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"Fox Knews." · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden tests out his message for
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a re-election campaign that seems all but certain to happen.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch admits that he knew Fox News hosts were
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: lying about the 2020 election. Strict Scrutiny's Melissa Murray joins
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: to break down the Supreme Court challenge to the president's
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: student debt relief plan. And later, we bring you the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: lowest lowlights from a big week of congressional hearings in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: a segment we're calling the self-owned zone. The self-owned zone.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Let me go with that one. The self-owned zone. I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: But first.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Politics doesn't just happen in even numbered years. Vote Save
• 0:58
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• 1:00
  Speaker 1: stay engaged throughout 2023's elections, starting with a must-win Supreme
• 1:05
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• 1:10
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• 1:12
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• 1:14
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• 1:16
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• 1:19
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• 1:26
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. President Biden still
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: hasn't officially announced that he'll be running for a second term,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: but he sure seemed like a candidate this week during
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a health care event in Virginia Beach and a speech
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: at the House Democratic Retreat in Baltimore. We'll talk about
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: what he said in a bit, but just in case
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: anyone still has doubts about whether Biden intends to run again,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: here's what the first lady had to say during a
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: CNN interview this week.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Is there any chance at this point that he's not
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: going to run?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Uh, not in my book.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: You're all for it. I'm all for it, of course.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think there's a chance. Dan, do
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: you think that, um, you think Jill Biden just missed
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: last week's Politico headline, Biden may not run, that had
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a few anonymous sources saying he's no longer certain to
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: go for a second term? Did she just miss that one?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: No, I think she definitely saw that. And that was
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the point here.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: You think that was a message to Politico, much like
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: we deliver messages to Politico on this podcast?
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I think it was a message to all the speculation,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: all of the questions where the man has said in
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: almost every way possible he is running. The only thing
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: he has not done is file papers with the FEC,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: something that would trigger a whole host of financial, legal,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: infrastructure obligations they don't need to do right now. And
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: so she was in her most Jill from Philadelphia way
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: possible telling these people to stop asking her the darn question.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: And I would say just on that Politico story, you're
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: giving that report too much credit. There were actually no
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: anonymous sources who suggested he may not run. There were
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: some anonymous people who thought there was a chance he
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: may not run based on absolutely nothing. The Joe may.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the closest, I think the closest one
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: was an anonymous source who was identified as a Biden
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: confidant who said, um, It's now not 100% sure that
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: he's going to run.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's not 100% sure the sun's going
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: to come up tomorrow, but it probably is. I mean,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: that was just pure, really like early stage Politico clickbait.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: It was a very sad, sad, sad story. And it
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: was just so trying so hard because it was like
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: these people who say, well, you know, he did take
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: a long time in other decisions and he hasn't announced yet.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: But then, of course, he never was really planning to
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: announce on this time frame, and no president had really
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: announced on this time frame. But there are some people
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: who think he may not run. These other Democrats who
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: were thinking of running if Biden didn't run haven't killed themselves,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: so maybe they'll still run.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that was– I mean, it seems pretty much
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of a done deal that he's going to run. It
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: seems like the only open question is whether anyone besides
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Marianne Williamson mounts a primary challenge to Biden. A few
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: episodes ago, we talked about why we think that's unlikely.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: But our pal Mark Leibovich just wrote a piece in
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: The Atlantic where he urges some free thinking mischief maker
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to run with the message, quote, Democrats deserve a choice
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to vote for someone other than the oldest president in history.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: The guy well over half of you don't want to run.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: He also argues that a primary challenge doesn't necessarily have
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to end in political suicide. What do you think of
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Mark's argument?
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I think like all of Mark's argument, this one is cogent.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: It's well-written. It's funny. And I think it really stands
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: out as an argument that could work within the pages
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: of an August journal like The Atlantic.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Some Atlantic shade over here.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: August. I think that's a very nice way to describe
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: this journal of the people, The Atlantic, which is like
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: $ 70 a year or whatever it is. Anyhow, I don't
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: think it works in the real world.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, sure.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Could someone run against Biden who's not named Marianne Williamson?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: That is very possible. Do voters deserve a choice? Probably.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: But the problem with the argument is that we know
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: from history and, frankly, just common sense that were someone
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: to run against Biden, a serious Democrat were to run
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: against Biden, it would likely damage Biden and would almost
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: certainly devastate the political future of that person. Because if
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: there was anyone– and this is why it's not going
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: to happen or is highly unlikely to happen. Someone may
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: run against Biden, crooked media says. Elijah's clipping that one.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: That's going to be some trouble.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. To give voters the choice that Mark, I think,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: credibly argues they deserve would have to be a serious
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Democrat who could be a credible candidate for president. And
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: anyone who would meet that test, that's not Marianne Williamson.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: That's not some backbench member of Congress. That's a senator
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: or a governor, someone with a national profile. And anyone
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: who would meet that test is someone who wants to
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: run for president one day, and they're not going to
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: light their career on fire to do this. And so
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: we keep ending up in the same place where we were.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Can I just give the devil's advocate argument with my
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Easter egg roll tickets hanging in the balance.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean your Easter egg roll tickets and your
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: pending application to be a columnist for the Atlantic handing
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: in the balance.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I am, I am for primaries regardless,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: whether it's a challenge from the left challenge from the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: right or whether it's a primary against someone I.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Like Elijah clip that, but John wants someone to challenge
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden from the right. Are you a mansion stand?
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I'm saying in, I'm saying in general, I am, I am,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I am going to be consistent on this open primary.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I think is a fine thing. It gives people a choice. I,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I am a fan of that, but I am after
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: reading Mark's piece, I am more persuaded that a challenger
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: could run a campaign that would not end in, um,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a political murder suicide for Biden and the challenger. Um,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: He uses the example of Gretchen Whitmer, right? And again,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I know Gretchen Whitmer has already said, like, she's not
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: going to run against Joe Biden, but I think it's
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: worth just using that as an example. Gretchen Whitmer runs.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: She doesn't attack Joe Biden other than to say something like,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you know, he told us he'd be a bridge to
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: a new generation. I'm taking him up on that. I'm
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: giving voters a choice. I think he's been a great president.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I like Joe Biden. I respect him. I'm not going
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to talk about him in this campaign. I'm just going
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: to talk about what I've achieved in Michigan. And why
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: we need a new generation of leadership, which I know
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the president has agreed upon before. And then she runs
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: her race. And, you know, Mark makes the point that
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Biden would probably greet that candidacy in the White House.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: They wouldn't be too happy, but publicly be like, oh, yeah,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the more the merrier or whatever. And so, look, a
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: lot of people thought that Barack Obama and those of
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: us who worked for him would never again get a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: job in politics if we pissed off the Clintons. We're
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: all still here.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: We won, you Yahoo!
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders ran against her, lost in 2016,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: did better in 2020.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because she didn't win.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: He's still fine. Bernie's fine. All the people that have
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: challenged the Clintons, won or lost, ended up being okay. Look,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I just think there's no doubt that a challenger... would
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: have to weigh the fact that most of the Democratic
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Party machinery, including the people who can end up running,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: being in the White House for a second term, Joe
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Biden and all of his staff, would be very unhappy
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: if that person ran. I do not know that would
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: foreclose political opportunities for that candidate for the rest of
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: their career. If they ran a campaign that was very respectful,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: didn't go after Biden personally, Didn't try to tear the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: party apart with some huge ideological battle. I think this
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: is all very, very unlikely. Let me be clear about that.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: But I'm just saying as a scenario, I think it's possible.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: So let me– can I respond to that? This is fun.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: We're just having like an impromptu debate right here, which.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Is– Well, you know, enough of this. Oh, you have
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: a great point. That's a great point too.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Let me add to your excellent point.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: My colleague from Boston. The gentleman from Boston. I think, yes,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I think theoretically that all works and I do think
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: that if– that the people who worked on that campaign
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: would get jobs in the White House. There are a
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: lot of people who work in this White House who
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: worked for people who opposed Joe Biden in the primary,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: who actively tried to defeat him. There are a lot
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: of people who worked for Barack Obama in the White House.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: In fact, the woman who tried to defeat Barack Obama
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: was the secretary of state for four years. So like
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: that can happen. There are two challenges to this. One
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: is it kind of presumes that there are no other
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: actors looking to make mischief in such a primary, which
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: is what the Republicans, the MAGA media, and others would
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: be doing to seek to highlight those differences, to try
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: to exploit those tensions. It's also– I'm not sure that
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it– that is really– I don't think just saying, hi,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: I love this guy. He's a great president. I'm just
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: younger than this great president is really giving people the
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: choice to So these campaigns always find differences, even if
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: those differences are minuscule and there's a lot of agreement.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: So there will have to be in that situation conflict.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: This is not to say that no one shouldn't run.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: The Democrats definitely lose if someone runs. It's just that
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: there is a risk profile to this that is, I think,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: much higher than what Mark is accounting for in his piece,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: which is why I think it's unlikely to happen. And
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: what happens to Gretchen Whitmer, who did not ask to
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: be part of this conversation, to be clear.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Poor Gretchen Whitmer. Just using you as an example.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: If Gretchen Whitmer were to run the campaign you suggest
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: against Biden, and then Biden wins easily, and we're right
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: where we are. People had their choice. They validated. They
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: tested the proposition, as Mark said, and they chose Biden.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: That's great. Where that becomes a problem is if Biden
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: loses and then she were to take some share of
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: the blame for that. That's where it gets tremendous. That
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: is the risk, I think, that Gretchen Whitmer, who once
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: again does not want to be part of this, would
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: face there. And so like it's a theoretical exercise, but
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I think– Gretchen.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Whitmer does not want to be a part of this narrative.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: She would like to be removed. Please remove– Gretchen Whitmer,
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: you will be removed from this narrative immediately. I just
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: think that ultimately this is why we keep ending up
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: in the same place. Like yes, voters could have a choice. Yes,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: a choice could be good. Primaries are good as you say,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: but the stakes are such. And Biden has, to his credit,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: not given– people a lot of great arguments to use
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: against him because he has both been more substantially successful,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: more progressive than people imagine, and more politically successful than
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: I think anyone thought possible. And therefore, just the room
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: in which you could run such a campaign becomes so
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: small that it's unlikely to happen.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I mean, we're going to talk about student
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: debt with Melissa, but, um, you can't be running some
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: campaign where you're like, Oh, if I were, if I
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: had been president, I would have done a more sweeping
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: student loan executive action and canceled even more debt. Well, yeah,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: maybe you would have, but you would have gotten fucking
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: shot down by the Supreme court, just like Joe Biden.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: So like, I don't think there are a ton of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: arguments on the left for that. I think that you'd
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: have to do the generational campaign. And I do think
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: this is where my devil's advocacy goes away. Like you
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: have to feel like, really confident that you could do
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: better than Biden against Donald Trump and or or Ron DeSantis. Right.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Like you have to because the risk is if you
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: or Biden lose, then, you know, were you contributing to
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that loss by waging the primary, which, again, I think
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: primaries are good, but it is it's a risk. And
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: it's not just a risk to your own political career.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: It's a risk to like the party and democracy, right?
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Because we can't, like you said, the stakes are quite high.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So you have to be pretty sure.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: But even if you're just doing the generational thing, you
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: run into the Nikki Haley problem immediately, which is, look,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden has done great things. I love what he
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: has done. He's been a great president. He should be
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: sculpted onto Mount Rushmore for what he's done. I just
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: think we need a new generation of leadership. Mr. Favreau, welcome.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Meet the Press. First question for you. Do
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: you think Joe Biden is too old to be president?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I think the voters are going to decide that. That's
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: why I'm in the race. I want to give them
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: a choice. That's not for me to decide. I'm running.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Are you saying he's too old? He cannot do the job?
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Are you concerned he can't do the job?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I think he's been a very capable president for the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: last four years.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: So you're saying he can do the job?
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I'm saying that he can definitely do the job, but
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I think, as the president said.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, perfect. I just wanted to nail that down.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: He is a bridge to a new generation of leadership.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: John Favreau says.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And so I think we need a new generation of leadership.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden's challenger says that Joe Biden can do the job.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Okay, great. I think a lot of
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: voters think that too, but I.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Enjoy the rest of your campaign.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of voters think that too, that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden can do the job, but they're still hungry
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: for a new generation of leadership. Okay. This is.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: I mean.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: If anyone's listening to this that was alive during the.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Obama— If there's anyone still listening to this, this is
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: the real question.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: The Obama-Hillary campaign? This was the bulk of our argument
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of that campaign. Let me just— it' s just— we' d— and no, like,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: we had also Washington thinking we were a little tougher
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: against her style of politics than I imagine this— imaginary
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Gretchen Whitmer-esque candidate would be against Joe Biden. But again,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the person wouldn't just be young and a new generation.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It probably wouldn't be someone in DC. So it would
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: be a DC outsider. And that would probably be part
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of the message as well.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I would just as a message to Governor Whitmer, who
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: has done a phenomenal job and could one day be
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: president very well. Mark Leibovich is the one who brought
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: you into this, that it's not our fault.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: You know, it's all Mark's fault. It's all Mark's fault. Anyway.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Let's get back to our current and likely future reality
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: where Joe Biden is the Democrats' only serious candidate for
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: president in 2024. We got a preview of what the
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: campaign might look like this week when the president once
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: again hammered Republicans in Congress on Medicare and Social Security
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: during an event in Virginia. But this time he also
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: accused them of wanting to raise the price of people's
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: health insurance premiums and prescription drugs so they can cut
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: taxes for the rich. Let's listen.
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: And if they say they want to cut the deficit,
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: but their plans actually would explode the deficit, How are
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: they going to make the numbers add up?
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: What are they going to cut? That's the big question.
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: For millions of Americans, health care hangs in the balance.
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: Will they continue to fight to cut the Affordable Care
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: Act and make health insurance more expensive for millions of Americans?
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: If mega-Republicans try to take away people's health care by
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: gutting the Medicaid and Affordable Care Act, I will stop them.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I will say that... Tommy Vitor has now done so
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: many fake Biden AI clips that I almost started laughing
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: during that clip because I couldn't tell if it was
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: real Joe Biden or Tommy Joe Biden. That's where we
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: are right now. That's where Tommy is right now. Why
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: do you think Biden is now going beyond just accusing
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans of wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: I think he is having a hell lot of fun.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: kicking the living crap out of them on a daily basis.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And there was this narrative in 2020 that Joe Biden
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: was too nice a guy to take on the Trump
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: era Republicans, right? He is someone who says nice things
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: about Mitch McConnell, says nice things about Lindsey Graham, has
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: an ability to be compassionate towards people who deserve no compassion.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: And I think that is still true. He is an
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: incredibly nice, very compassionate, empathetic person. But if you ever
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: thought he wasn't tough enough to come after these people,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: the last few weeks have proven that wrong. It's not
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: just that he's hammering them. He's doing it somewhat ruthlessly
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: in a way that I love, which is he has
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: found the soft underbelly of Kevin McCarthy as they head
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: into this debt ceiling thing. Biden knows that Kevin McCarthy
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: is too weak and too stupid to bring his party
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: around a coherent set of demands for a debt ceiling
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: negotiation that should never happen. And so he can just
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: go out and say, oh, you want to cut Social Security?
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: You want to cut Medicare? You want to– oh, now
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: you want to cut healthcare? Next, you're going to try
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: to ban puppies? And then McCarthy says, that's not our plan.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: And then Biden goes, what's your plan? And he just
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: melts into the ground because he can't come up with one.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: And so it is– he is continually adding up the
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: political pressure on the Republicans to do this. And the
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Affordable Care Act is helpful and Medicaid is helpful because
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: there is some idea that Republicans would never in this
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: very particular instance put Social Security and Medicare on the table,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: which McCarthy has said many times. But Medicaid is a
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: pot of money that they could and are likely go after.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: And so he has now added that in to try
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: to fence that off as well.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's not just that it's a likely pot
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: of money. Like if you take Medicare and Social Security
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: off the table, if the Republicans choose not to make
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: that part of their ransom demand, the only way to
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: pay for the gigantic tax cuts for the wealthy that
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: they have proposed and still want to pursue is by
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: making people pay more for health care and prescription drugs
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: by cutting into Medicaid, repealing parts of the Affordable Care
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Act or all of the Affordable Care Act and repealing
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act, which lowers the price of prescription drugs,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: which they are all on record as doing. So I
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: think it's no, I think that that Biden is having
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of fun. And I like, do you think
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: this should be one of his core reelection messages? Because
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I kind of think it's perfect because it basically takes
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: the debate back to sort of the Barack Obama Mitt
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Romney fight in 2012 and a fight that's worked for
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats many times in other places and other elections, which
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: is like Republicans are on the side of fighting for
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the rich and the biggest corporations and Democrats are on
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the side of fighting for working people in this country,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: in the middle class. And if that's the debate and
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you sort of, you know, the culture war debate fades
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: into the background and Joe Biden can talk about all
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of the things he's accomplished, not just in terms of like,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: isn't life great now that I've accomplished these things? But
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: here's what I've done, which is lowering health care costs
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and energy costs and prescription drug costs for people. And
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: what they want to do is raise those costs for
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: people so they can pay for a tax cut for
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the wealthy. It seems like the debate you want to have.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The core of the argument is going to be
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: that Republicans are too extreme. And if you can have
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: that argument on the grounds of Social Security and Medicare,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: two issues that are economic in nature and drive a
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: wedge through the Republican coalition. We talked about this before,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: but in recent polling, when you ask, this is a
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: CBS News YouGov poll from January, I think, about the
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Republican Congress and what you want the priority to be,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: 78% of Trump voters say protect Social Security and Medicare.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: You're having the extremism fight on the safest, most potent
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: ground for yourself. And this worked in 2022. For all
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: the talk of democracy in January 6th and abortion, all
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: of which were in varying degrees, particularly abortion, big parts
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: of that campaign, most of the Senate candidates in tough races, one,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: ran most of their ads on Social Security and Medicare.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: It just didn't get as much attention. And so a
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: presidential campaign messages are larger narratives. They extend beyond one
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: specific issue or a couple of specific programs. But this
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: will be a huge underlying data point, particularly if Biden
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: ends up running against Ron DeSantis, who has a long
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: history of wanting to cut these programs.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: And Tommy keeps pointing this out when we talk about this,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that if it's Donald Trump, Donald Trump also had budget
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: after budget where he was trying to cut health care,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: repeal the Affordable Care Act, cut Medicare, cut Social Security,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: even though he's pretending to be the great defender of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Social Security and Medicare now that he's running against Ron DeSantis,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: most likely. No, yeah, I totally think that. I mean,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act on the prescription drug thing, so
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: it capped the price of insulin at $ 35 a month
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: for people on Medicare. Yesterday, the drug manufacturer Eli Lilly
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: announced it would do the same for insulin across the board.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: So it would only sell insulin for the cap would
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: be $ 35 a month for everyone. How important is it
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: for the White House to sell this accomplishment? I feel
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: like I haven't looked at any polling on this, but
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's probably pretty popular.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: If I remember the polling from 2022 correctly, the $ 35
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: cap on insulin was the most popular policy proposal of
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: an early legislative accomplishment of all of the ones that
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: were tested. And so absolutely. And this is it's It's
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: important in two ways. One, you have an accomplishment on
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: an incredibly popular issue that speaks to a broad swath
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: of Americans, but also in a world in which the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Republicans control the House and the larger parts of your
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: legislative agenda are de facto dead, you need a theory
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: of change. And the fact that Biden has used the
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: pen and the phone, if you will, to try to
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: pressure To enact change is an important part of it.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: You have to show that you can still get things
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: done in this environment while Republicans are doing nothing. And
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: so it's a great win. It's going to matter to
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of people. All of us should shout from
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the rooftops about it because this is not the sort
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: of thing that's going to get enough attention to break
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: through to people who do not mainline this sort of
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: political news all day long.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And it's not just an accomplishment. There are certain bipartisan
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: accomplishments that you can tout that you get credit perhaps for.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: for it being bipartisan and getting it done. But this
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: is one where the Republicans not only voted against it,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of them are still now proposing to repeal
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act. So you cap the price of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: insulin for everyone at $ 35, and Republicans are saying, no, no, no, no, no.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: We want to go back to the days where it
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: was more expensive. That's just, I mean, you mentioned extremism
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: as the overall message, and I totally agree. I think
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: it is extremism that affects your life and your community
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and your country, right? Because people... They care that people
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: say crazy shit, that Republicans say crazy shit all the time.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: They care more that they do crazy shit that actually
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: negatively impacts their lives. And I think where Biden is
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: right now on Social Security, on Medicare, on the ACA,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: on prescription drugs and all this health care stuff is
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: he's really laying out the choice between what he's doing,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: which is fighting to make people's lives better, and what
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: they're doing is fighting to make people's lives worse. And
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: he's really drawing that connection really well. All right. Before
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: we bring on Melissa to talk about the Supreme Court,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: we got to talk about the latest developments in the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Dominion lawsuit against Fox News. We now have Rupert Murdoch's
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: deposition in which he acknowledges that he could have stopped
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Fox hosts from spreading Trump's election conspiracies, but didn't quote
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: from the deposition. Some of our commentators were endorsing it.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: The big lie. I would have liked us to be
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: stronger in denouncing it in hindsight. Oh, in hindsight, isn't
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: that nice? The latest filing also reveals that Fox Corporation
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: board member and Dan Pfeiffer bestie Paul Ryan told Murdoch
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: to quote, move on from Donald Trump and stop spouting
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: election lies, but did absolutely nothing when neither of those
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: things happened. Dominion lawyers also wrote in the filing that
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: during the 2020 campaign, Murdoch provided Jared Kushner with advanced
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: copies of Joe Biden's television ads before they ran on Fox. Wow.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: So it certainly seems like Fox should be in a
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: bunch of trouble here, legal, financial, reputational. You're not a lawyer,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: but you do play one on this podcast from time
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: to time. What do you make of the latest filing?
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: It's pretty stunning because the Supreme Court has set an
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: incredibly high bar for media organizations to be legally culpable
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: for defamation. You essentially have to know that you are
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: saying untrue things. You have to actively, the term is
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: actual malice in doing it. And that almost never happens
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: because the vast majority of media organizations don't see it
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: in their interest to just lie. But Fox, and not
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: only did they do that, these fucking pro-insurrection dunderheads texted
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: about it nonstop, right? Like they did not adhere to
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: the Stringer Bell rule of taking notes on a criminal
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: conspiracy and have just put it out there. No, they
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: did not. For everyone to see. And so they're in
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: huge trouble. So this is going to head in a
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: couple of different directions. One, this could actually go to court.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: And were it to go to court, not only could
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Fox lose the $ 1. 7 billion or whatever it is, all
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: of the people talked about here are going to have
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: to testify under oath at open court. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Suzanne Scott, all those people. That would be– honestly, we
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: should podcast three times a day every day during that trial.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: It would be– Amazing.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: But because that would be so amazing, that's probably not
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: what's going to happen and they're probably going to end
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: up settling in some way, shape, or form, which Fox
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: tends to do. They talk a tough game and then
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: they throw a whole bunch of money to make problems
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: go away. Also, Fox is in a whole host of
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: trouble because based on the filings and Rupert Mark's testimony
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: is that the Fox board knew misconduct was happening and
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: did nothing about it. So there was an interview on
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: CNN where That Oliver Darcy did with this guy named
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Seidenfeld, who is a sort of world-renowned business school
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: professor and scholar about accountability.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: He's like an associate dean at the Yale School of Management.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he focused on corporate governance, right? And he
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: basically said the board is in huge trouble and they're
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: going to have to do something or they're going to
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: open themselves up. to lawsuits from shareholders because the board
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: did not meet their fiduciary responsibility to protect the investment.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: And so it seems likely that some people are going
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: to lose their jobs over this as well. Everyone has
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: speculated about Suzanne Scott, who's the head of Fox News.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: She replaced Roger Ailes. Also think this could be the
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: end of Maria Bartiromo or Jeanine Pirro, who are at
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: the center of a whole bunch of this.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, no. Where will they go?
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: It's not going to be good for OK Stop, just
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: to be clear. Like, that's a problem. But it's worth
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: remembering that Lou Dobbs lost his job because he was
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: at the center of a defamation lawsuit from a different
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: voting machine manufacturer over a conspiracy theory. And so it's
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: going to be very interesting how this plays out. But
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Fox is in... a ton of trouble in every way,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: shape or form. And I would have to say it's
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: quite enjoyable.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Now Murdoch's argument is apparently that while opinion hosts spread
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: conspiracies and he should have reigned that in the rest
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of the network did not, which doesn't really line up
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: with all the rest of the evidence that we've seen.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Because like they, if they knew they were lies, why
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: did they continue to book Sidney Powell? Why did they
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: continue to book Rudy Giuliani? Why did they continue to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: have hosts not challenge them? about those lies, even if
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: they supposedly knew, as Rupert Murdoch admitted that they did,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: that they were election conspiracies. CNN media analyst Sarah Fisher
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: was on and said that her sources in the C-suite
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: level at Fox think that it is likely they will
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: lose this case. And there is some thinking that perhaps
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Murdoch knows this, and maybe that's why he was so
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: forthcoming in his deposition. Also, the Fox, when asked, Do
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: you think Fox had a responsibility to tell the truth here?
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Fox's chief legal officer said yes. So these depositions, they
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: really got them. I mean, I don't know for sure
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: they'll win, but it does seem like you could see
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: an outcome where they settle this. And there's also rumors now,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I think Semaphore reported that Murdoch will make CEO Suzanne
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Scott take the fall here. Which I think is kind
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: of cool. That is kind of cool.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I think that's kind of cool.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I think that's kind of cool. Were you surprised that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Murdoch was even able to... show Jared advanced copies of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Biden's ads? How does that work? How far in advance
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: do networks get those ads?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: When I first saw that report, it seemed like the
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: sort of third hand Trump gossip that blew up the
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: internet during the Trump era and then turned out to
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: be not true. You know, it's sort of like the
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: apocryphal story of Chris Christie making McDonald's runs for Donald Trump,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: which I just, that wasn't true. That's actually not true. Uh,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Sam number, uh, cause the reason, the only reason I
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: know this, I was writing about Chris Christie in the
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: message box and I was going to write in there.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: I refer to him as Trump's McDonald's gopher, but I
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: just thought I'd Google to make sure I remember the
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: story correctly. And it turns out it was not true. See?
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: We're not a propaganda outfit here.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are fact-checking here.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: There's no malice.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: I am not going to be sued by Chris Christie
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: or McDonald's. That's a fact. And I sort of thought
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: to myself, why would Rupert Murdoch have access to Biden ads?
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: But then Philip Bump of the Washington Post answered this question,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: which was very nice of him to do, which is
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Biden actually ran a shitload of ads on Fox News.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: He ran more than 100 ads on Fox and Friends alone,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: because the Biden campaign had this strategy based possibly on
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: polling that turned out not to be accurate, that there
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: was a swath of Trump voters that you could persuade
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: to come over to Biden or not vote or whatever else,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: or persuade to walk away from Trump, I guess would
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: be a better way to say that. And so there
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: were plenty of Biden ads that were sitting at Fox
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: headquarters that Murdoch could have shown Kushner. And the way
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: that this generally works is You try to run ads
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: that start over the weekend. And so you will submit
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: them by a deadline on Friday. And they'll start running
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: on the weekend, which means that the other campaign cannot
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: get their ads up until it opens again on Monday.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Why TV stations generally operate on bank hours is an
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: open question. I was going to say, yeah. So you
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: could get a several day. If Murdoch were to show
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: them the ads in advance, They could theoretically change their
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: ad traffic to match that. I sort of doubt that
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: the Brad Parscale-run Trump campaign was operating at that sort
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: of level of speed or that Jared Kushner really even
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: knows what to do with any of that information. But
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: it is an unprecedented breach. That is not a thing
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: that ever happens. And so if this is actually the case,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: it's a pretty big deal and will cause some real
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: trouble at Fox with their ability to be seen as
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: an even somewhat fair broker for running ads.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Speaking of fair brokers, what do you think about Paul
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Ryan's courageous attempt to break Fox of its addiction to
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Trump and election conspiracies? Are you now ready to admit
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that you were wrong about this selfless public servant?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I was intrigued by this report that
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Paul Ryan had expressed these reservations to someone somewhere about something.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: And so I went and I saw, I Googled, I
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: did some, once again, I did more research because that's
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: what we do here at Pod Save America. And I
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: saw that In the last few days, Paul Ryan sat
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: down with Charlie Sykes, who was a Wisconsin.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Have you listened to it?
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I read the transcript. I don't think I am. Yes,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: you know, I have a propensity for high blood pressure.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: And so it's important that I not push it to
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: the limit.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Right. I was just going to suggest to you, please
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: don't listen to that podcast if you're driving a vehicle.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Because it took everything I had driving to work today
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: not to veer off the road.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I am a man in my mid to late 40s
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: who has small children, so I have to be very
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: careful in how I do things like this. So I
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: read the transcript of the podcast. So anywho, Paul Ryan
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: sat down with Charlie Sykes, who was a Wisconsin conservative
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: radio host and has a long history with Ryan and
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: has become a bulwark, never-Trumper, very anti-Trump guy. And I
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: don't think Paul Ryan knew what he was getting into
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: when he sat down because one of the things Charlie
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Sykes has pushed Paul Ryan on publicly in the past
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: is that he should resign his board membership at the
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Fox Corporation. And so Charlie Sykes, in his very polite,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: genial way, pushed Paul Ryan on the question of why
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: he's on that board, what he's done on that board,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: should he resign the board? And Paul Ryan's answers included
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: words that have meaning and definition, but when added together
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: mean nothing. It is just cowardly, verbal applesauce. He's just–
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: he is melting on stage into a pool of cowardly weakness.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: And what it comes down to in the end here
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: as it relates to Paul Ryan is– He has been
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: running around since he decided to resign from Congress talking
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: about we're going to reform the Republican Party and we
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: have to defeat the MAGA movement. And I'm on the
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Fox board because Fox is this important part of the
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: conservative movement. The fact of the matter is even if
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: he has expressed these concerns to anyone– No one has
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: done anything about them. Did he whisper them? Did he
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: speak them in a language no one understood? Were they
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: in pig Latin? No one cares what he says. Basically,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I think his kink is having no influence. That is
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: his goal. And no one cares.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: His kink is.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Cutting retirement programs down to the bone.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: I think maybe we, I think we now know that
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: his kink was failing at doing that.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But I think the problem is Paul Ryan and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that brand of Republican has such little influence because there
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: is no constituency for like, like the thing that gets
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the MAGA voters up in the morning is not cutting
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Medicare and social security. That's also not getting Democrats up
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: in the morning. Basically there's like, A few rich people
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: who I guess like that and fucking Ayn Rand fans
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: like Paul Ryan. That's about it. It is a tiny constituency.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: He has no influence.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: The problem is not that Paul Ryan is an effective,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: powerful leader for a set of issues that has no following.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: The problem is he's a fucking loser and he's terrible
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: at everything.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Did you hear him in the beginning of the– this
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: is just– at the beginning of the podcast, Charlie asked
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: him something and he was like, yeah, and I said,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: what in the H– Did you just abbreviate hell?
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: You know, look, we swear on this podcast, perhaps we shouldn't.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: What in the H? What in the H? Oh, Paul Ryan.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: It is just the thing to know about Paul Ryan
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: is that he's been running around saying he wants to
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: get MAGA out of the Republican Party while he serves
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: on the board of the Fox Corporation, which has done
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: more to advance the MAGA movement than any entity on earth.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: And Rupert Murdoch said something in his deposition that I
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: think explains why Paul Ryan is doing this. Not because
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: he's trying to have some sort of quiet, apparently silent
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: fucking influence over the thing. The reason he's doing it,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: what Rupert Murdoch said when asked why they put some
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: of these conspiracy theorists on is he said, it's not
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: red or blue, it's green. And that's what Paul Ryan's doing.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: He's just getting fucking paid. And Charlie Sykes called him
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: out on that. This deposition reveals that. This was such
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: a flashback to the Trump era where Trump would do
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: something terrible and then there would be some report Leaked
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: by people we know about how Paul Ryan quietly advised
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Trump to not do that. And Trump told him to
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: fuck off. It's just, what a loser. What a historic loser.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: We got some ASMR here on Pod Save America. All right.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I think Paul Ryan is bad. When we
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: come back, Melissa Murray joins to answer all our questions
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: about this week's Supreme Court challenge to Joe Biden's student
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: debt relief plan. This week, the Supreme Court heard oral
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: arguments in a case about whether President Biden's student debt
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: relief plan is constitutional. The general consensus is that the
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: conservative majority seems ready to strike it down, which would
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: have major implications for millions of people. So lots to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: talk about. But we figured it'd be better to bring
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: on a real legal expert. then force you to listen
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: to two guys who got their degrees on Twitter. Melissa,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: welcome back to the pod.
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: So when you first heard about Biden's student debt relief plan,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: what did you think about the constitutionality of that executive action?
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: Well, the first thing I thought was that Republicans all
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: over the country were absolutely going to be salivating for
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: an opportunity to get this in front of the Supreme Court. And, Kel, surprise,
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: I was correct on this question. went to the court
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: with a bullet. Again, this is sort of the sweet
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: spot for a lot of conservative grievance. It's about redistribution,
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: providing government largesse to individuals. And it also involves the
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: administrative state and agencies, something that conservatives and in particular,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: some of the conservatives on the Supreme Court have identified
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: as a particular bugaboo that they would like to dismantle.
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: And it also involves a politically salient issue around which
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: A significant number of Americans have real feelings. The idea
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: that the cost of higher education has escalated beyond the
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: realm in which most people can afford it, and that
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: in situations where there are times of economic crisis, like
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: a pandemic, for example, there should be some kind of
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: intervention to ameliorate some of the difficulties that those college
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: debts present to people, including young people who find them
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: often crippling as they make their way.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Would you think about the merits of this particular challenge
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to the plant?
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: Important for listeners to understand that before you can even
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: get to federal court, you have to plead a particular
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: set of procedural issues, including that you have an actual injury.
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: And so here, both of the cases involving the student
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: loan program have two sets of plaintiffs who may not
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: necessarily be injured in a way that you require in
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: order to get into federal court. So the conservative states
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: that have filed the suit against the Biden administration in
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: Biden versus Nebraska are arguing that they're injured because a
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: nonprofit organization in Missouri that handles a lot of student
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: loan and higher education administration in that state, Mojila, has
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: been injured because it's going to lose some of the
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: funding that it ordinarily gets to distribute to in the
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: state of Missouri for higher education. But the challengers argued
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: that's not necessarily an injury to the states themselves. If
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: there's an injury, it is to Mojila, and Mojila ought
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: to be the appropriate litigant here. But the states are
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: arguing that Mojila is essentially an arm of Missouri. That
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: is something that is under debate in this case. And
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: so when Mohila is injured, the states themselves are injured.
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: But again, it's a very dicey question of standing and
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: whether or not they should even be here. It's also
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: a similar kind of standing issue for the litigants in
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: the other case, Department of Education versus Brown. There, it's
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: two borrowers who don't qualify under the program or don't
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: qualify for the maximum amount of aid that is being offered.
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: One individual doesn't qualify at all because her loans are
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: serviced by a commercial lender, not by the government. The
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: other litigant is someone for whom the maximum amount of
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: loan forgiveness isn't available because he doesn't have Pell Grants.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: They argue that because the administration sort of fast-tracked this
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: through the Department of Education, there wasn't an appropriate period
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: for notice and comment. And therefore, they didn't have a
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: chance to register their own views about what this program
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: should have looked like. And they've been injured because the
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: program doesn't look the way that they want it to.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: In most cases, that sort of injury wouldn't be understood
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: as an injury at all. It would be understood as
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: a kind of generalized grievance and would be insufficient to
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: allow someone to proceed in federal court. And I think
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: the court was pretty much on the same page as
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: the challengers on that. But with regard to the states,
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: the conservative majority really did seem amenable to granting standing
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: in that circumstance and getting to the merits, whether or
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: not the Biden administration has the authority to pass this program.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: And what did the conservative justices say to make everyone
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: think they intend to kill the plan about not just
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the standing issues, but the merits of the of Biden's
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: authority itself?
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: Well, let's be clear, John, they were not subtle here.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: The chief justice attacked this case publicly. with a kind
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: of relish that I think I've only seen from him
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: in something like Shelby County, where he was insisting that
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: racial discrimination in voting was no longer a thing because
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: the Voting Rights Act had worked so well. So let's
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: dismantle the Voting Rights Act. I mean, he attacked this
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: question with a kind of relish that was just really
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: uncharacteristic for him. I mean, he was out Alito-ing Justice Alito.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, just really revved up here. And he raised
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: a lot of really interesting questions. He often conflated the
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: standing question, the procedural question from the substantive question of
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: whether the president has the authority to do this. And
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: he seemed really eager to get to the substantive question.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: And it was sort of, his eagerness was kind of
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: underlaid with some sense of grievance. Like, you know, there
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: were all of these people, like the landscape architect who
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: had not gone to college, but who would be shut
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: out of this program because he didn't go to college.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Why should the government's resources be be given over to
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: individuals who made choices to attend higher education. Like they
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: should all sort of deal with the choices and the
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: consequences of their choices themselves. And so it was sort
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: of underlaid with this kind of weird working class grievance
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: that I think we expect in sort of MAGA circles,
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: but we haven't necessarily seen in full flower, certainly from
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: the Chief Justice of the United States. So it was
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: a really interesting argument. And Justice Alito was back there
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: giving him a spot, and Justice Thomas was also there.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: Justice Gorsuch, who has always been very skeptical of the
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: administrative state, he was right there. The real question is
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: whether Justice Kavanaugh is going to go along with this.
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: He seemed to be of the view that the statute here,
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: the HEROES Act that the government says gives them the
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: authority to act in emergency circumstances to waive or modify
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: student loan provisions. is a really broad statute. And waive
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: or modify could mean canceling student loans. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: and Roberts argue that if Congress wanted you to cancel
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: student loan debt, they would have explicitly said cancel student
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: loan debt. They wouldn't have talked about waiving or modifying.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: And indeed, they point to other statutory provisions where Congress
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: explicitly gives the Department of Education the authority to cancel
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: student loan debts or other kinds of debts, rather than
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: just simply saying waiver or modification. So it was a
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: really interesting argument, an argument that was really full of
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: sort of textualist energy. This is this idea that you
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: read statutes according to their text, and that's how you
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: understand their meaning. But both sides had their own vision
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: of what textual healing would look like in this circumstance.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: And the conservatives were like, If it's going to be canceled,
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: it has to say canceled. And the liberal justices, again,
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: that Hoppled minority, were like, this is a broad statute.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Congress doesn't have to say everything with exact specificity. Waiver
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: or modification encompasses this.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Did Barrett, Justice Barrett, give any hint to where she
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: falls on this?
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: Well, Lady Safehaven was very interesting in this oral argument.
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: She keeps her counsel, I think, really well in these things,
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: often not giving where she's going to go on some
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: of this. But she did seem quite skeptical that the
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: states had standing to bring this claim. And indeed, all
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: of the female justices seemed to be on that page.
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: There was a real jurisdictional question here about whether or
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: not these were the appropriate litigants to bring this challenge. Now,
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: whether that means she is going to be with the
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: liberal wing on the standing question It's an entirely different thing.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: In the earlier case back in 2021 about the constitutionality
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: of SB8 and whether there could be a challenge to SB8,
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: she and Justice Kavanaugh seemed to be giving a lot
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: of vibes that this was a situation where it could
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: not be the case that a law— could be entirely
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: shielded from federal litigation because of some wacko novel enforcement
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: scheme that someone dreamed up. But then when push came
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: to shove and it was time to write the opinion,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: she was right there with the conservative majority.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Justice Roberts, to me, always seems like a real Paul
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Ryan conservative. Like what gets him up in the morning
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: is just preventing government from helping people who need it.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: That's what really, that's what gets him going.
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: This is the perfect case for that. I mean, it
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: really does have everything, the sort of antipathy to redistribution
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: coupled with an antipathy to the administrative state to curbing
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: presidential power, but only for Democratic presidents. And, you know,
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: it's all there in this case.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Dan, how do you think the Biden administration should prepare
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: for this ruling, which will probably come down right around
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: the time of the first Republican primary debate?
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I think Obviously, as we know, we know where
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: this is likely to end. And therefore, there are two things.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: One is they're going to have to find a way
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: to at least demonstrate to people they're doing everything they
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: can within the power they have remaining to try to
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: help student borrowers. That may be very limited things, but
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: whatever it is. And I think be fully prepared for that.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: They received a lot of criticism in the wake of
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: the ruling that they were not fully prepared. They had
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: not fully explored their executive options at that point. They
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: will have to do that here. I recognize that that
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: is going to be cold comfort to a lot of
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: people who are going to get bills because of this.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: But the other thing is, in a previous era of
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: American politics, a Supreme Court ruling was an imprimatur of
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: legitimacy that put the president on their back heels. That
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: is no longer the case. The Supreme Court is as
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: unpopular as it's ever been in its history. It is
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: as least trusted as it's ever been in its history.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: And I think that there is a larger argument to
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: make here against a extreme, radical court that is out
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: of step with the American people. The Roe ruling, this ruling,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Shelby County could be part of this, but the whole
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: set of things where the corporation is cited against the
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: broad wishes of the American people. And that's the large argument.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: I think that's going to be a very important argument
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: in an upcoming presidential campaign. This is just one of
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: many cases where the court is making decisions that are
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: not just against this president, but they're against the broad
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: will of the American people. And so the be prepared
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: on the substance, be prepared on the messaging and come out.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: Don't pull your punches. Forget you were ever the Judiciary
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Committee chair for many years and aggressively take on this court.
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: So can I add to that?
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: I think this is where the administration really made an
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: unforced error with the State of the Union, where they
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: didn't talk about the Supreme Court at all, other than
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: to say that they were interested in aggressively protecting rights.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, that was a really missed opportunity to highlight
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: while the court and some of the justices were right
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: there in the room, the work that this court has
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: done and how it really is functioning in a counter-majoritarian
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: way that it really may be captured by conservative dark
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: money interests and that it's out of step with the
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: American people and this administration's mandate. to pursue the interests
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: of the American people.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: We would have gotten a civility alert on that one.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: We would have. Remember when Barack Obama... I think there
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: are ways to do it. You lie.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: You lie.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: No. I think there are ways to do it. Yeah. No,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I totally agree. I mean, Melissa, do you think there
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: are any ways to modify or narrow this plan, like
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: if they strike it down so that some kind of
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: student debt relief plan passes muster with this court?
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, I think this is tricky because one
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: of the things the court was really hammering and the
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: conservative majority was really hammering during this oral argument was
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: this idea of the major question doctrine. And if you
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: follow strict scrutiny and you listen to us, we are
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: really skeptical of this major questions doctrine because it seems
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: like not unlike the independent state legislature theory to be
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: sort of made up fan fiction that this court has
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: created out of thin air to pursue its own policy
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: preferences that limit the administrative state and the administration and
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: Congress in pursuing sort of broad scale issues like policy issues.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: And the major question doctrine basically says, if there is
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: something of major significance, whether it's financial significance or economic
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: significance or even political significance, If an agency is going
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: to act on a grant of congressional authority, Congress has
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: to make its grant, allowing the agency to do that very,
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: very explicit. So in West Virginia versus EPA, which was
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: the first opinion just last year to actually articulate this
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: in a really clear way and call it the major
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: questions doctrine, the court essentially stripped the Clean Air Act
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: of the authority and power of for the agency to
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: actually address climate change. Unless Congress specifically envisioned in 1977
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: the need to do this exact thing, clean power, in
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: order to deal with climate change or clean air, then
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: the agency can't do it. And so it's a kind
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: of hobbling doctrine that basically says, unless Congress, whenever they
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: wrote the statute, and again, Congress is writing statutes that
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: are meant to have a long life and address a
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: wide expanse of problems, If Congress does not specifically hone
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: in on the problem that this agency is addressing right now,
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: then they don't have the authority to do it. So,
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, it is a doctrine that is purposely created
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: to kneecap an administration and the administrative state in addressing
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: problems in real time. And so if this is a
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: major question, I imagine any kind of relief for student
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: loans would similarly fall into the major questions doctrine because
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: it is a matter, according to this court, of serious
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: financial or economic significance.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, Dan, it does seem like if I'm sure
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the administration will try to figure out some kind of
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: alternative that might be narrower in scope. But if you
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: know what Melissa says is true and they're going to
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: look skeptically on any kind of student debt relief, this court.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Then it does seem like Biden's only option is to
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: really come out swinging against the court on this because
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they don't want to open themselves up to, hey,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you promised me student debt relief and now I didn't
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: get it. And for those of us who pay close
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: attention to the news, we know it's the fault of
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. But for a lot of people, they
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: might just say like, hey, why did Joe Biden take
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: back my student debt relief?
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: And this is. this is ultimately the dilemma that is
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: going to infect every executive action the president wants to
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: do with this Supreme Court, which is, do we push
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: the envelope and try to do what we think is
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: right and hope that we can do it for as
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: long as the court will let us, or we will
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: get lucky in the court or there'll be a standing
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: issue or whatever else, or are we going to allow
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: this rigged Supreme Court to preemptively prevent us from doing
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: what we should do? And that In every issue area,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: that's going to have a different calculus between how it
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: impacts people if it gets overturned at some point in
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: the process or if it gets enjoined at some point
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: in the process. Obviously, the president always takes blame when
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: something doesn't happen. That is the argument foregoing after the
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: court being aggressive about it, wrapping this court, which was
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: rigged in every way, shape, or form with the larger
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: MAGA extremism And there is one element I thought was
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: really important in what Melissa said, which is that this
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: court is captured by dark money. A lot of us
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: are big proponents of court expansion. We know the president
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: is not. We know a lot of Senate Democrats are not.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: But there is something short. Court reform does not have
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: to include court expansion. It could also include as a
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: step to that is a code of conduct and ethics code.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Right now, all of the sort of conflicts of interest
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: provisions that hamper like low level government employees do not
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: apply to the Supreme Court.
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Disclosure requirements that apply to political appointees in the White
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: House do not apply to the Supreme Court. Calling for
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: and putting forth, whether it's the president or Senate Democrats
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: or someone else, aggressively for a code of conduct of
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court is a way to highlight the extreme
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: and potentially corrupt nature of this court, which gives you
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: an argument on all of these questions that are going
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: to matter. This one's student loan. You know, you have–
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: you know, polluters, big oil companies, all these interests who
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: do and will continue to do incredibly well in the
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Roberts court. And so having that sort of argument there,
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: I think, is very helpful.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: And the court is laying the foundation for this argument
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: to be made. I mean, there has been unprecedented reporting
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: in the last couple of months about these sort of
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: shadowy dark money interests circulating around the court, some in
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: service of a concerted campaign of influence. at the court,
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: others about sort of trying to put the right people
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: on the court and the lower court. So there's the
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: political story that came out just this week by Heidi
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: Presbola about how much money Leonard Leo has amassed for
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: himself in just the last couple of years, as he
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: has also been incredibly successful being the Trump administration's outsource
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: for all of the various judicial appointments that the Trump
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: administration has managed to install in just four years. I mean,
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: That's a really important story that I don't know that
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: a lot of mainstream outlets are picking up and really
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: delving into. But again, it sort of reiterates that there
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: is some kind of undue relationship between some of these
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: oligopolistic entities and conservative entities with just lots of money.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: And it all feeds into the court and the lower
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: federal courts.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: Certainly seems like an argument that not only Joe Biden
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: should be making in his, uh, reelect, but all these
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Senate candidates, because I think control of the Senate becomes
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: that much more important. And so I feel like that
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: should be sort of a central plank. Melissa, before we
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: let you go, I have to ask, because we were
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: just talking about it. What do you think about the
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: latest revelations in the Fox Dominion case?
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, I thought you were going to ask me what
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: I thought about King Charles evicting Harry and Meghan from
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: Frogmore Cottage. I do have thoughts about that as well.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: I kind of want to hear that, too.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: We'll save that for later. What do I think about
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: these latest revelations from Fox and Dominion?
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Murdoch basically saying that he could have stopped the election
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: conspiracies and did not.
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: So, okay. First, I will say this is really unprecedented
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: in a defamation case, like to have these kinds of revelations,
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: I think usually unheard of because they don't proceed to
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: this point most of the time because it's such a
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: high bar to prove defamation. So usually you plead out
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: at the pleading stage, but This has really advanced beyond discovery.
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: And wow, have they discovered a lot of information, much
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: of it provided by the top level people at Fox,
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: whether it's Viet Dinh, the general counsel, or Rupert Murdoch,
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: the head of the whole show. I mean, a lot
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: of acknowledgement that, yeah, we could have done something, but
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: we didn't because we're worried about our ratings and Newsmax
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: and OAN are eating into our market share. So we
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: had to be as extreme as possible. So we did that.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: But the other thing that I thought was really, really
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: fascinating and troubling, and again, not picked up in a
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: really clear way by most mainstream media, was how much
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: Fox and the Republican Party are inextricably intertwined. And there
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: were various parts in that deposition testimony where Murdoch was like,
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: you know, and then I called my friend Jared Kushner
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: and asked him about this. And then I reached out
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: to Mitch McConnell to say X. And I was like,
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: this is basically like Pravda for Republicans. Like they are
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: literally in bed with each other. And that is surprising. And,
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe it's good that there is some differentiation
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: in the conservative news diet now that Newsmax and OAN
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: are there. But the way in which Fox has been
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: and was clearly functioning as a mouthpiece for the GOP
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: has to be really troubling.
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: And I know that the legal bar for defamation is
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: quite high, but it feels like It feels like they're
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: close to soaring right over it. I mean, I'm.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: Surprised like we just haven't just gotten a settlement at
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: this point because this seems really bad.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: Melissa Murray, thank you as always. Everyone go check out
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Strict Scrutiny for more brilliant legal analysis from Melissa and
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Kate and Leah. And thanks for joining us as always.
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Before we go, it's been a busy week for Republicans
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: in Congress, not because they passed any laws, still waiting
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: on that, but because they held hearings on everything from
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: lab leaks to border security that gave each aspiring MAGA
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: politician the chance to achieve what they came to Congress
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: to do, generate viral clips for Fox News. Sadly, even
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: that simple task proved too difficult for many of the
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: GOP's best and brightest who could only manage to generate
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: viral clips for Pod Save America in a segment we're calling...
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: The self-own zone. All right. First, up, we have the
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: CrossFit enthusiast whom Speaker McCarthy said he will never leave
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: and always take care of, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marge tried
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: to take the Biden administration to task on everything from
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: school closures to fentanyl. Let's see how it went.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: England eighth graders' math proficiency dropped by seven points. Reading
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: levels dropped by two points.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: There are 1,524, 524 and 481.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: This is over 1 million, 1.5 million. I want you
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: to know that in 2020, there were 4.8 thousand pounds
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: of fentanyl seized by CBP. But in 2021, fiscal year 2021,
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: it increased to 11.2 thousand pounds of fentanyl. was seized
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: by the CBP. That is a direct result of Biden
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: administration failure policies.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: You know, at least the kids who got lower test scores,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: their excuse is that their schools were closed. What the
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: fuck's her excuse? Yeah, you know what? So what you're
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: saying is that the Biden administration was able to seize
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: more illegal drugs than the Trump administration. That's the point
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: you're making? That's the failed... actions of the Biden administration
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: that we're able to, we're able to seize more drugs
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: in the Trump administration.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: It is, I mean, just two things. One, Marjorie Taylor
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: Greene doing something stupid is as consistent and predictable as
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: a metronome. Like it's just, you know, it's exactly how
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: it's going to happen and when it's going to happen.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: And I just do not understand. It's not just her,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: but every Republican's decision to cite things the Biden administration
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: does at the border is as a way to argue
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: that they're not doing their job at the border. It's just,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: it's so bizarre. Look at all the people they apprehended.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: Look at all the fentanyl they stopped.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: She also like, there's some other hearing where she had this, um,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: this mother of, um, and these two brothers who, who
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: died of fentanyl poisoning. And, uh, and Marjorie Taylor green
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: tweets the clip and is like, this is what you
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: get from the Biden administration, this fail policy, these deaths
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: are on their hands, you know, and then you find
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: out that they were, that they actually died in 2020
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: when Donald Trump was president. So once again, it's just.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, in fairness, time stopped having meaning. In
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: early 2020. Yeah, no, maybe.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. She's just dealing with that.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Next up, we have the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Committee who competed to see which one of them could
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: yell the loudest at Merrick Garland. Let's hear it. And
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: you are the attorney general of the United States. You
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: are in charge of the Justice Department. And yes, sir,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: you are responsible. So give me an answer.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: The FBI does not agree with your description.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not asking about the FBI. You are the Attorney General.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 6: As you know, the FBI raided Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 6: And subsequent to that raid, there have been multiple leaks
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: about what was discovered there, including a photograph of documents
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 6: that were discovered there. Did you know about the leaks
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: from that raid?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: The photograph was a filing in court in response to
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: a motion filed by Mr.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: Trump. It was not a leak.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: You, the Attorney General, make a determination and you spent
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: 20 years as a judge and you're perfectly content with
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: justices being afraid for their children's lives and you did
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 6: nothing to prosecute it.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Let's shift to another area. Can I answer the question? No,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: you cannot. That really sums it up. Can I answer
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: the question? No, I am yelling at you for TV.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: You cannot interrupt my yelling. This is my clip that
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: is going on Hannity that was, um, Insurrectionist fanboy Josh Hawley,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: who clearly just watched a little too much Few Good
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Men before his big appearance in Congress. And then I
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: really love Ted Cruz being like, were you aware of
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: the leak that showed that picture of the classified? It's like, no, idiot.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Fucking Donald Trump. The reason that picture of the folders
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: came out is because Donald Trump filed in court.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons that the Senate can
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: only work three days a week is so that people
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz can spend the other
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: two days a week practicing these moments in front of
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: the mirror.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: It's just so, it's such a bad performance.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: It's such bad performance art. And it's just, you know,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: you would love to see like what they see in
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: their head when these moments are happening.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know, they, they get the reinforcements. Cause
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: if you go on, uh, If you go on MAGA Twitter,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: if you start searching what, like, Benny Johnson's tweeting, it's like,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz destroys Merrick Garland during a hearing. And they
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: play the same clip that we're playing. But they think
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: it's a good thing. So maybe that's, they're getting that
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: kind of reinforcement. It's a loop.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: And finally, our winner today is human frat paddle Matt Gaetz,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: who gifted us an exchange that has now been seen
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: more than 2 million times on Twitter. It's Matt trying
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: to grill Undersecretary of Defense Colin Call about a conspiracy
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: that a right-wing Ukrainian militia group got access to U.S. weapons.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Here it is.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 7: Is Zav Battalion getting access to U.S.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Weapons? Not that I'm aware of, but if you have information,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: I'd be happy to hear it.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 7: CPM's consent to enter into the record the Global Times
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 7: investigative report that talks about training. It's from the Atlantic
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 7: Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab. citing that the Azov battalion
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 7: was even getting stuff as far back as 2018. Any
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 7: reason to disagree with that assessment?
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, is this the Global Times from China? No,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: this is.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: That's what you read. Yeah, it might be. Would that
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: be a reason?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: As a general matter, I don't take Beijing's propaganda.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: At face value. Just tell me if the allegation is
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: true or false.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: I don't have any evidence one way or the other.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: As a general matter, I don't take Beijing's propaganda at
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: face value.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: Fair enough.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: Some people bring receipts. Matt Gaetz brought CCP propaganda.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: But also, he's so used to screwing up that he
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: knew he was fucking up in real time and just
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: kind of let it go.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He's like, where can you go? You've just been
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: exposed reading Chinese communist government propaganda at a hearing and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: taking it seriously. He took it seriously and literally, I guess.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: Do you think he went back to the office and
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: was like, How did this foreign propaganda get into my
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: folder of domestic propaganda?
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: I hope he fired someone. I hope he fired a
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: couple people. This is only.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: For domestic, made in America propaganda. I don't want any
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: of this foreign shit.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, Matt Gaetz, congratulations. Congratulations on the cell phone of
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: the week. Thank you to Melissa Murray, as always, for
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: joining us and making us smarter. Thank you. There's no
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: one else. Thank you. Sorry.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: You can thank me.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, Dan. Thank you for joining us. Have
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: a great weekend and we will talk to you next week.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montuth. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.