take care of them and
- 1:48:18Speaker 3: have a home to live in? And the number two
- 1:48:21Speaker 3: issue is, you know, the form of government. And so
- 1:48:24Speaker 3: we've got to win elections on number one. And then
- 1:48:28Speaker 3: we've also got to fight for number two in order
- 1:48:30Speaker 3: to have the elections.
- 1:48:31Speaker 1: Governor Pritzker, well said. And thank you, as always, for
- 1:48:36Speaker 1: joining Pod Save America.
- 1:48:37Speaker 3: Thanks, John.
- 1:48:43Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks, JB Pritzker, for joining.
- 1:48:45Speaker 1: Tommy Lovett and I will be back with a new
- 1:48:47Speaker 1: show next week. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen
- 1:48:51Speaker 1: to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts,
- 1:48:54Speaker 1: go to cricket.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube,
- 1:48:58Speaker 1: or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review.
- 1:49:02Speaker 1: That helps boost this episode and everything we do here
- 1:49:04Speaker 1: at Cricket. Pod Save America is a Cricket Media production.
- 1:49:07Speaker 1: Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich-Frank, and Saul Rubin.
- 1:49:11Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our
- 1:49:14Speaker 1: senior producer. Reed Cherlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill
- 1:49:18Speaker 1: is our head of news and politics. The show is
- 1:49:20Speaker 1: mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our
- 1:49:23Speaker 1: sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.
- 1:49:27Speaker 1: Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is
- 1:49:29Speaker 1: our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,
- 1:49:33Speaker 1: Haley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, Carol Pelleve, David Tolles,
- 1:49:36Speaker 1: and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with
- 1:49:39Speaker 1: the Writers Guild of America East.