Latest / Pod Save America / “Mag-a-Lago."

Transcript

“Mag-a-Lago." · Pod Save America

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: On today's pod, the Republican Party's spring donor retreat becomes
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: a MAGAfest at Mar-a-Lago, and Joe Biden launches a commission
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: to reform the Supreme Court as Democrats try to undo
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: the damage Mitch McConnell did to the judiciary. Then, a
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: few under-the-radar stories we're keeping an eye on. But first, Lovett,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: tell us about this week's show.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: Great Lovett or leave it. Emily Heller and I We're
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: doing it once. I don't think we can emotionally do
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: it again, but we did a little okay stop with Gutfield,
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: exclamation point. It was a tough watch. We did many more.
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: We cut it down for your own protection, but that
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: was very fun. And then Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton ranted
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: about D.C. statehood. Some great rants from Shaniqua McClendon about
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: Manchin and from John Milstein about the WeWork doc. It
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: was a fun app.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Fun app. Awesome. Check it out. Be sure to also
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: check out the latest Take Line, where Jason and Renee
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: discuss the viewership milestones reached by women's college basketball and
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: put Oscar-nominated director Trayvon Free in the hot seat for
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: a hilarious round of Take Survivor. I hear Elijah Cohn
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: did well, and I assume he wrote this promo language.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Elijah is really struggling in the Take Survivor competition. I
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: think we've got to be nice to him, you know?
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: He's just getting.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Defeated left and right.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: Poor Elijah.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Finally, we're now selling possibly my favorite piece of merch
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: at the Crooked store right now. It is a colorful
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: pool float that just says vaccinated on it.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: It's a great float. There are limited quantities available, but
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: to get yours, you can go pre-order at crooked.com slash store.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: And just to answer your question, if you got Johnson
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: & Johnson, you can still get it.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: AstraZeneca. That is not funny.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: All right, let's get to the news.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: The Republican Party, in its infinite wisdom, chose to hold
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: its spring donor retreat at the home of the twice
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: impeached one term president who single handedly cost them the
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: White House, the Senate and the House. So instead of
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: headlines about all the potential 2024 presidential candidates who spoke
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: at the big event, the coverage was all about Donald
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Trump's off the cuff remarks. Tommy John, I got a
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: quick quiz for you.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Please.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Which one of these things did the 45th president not
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: say during his speech at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday? He did
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: not say. A, he called Mitch McConnell a stone-cold loser
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: and a dumb son of a bitch. B, he mocked
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: McConnell's wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. C, he attacked
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Mike Pence for not helping him steal the election. D,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: he bragged about the size of the January 6th rally
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: that turned into an insurrection. E, he called immigrants murderers, rapists,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: and drug dealers. Or F, he proposed renaming the COVID
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: vaccines the Trump scene.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: John, he did all of the above. This is a
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: trick question.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Tommy, Tommy, you nailed it. Trick question, all of the above.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Can't slip one by you.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: I didn't, I didn't, uh, uh. I did not watch
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: or hear. I read stories about this thing because I
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: couldn't bring myself. Actually, my question is still like, I
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: know that when they had Rick Scott invent a fake
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: award to present to him, Trump didn't even do them
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: the favor of putting on a suit. He was still
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: in his golf clothes. And what I don't know is,
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: did Trump change into a suit to at least speak
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: to these donors or did he stay in the hat
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: and the polo?
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Trump looks like he's getting like third place in the
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Mar-a-Lago Club Championship. It does look like he just came
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: off the golf course to receive this award. Hey, question
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: I have for you guys, though. He also offered some
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: theory about Mark Zuckerberg spending $ 500 million on a lockbox
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: to mark votes. Does anyone know what that means?
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: So I was going to add that one to the list,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: but it was so hard to comprehend. And by the way,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: love it. There's no video of it. There's no audio
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: of the remarks. You didn't miss anything. This is all
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: from reports of donors who were there. So this is
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: all from media reports. And having read every single story
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: about this, I could not figure out the Zuckerberg $ 500
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: million lockbox where apparently all the votes were in the
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: lockbox and Mark Zuckerberg was walking around with them. I don't...
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: No one knows what the fuck the guy was talking about.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he doesn't know.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, like....
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: It's... It's a translation of a headline into a conversation
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: through the 1970s New York Post into a speech before donors,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: then translated from those donors to reporters. So I don't
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: think we'll ever know. I think it's lost to history.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: It's gone. Yeah.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Unless he brings it up again in future stump speeches.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: So on one hand, Politico reports that the audience panned
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Trump's speech with one donor calling it, quote, horrible. On
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: the other... Not a single Republican official criticized Trump on
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: the record, not even the people who were directly attacked. Tommy,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: why do you think that is? What's the party's Trump
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: strategy right now?
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, there's never been a shortage of Republican elites,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: especially the donor class, willing to criticize him on background.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: You know, I think that's kind of status quo ante here.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: The problem for the Republican Party is that the base...
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: loves the whining, nonstop grievance, open mic night, I should
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: have won the election stuff. So, you know, this feels
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: like kind of more of the same to me.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it. I mean, I think the award
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: really sort of sums it up. Trump calls the top
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Senate Republican a dumb son of a bitch. Then the
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Republican campaign committee for the Senate, the chair, Rick Scott
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: gives him, they made up the award. It's the first
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: ever champion for freedom award. It's a little, it's a
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: little silver bowl. It looks so stupid. It's a dumb
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: little metal bowl given to him just to make him
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: feel great. So they give it to him as he
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: calls the leader, the most powerful Republican in the Senate,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: a dumb son of a bitch.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: Well, I do think it's like, it captures something like
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: so essential about like these people, because you know that
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: when they, the first time someone said, should we make
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: up an award? People thought it was funny. You know, like,
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: that's stupid. Like, everyone knows that that's stupid. And then
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden, you got Rick Scott with a
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: bowl handing him the award. And then you have all
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: these Republican donors being like, honestly, we are not catering
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: to this guy anymore. I mean, after I get on
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: the shuttle from the Four Seasons to Mar-a-Lago and sit
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: there for three hours and listen to him ramble and
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: donate more money both to his pack and to the
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: Republican Party, I'm out.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: That's it for me.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, the reason I think this is important is...
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: So there's either two things going on.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: One.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: The party faithful, whether it's the voters, the activists, the donors,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the rest of the elected officials, they all do want
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: him again. And they're just embarrassed to say that publicly,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I guess. Right. They're all they're all on board.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: For another Donald Trump. So that it could be that
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: or it could be that once again, we are facing
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: the same collective action problem within the Republican Party that
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: led to Donald Trump winning the nomination this In 2016,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: which is that they're all afraid to say anything on
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: the record. They're all afraid to go after him. Not
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: one of the Republicans he attacked said anything. Mitch McConnell's
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: office had no comment about this. No one said anything.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: None of the other 2024 potential contenders said anything. No
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: one criticized him. And either way, if that's how they're
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: going to be, he's going to be, if he wants it,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: he's going to be the nominee again in 2024. It's
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: going to be his, it's going to be his clues
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: unless he decides not to run. If he decides to run, like,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know in this scenario, we're
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: now months away from the election, months away from the insurrection.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know how he, how he loses.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, it's, it's hard to tell if these,
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: if these donors are just like people who view Trump
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: or anybody else as a vessel for their future tax cut.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Like, I think there is that part of the party. Um,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: You're starting to see people quoted in some of these
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: stories saying Trump is fading his shelf life after the presidency.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: You know, it's shorter than you'd think. Oh, we don't
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: people around him don't believe he will run again. Again,
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: it's very hard to see if that's wishful thinking, if
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: that's people trying to background quote something into reality or,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: you know, exactly the kind of, you know, covering your
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: eyes and hoping for the best we've seen from the
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Republican Party since 2015. My money would be on the
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: guy running again because he has nothing else to do.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: He's a bored, angry old man sitting at a country club.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: You can't play golf 24 hours a day. So I
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: guess he'll continue to mess up our politics.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: And again, just two numbers here that tell you everything
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: you need to know. Reuters poll taken at the end
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: of March, so just a week or so ago, 60%
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: of Republicans believe Trump's false claims that the election was
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: stolen from him And 65% say he should run for
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: president again in 2024. So that's it. Usually these spring
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: retreats for a party that lost are supposed to be
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: some kind of a reckoning, an autopsy, what happens for
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: the future. They don't think they did anything wrong. They
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: don't think they did anything wrong by nominating Donald Trump
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: because they believe that the election was stolen from him.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: And that's what the voters, Republican voters, believe it well.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So if they believe that and the guy that the
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: election was stolen from chooses to run again, why not
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: support him? Because what did he do wrong? Right.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: It's... So they have accepted a story that he is
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: not politically toxic. They actually don't believe that anymore. They
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: think that he won the election and they've completely accepted
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: the policy argument, if you're going to call it that
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: or whatever. They view the nationalism that Trump has offered
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: as the future of the Republican Party. So now, regardless
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: of what happens with Donald Trump, the Republican primary is
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: now a machine that takes politicians that are in other
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: kinds of shapes and it extrudes them in a Trump
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: shape at the end of the machine. It's a it's
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: a Trump pasta machine. And they all come out now. Trump,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: all of them like like. Tom Cotton gave a speech,
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: sounded just like Trump. Ron DeSantis sounds more like Trump.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: Tucker Carlson sounds like Trump. Mike Pompeo sounds like Trump.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: Ted Cruz sounds like Trump.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Ted Cruz, go fuck yourself. Thank you, yes. Yes, Kyle.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: Kyle on the ones and twos.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Of all of those 2024 contenders you just mentioned- None
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: of them made headlines over the weekend except the one
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Republican White House hopeful who was allowed to share the
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: stage with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: who Trump has reportedly told advisers he wants as his
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: VP if he runs again. The New York Times ran
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: a piece about DeSantis positioning himself to be Trump's heir
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: that says, quote, the governor's brand of libertarianism or, quote,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: competent Trumpism, as one ally called it, is on the ascent. Uh,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: what's the case for Ron DeSantis is the next Trump. And, uh,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: how seriously do you guys take it? Tommy, what do
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: you think?
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, the case for Ron DeSantis winning a Republican
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: primary is that he is the party's number one troll
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: when it went after Trump or maybe after Donald Trump jr.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing he does. He will not, uh,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: listen to any like press criticism. He will not, uh,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: cut a deal with any liberals. He's just like the
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: maximalist opponent to everything progressives want to do. He's not
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: a libertarian. The Florida legislature is trying to shove through
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: a bill that would basically criminalize protesting throughout the state
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: of Florida. Very libertarian. Libertarian bullshit, right? He's just kind
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: of like a vicious schlub with resting dumb face who
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: is actually like pretty smart, like Harvard educated lawyer, went
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: to Yale undergrad. He's like all the things that the
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Republican Party pretends to hate, but he dresses himself up
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: as this sort of like toxic opponent to liberalism. And
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: so here we are. Now the New York Times is
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: talking about how he is uh, you know, the, the
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: heir apparent and Politico has declared that Ron DeSantis in
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Florida won the pandemic because, you know, at times their
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: case count was lower than cities that locked down harder.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: So I don't know, this is the dumb political universe
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: where we're stuck in.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: It's just as an aside, anytime anyone asks me what
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I think about Politico, I'm just going to go right
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: to that headline, which says Ron DeSantis, how Ron DeSantis
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: won the pandemic. I don't care. if your state had
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: a good record or bad record, it's not about that.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: You don't win a fucking pandemic.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: No, it's, um, I just, my personal, my personal view
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: is that it's like really serious and like not something
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: to think of as like a game that you can
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: win or lose. Yeah.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: That was just my, that was my read about it.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: Wow. Wow.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: That's how I interpreted it.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Real stick in the mud.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Um, love it.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: What do you think about Ron DeSantis? You're a, uh,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: you're a Floridian by, by family.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Sure. I am.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Sure. I am.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, I love it.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: I love a fan boat. I find this idea of
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: a competent Trump is like it gives Trump too much
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: credit and actually gives Trumpism too much coherence. Trumpism isn't
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: really a clean ideology at all. What you're saying is
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: he's a Republican who will use some of the race
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: baiting and bigotry and anti-media language.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: That was effective for Trump.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: That's what you're saying. You're saying he's a Republican- who
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: has Republican policies and Republican instincts. He's anti-democratic in all
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: the ways that Republicans are anti-democratic. He is more competent
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: than Trump because everyone is more competent than Trump. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: he is going to, when he is attacked or when
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: he feels he's in a politically sticky situation, lash out
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: at what he did at this event. He's going to say, oh,
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: I'll never be afraid of big tech. I'll never be
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: afraid of the liberals. I'll never be afraid of the media.
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: So if that's what it means to be a competent Trump,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: what you're really saying is he is a Republican.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Did you guys know that he wrote a book called
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: Dreams from Our Founding Fathers? Only when I read the
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: prep last night. Everything is just a troll.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I was about to text him.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Everything is a troll of Obama. Everything is derivative. Like
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: he wouldn't get a COVID shot in public because like,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know why, because they're all part of a
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: death cult and they think that opposing a pandemic makes
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: you liberal. I think he's just a troll. He's terrible.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I think that he is... Quite dangerous and someone who
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: could definitely win the nomination if Trump does not win. Now,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: so if Trump runs, I think DeSantis is screwed because like,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: why do you want the pale imitation of Trump when
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: you can have the real thing, right? Now, you could
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: argue that people say, oh, well, Ron DeSantis is Trump
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: without all of the as the New York Times would
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: probably say, the rough edges of Trump. Trump is a
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: flamethrower or whatever they call it. Firebrand.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Firebrand.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Bombastic style.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: So he's Trump without the rough edges. But if you're
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: a Republican voter, you want the real thing. You love
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. But if Donald Trump doesn't run, look, Ron
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: DeSantis has a 53% job approval in Florida. He was
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: second in the straw poll at CPAC. He was first
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: in the straw poll without Trump. His appeal isn't just
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: isolated to the Trump diehards, which is the real problem there.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: His job approval rating among independents in Florida is 59%.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Jeb Bush talked about him the other day, said, I'm
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: out of the punditry business, but I am a fan
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: of Ron DeSantis. So you could see, and partly because
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: of what you said, Lovett, that he's just a Republican
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: who does the whole Trump but he fights thing, that
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis is someone who could bridge the Trump diehards
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: with some of the more traditional conservative Republicans left over
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: in the party who might have decided that they didn't
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: like Trump because of a few of his fucking tweets.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: So if you want if you want Trump without the
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: tweets that cause headaches for Republicans, maybe you got yourself
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis. Yeah.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: And presumably you also have someone running without the record
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: of mismanaging a once in a century pandemic. So like
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: we should all be pretty fucking worried about the next election.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Like, yeah. I mean, yeah, Trump.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's why I'm with the Trump baggage. Trump with
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Trump came very close.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: So 40,000 votes, 40,000 votes in three states. And Trump,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: who presided over the largest loss of American life in
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: modern history, lost by 40,000 votes. So that's how close
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: we are. That's why it's everyone. There's a lot of
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: like I can see online, too, when people bring up
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Trump again. Why are you still talking about it?
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Like, no, no, no.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: We're going to have an election in 2024. So far,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: he's the front runner. He's probably got the nomination if
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: he wants it, if he doesn't want it. There's someone
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: like Ron DeSantis who could be even more dangerous because
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: he at least appears to be more normal to some voters.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: We haven't really dug into judicial politics since Biden won,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: but on Friday. The president announced that he'll be establishing
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: a commission to study possible Supreme Court reforms, including adding
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: seats or instituting term limits. The bipartisan commission, made up
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: of both liberal and conservative academics, fulfills one of Biden's
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: campaign promises, though at the end of the 180 days,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: the New York Times reports that the commission will not
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: make formal recommendations, but provide, quote, an evaluation of the
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: risks and benefits of making changes to the court.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: This fulfills Joe Biden's campaign promise to get out of
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: a bad news cycle in October of 2020.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Particularly right before a debate or during a debate. So
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: some progressives like the group Demand Justice and Representative Mondaire
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Jones criticized the commission as insufficient. Others, like Alliance for Justice,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: said it demonstrates a strong commitment to taking action. Meanwhile,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Mitch McConnell called it a direct assault on our nation's
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: independent judiciary and another sign of the far left's influence
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: over the Biden administration. Lovett, what do you think?
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Well, I obviously want to reserve judgment for the 180
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: days that commence after the commission first meets, a date
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: that I don't believe has yet been set. It's a
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: commission that it says 36 people on it, which felt
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: big to me.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Felt like that's a.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: Lot of, a lot of, a lot of mouths, a
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: lot of mouths to feed, but, um, you know, they
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: can't really make formal recommendations. What is striking is just,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: this is, uh, we've lost the courts. They're lost. We
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: lost these fights. We lost the Supreme court. We should,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: Breyer should retire and we should, you know, put pressure
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: on Breyer, at least make the case for why Breyer
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: should retire. But this is a really long-term challenge. Uh,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: we do not have the votes to expand the court. Uh,
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Republicans are wise to the fact that democratic interest in
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: this is ideological. We want to shift the balance of
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: the courts. They do not obviously want to help us
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: do that. There may be non-ideological reforms that can be
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: made in the court. I'm not an expert on this,
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: but there are like non-ideological changes that seem to be
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: needed given like just the growth in the country and
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: the pressure on the federal court system. But beyond that,
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: I don't know how you do this without winning more
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: Senate seats and keeping the House continuing to have this conversation.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: So like, will this report that looks at a lot
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: of problems without actually proposing solutions make a difference? Maybe
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: in the long run, maybe it starts a conversation. Beyond that,
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you think?
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, to love this point, the problem is acute.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: I think Trump named about 25% of the entire federal
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: bench that's currently sitting. The He named 54 U.S. Court
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: of Appeals judges. So the bench is completely MAGA at
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: this point. My question is, I guess, what kind of
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: report is this going to be? They're not going to
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: offer recommendations, but are they attempting to get a consensus
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: view from these 36 members? Will there be dissenting opinions?
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: What's the outcome here? What's the goal? And my concern is,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: we have 180 days. I mean, time is not on
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: our side. We are one Senate seat away from not
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: being able to confirm any more judges necessarily if Mitch
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: McConnell decides he doesn't want to. If we lose the House,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: we're not going to be able to pass any kind
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: of legislation that might change the makeup of the court
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: or how it works. So I'm a little worried about
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: just the ticking clock here more than almost anything else.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I guess my question is, who's the audience for this commission, right?
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So there's some really great progressives on this commission, some
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: great liberals, civil rights activists, et cetera. And then there's
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: some conservative members really conservative um so you're right tommy
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: like i don't i don't imagine they're going to get
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: to some consensus opinion with this group of people there's
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: 36 people and i don't even think that's their charge
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: so they come out with this commission they offer the
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: risks and benefits like it's not for the american people
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: right like that what's that going to do it's not
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: for like to convince republican voters you're not going to
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: get them it seems like is it a commission for
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and the people that you
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: would need in the Senate to both get rid of
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: the filibuster and then pass legislation to add seats to
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: the court? Is it for Justice Breyer, perhaps, to show
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: him and other members of the court, perhaps, who are
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: worried about court packing that as opposed to just doing
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: this out of pure political reasons, you're taking it seriously
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: and you're thinking about the institutions? Perhaps that's what it's about.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Either way, I agree with Levitt that like whether Joe,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: if Joe Biden had come up with a commission that
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: was like 100% liberal and was going to come out
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: with recommendations at the end of 60 days instead of
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: 180 days, would it make that much difference? I don't
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: think so because you're still stuck with what's going to
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: happen with Joe Manchin, what's going to happen with Kyrsten Sinema,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: which is the fucking Joe Manchin cul-de-sac that we've been
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: talking about the last couple months that you're stuck in
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: once again. So I don't know that it.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: Matters that much.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: No basketball hoop in that cul-de-sac.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: So as we've mentioned, one person who weighed in on
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: court reform last week was Justice Stephen Breyer, who said
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: during a speech at Harvard Law School that advocates of
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: court expansion should think long and hard about the risks.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Here's a clip.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But that authority, like the rule of law, depends on trust.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: A trust that the court is guided by legal principle,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: not politics. Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: influence can only feed that latter perception.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: So, progressives responded by reiterating their call for the 82-year-old
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: liberal justice to retire so that Biden can name a
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: replacement for Breyer, who could be confirmed by the Democratic Senate,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: demand justice, even had a billboard with Breyer's face on
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: it driving around the Supreme Court. But the White House
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: told reporters last week that Biden will not pressure Breyer
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: to retire, believing it's Breyer's choice to make. Um, why
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: is it so important for Breyer to retire right now?
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: And I guess more importantly, what do you think the
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: best way is to get that done?
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Reverse psychology. Well, no, say more about that.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: What do you think?
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: So I, um, uh, decided to give myself a treat
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: and watch the two hour lecture at 1.75 speed. That's the,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: that's the gift I gave for it.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: I was like, you know what?
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: The man's been on the court for a long time.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: I'm not a Um, and I was like, let me walk,
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: tough start. So I was like, let me just see
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: what this argument is. And, and what's interesting about it
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: is like, it is a, he has a true, he
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: has a true faith in the court. He has a
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: true faith in the process by which it makes decisions.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: He has thought deeply about the ways in which the
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: court builds trust despite partisan, um, uh, uh, divisions inside
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: and the way they issued a sense when they issued
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: a sense, when they make decisions narrowly, when they make decisions.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: Broadly.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: And I actually think that, of course, what he is
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: saying is true. I think that the partisan rendering of
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: how Republican appointed judges versus Democratic appointed judges rule is
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: a bit broadly drawn. The court is not as 100%
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: a political body as we sometimes claim it is. It is,
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: of course, not as nonpartisan as he would like to
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: believe it is. But what he doesn't grapple with at all,
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: to me, is, okay, you care about the legitimacy of
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: the court and you are an expert in and a
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: practitioner in the ways in which the court itself establishes
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: its legitimacy. What he doesn't grapple with at all in
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: a two-hour lecture is what happens when that legitimacy is
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: attacked from without by political institutions, by senators, by Republican presidents,
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: by a process by which the court was stacked. What
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: do you do When the court is a right wing
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: court and five of those justices were appointed by Republican
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: presidents who didn't win the popular vote. OK, and you're
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: staying on the court potentially makes that problem even worse.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: And he doesn't grapple with that, I think, because he
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: can't grapple with it, because the reality is it is
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: a partisan body. And I think we all should be
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: less worried about seeming political by demanding he retire than
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: by the actual problem of what happens when Republican politicians retire.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: take over the courts because as much as Breyer believes
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: it's nonpartisan, they know it isn't. And it doesn't matter
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: what it looks like. It matter what it is. And
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: he is holding a seat that if we don't get
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: before we have a democratic Senate, he puts in jeopardy
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: everything he has believed in and fought for his entire career.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you think you want to drive that
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: billboard around?
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, yes, he's 82. He's the oldest member of
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: the court. Obviously in hindsight, uh, the world would be
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: a lot better place if RBG had resigned in 2013
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: and Barack Obama had been able to name her replacement
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: and not Donald Trump. I mean, I just think that
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: that's a fact. I understand all the reasons. She's an icon.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: She's someone who's an extraordinary figure in our history, but
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: we are worse off because Trump got that seat. And
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: I also just think a mistake we made in the
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Obama White House was to sometimes try to make decisions
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: or act like there were certain like sects of government
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: that were above politics. I saw this a lot on
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: the NSC where it was like, the politics doesn't enter
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: the situation room. Well, in fact, it does, right? Because
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: we're only here because of politics because you got elected.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I think the same thing is true for the courts.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's 677 district court judges. Every one of
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: them has the power to issue a temporary restraining order
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: that blocks the implementation of federal legislation until a trial
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: can be held about that law, right? Biden immediately saw
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: this happen to him with his moratorium on evictions. So
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: the idea that the judicial branch is not political, I
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: think is on its face not accurate. It's also the
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: case that Donald Trump just named the youngest people he
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: could find to troll the libs in some cases to
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: the bench. He was naming 40-year-old anti-voting rights activists, not
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: seasoned legal professionals, people that were not recommended by the
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: bar associations. So Look, I just think there's this sort
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: of purity test bullshit that sort of envelops all these
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: conversations that I think we have to just fight right through.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: And then there's just the obvious fact that we have
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: a small window of time to name another Supreme Court
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: justice if Breyer resigns. And if we miss that window,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: we do not know what's coming next. And we cannot
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: deal with another conservative justice on the Supreme Court. We
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: just can't.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, Justice Breyer, I have no doubt that
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: he believes deeply in you know, the law and institutions
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and making sure there is trust in the institution of
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. And he cares about that. And he's
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: working hard to make sure that people have faith in
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. But he's also someone who clearly has
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a set of progressive values and beliefs that have animated
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: many of his decisions over the years. And he has
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: to know that, like you said, Tommy, that the window
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: is closing and that like, look, here's the difference. If
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Justice Breyer announces he's retiring soon at the end of
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: this term, we have the 50 senators. We have the
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: 51 votes in the Senate. Joe Biden can name someone
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: to replace him who's young, who's progressive. And then we
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: basically have to wait until, you know, Clarence Thomas retires
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: and hope that there's a Democratic president to start switching
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: the balance of.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: The court again.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: If Justice Breyer waits and we lose the Senate or,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: God forbid, before before twenty twenty two, we lose a
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Democratic senator somehow. All it takes is one. That's it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Republicans could replace him. And now we're waiting for fucking
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: John Roberts or Alito. Probably Alito is the next one
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: that we're waiting for, which is a long fucking wait
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: for that person to retire to restore the balance of
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: the court. So this is, it's basically like the difference
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: of a generation of waiting for another conservative justice to
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: retire and have the opportunity to be replaced by a
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Democratic president. Now, if you're asking me what's the best
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: way to get that done, I don't know that driving
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: a billboard around in front of the Supreme Court with
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Breyer's face on it demanding that he retire is going
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: to convince Justice Breyer to step down. I just don't
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: know if that's what does it.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: I do think like, yeah, I think we know what
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: the kind of stick argument looks like. You know, it's retire, bitch.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: That's like, that's the truth. That's it.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: You know, it's like and similar for, you know, we
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: know what it looks like. It's actually it's a similar
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: kind of shaped problem as when we deal with Manchin.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: I do think sometimes we have to like think about
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: reframing how we talk about this for audiences of one
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: when so many of so many of our problems are
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: like resting, not in like these big campaigns, but just
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: like convincing one person. And it's like, OK, you want
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court to be legitimate. You want it to
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: be a legitimate body. Well, I would say Democrats. are
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Americans who want to feel as though they have a
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: say in the makeup of the most powerful judicial body
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: in our country and giving them an opportunity to, uh, uh,
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: feel like they have voted in a way that redounded
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: to them having an opportunity to have their ideology, their
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: point of view, their view of the Constitution represented is
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: a way to strike a blow on behalf of legitimacy.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: The other piece of this too is a lot of
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: this is rough working that's pretty good. Like, okay, Breyer,
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: you're telling us that the Supreme Court is a non-political,
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: non-partisan institution that we can trust even though it's 6-3 Republican?
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Well, let's see.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Let's see what comes out of this court. Let's see
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: what kind of decisions that John Roberts- and can get
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: out of this conservative majority.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Retire, bitch. Yeah. That might work better.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, these guys are just, they all have towering,
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: massive egos. And so I do not think that a
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: sign or Jen Psaki's comments from the podium are going to,
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: you know, are going to what makes him decide to retire.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: But I do hope that there's a pretty concerted inside
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: game where people who know him well are having these conversations.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: I assume that's the case. There was with the Obama
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: administration and RBG. But yeah, to your point about legitimacy, Lovett,
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, when I think about Mitch McConnell stealing a
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court seat from Barack Obama, that doesn't really help
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: me have faith in the institution. When I think about
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: gutting the Voting Rights Act or gutting all efforts at
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: campaign finance reform and all the damage that's done, that
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: doesn't give me faith in the institution, right? I mean,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: I think the Supreme Court is doing a very good
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: job of undercutting itself at the moment, and we need
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: to restore a little balance there before it can be fixed.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: I would bet there are a lot of conversations going
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: on between members of Congress and staff and the White
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: House and staff and perhaps Breyer's former clerks, current clerks,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: of ways to maybe ease him out of the job.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: After giving a speech like that where he's worried about
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: partisanship and the court being viewed as partisan, if there
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: is an increased level of noise from progressives telling him
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: to get out. Like the worry is that it backfires
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: and he decides to stay in there. And so there is,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: I think there's a, there's a delicate balance here and
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: trying to ease this guy out of the job. Yeah.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: And it is, um, and that's like, obviously deeply unfair.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: It is like, it's again, it's like James Comey, it's,
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: it's mansion. We are, we pay such a high price for, uh,
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: this idea that you have to seem nonpartisan. That it's
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: a performance. That partisanship isn't about outcomes or even the
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: process behind the scenes. It's like this display that you're
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: doing for people. Meanwhile, you look at this, you're like,
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: no one's part of this conversation. It's a tiny conversation
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: about the future.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Of the Supreme Court.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Last thing on this, Tommy, you mentioned, you know, that
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court is not the only way that Biden
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: can leave his mark on the judiciary. A few weeks ago,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: the president announced a diverse slate of 11 judicial nominees
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: to fill some of the 69 eligible vacancies across various
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: levels of the federal court system. Biden's list includes four Asian-Americans,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: a Latina, the first Muslim American to be nominated for
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: a district court seat, and three black women for appeals
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: court vacancies, including U.S. District Judge Katonji Brown-Jackson to fill
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Merrick Garland's seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: which many believe will be a short stop on her
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: way to becoming the first black woman on the Supreme Court.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned this, you know, Trump filled more than
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: 200 court vacancies in just one term, which is nearly
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: as many as Obama and Bush each did during their
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: eight years in office. What lessons do you think Biden
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: is taking from that? And what does this first slate
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: of appointments say about his strategy toward the courts? Tommy.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: So, so far, you know, he's shown, it looks like
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: he is thinking about racial diversity and experiential diversity. I mean,
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: you mentioned he named three black women. I heard an
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: expert talking about how on the federal appeals court right now,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: there are only five black women out of 180 active
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: judges and the youngest is 69 years old. So obviously
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: there was a massive gap in representation that needed to
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: be filled there. It's the first Muslim federal jury, right?
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of really important racial diversity that's
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: coming through these picks. There's also experiential diversity, which I
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: think is really interesting and important as well. Five of
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: the picks out of the 11 have a criminal defense background,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: including some who are public defenders. That hasn't normally been
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: the path to becoming a judge. You go to some
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: Ivy League law school, you maybe clerk for an important judge,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: and then you become a prosecutor or you become a
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: partner at some white collar law firm. Biden is being
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: pushed to think about people who.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Defended people at the worst moment of their lives who
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: couldn't afford to pay for it and to bring that
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: kind of point of view to the bench. So I
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: think so far so good. I mean, I think he's
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: getting press from some other groups to name more Latino judges.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: That's an important step that he'll take as he continues
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: to work through his list. But, you know, so far
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: so good. I think people are pretty happy in the
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: advocacy world about the 11 he picked so far.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I think the experiential point is very important about having
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: this broad diversity of backgrounds, too, as well as diversity
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: of the actual judges. Two other points. I think the
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: average age of the Biden picks is 48. We love
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: young judges.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Too old. We want young judges. Let's get that down.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Let's get that down. So that's important. And the speed
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: at which he's doing this. Trump, who named so many
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: judges in his one term, Biden is actually nominating this
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: first slate faster than even Trump did. So his I
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: think he has learned from past administrations and even what
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Trump did that like pace is important here. And especially, again,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: pace while you have the Senate and you have the
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: 51 votes you need to get these through.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Now, of course.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Fucking Joe Manchin has to approve every single one of
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: these judges. Every one of these judges has to be
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin approved.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's better than Obama who had to get
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: 10 Republicans. He had to get 60 votes on all
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: of these. They had to break a filibuster on every nominee,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: which is why you saw more prosecutors, more people who
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: had not really colored outside the lines in their legal career. Biden,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: I think, has a lot more running room in terms
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: of diversity of experience and naming the most progressive people
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: possible to some of these judicial seats in the same way.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Trump was naming the youngest MAGA zealots he could find
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: and slapping them on the bench.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: Think about how differently this conversation would be unfolding even
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: in this moment if Cal Cunningham could have kept it
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: in his fucking pants.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, boy.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, because we have one more vote.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: That would have been nice.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: That would be nice. He'd still be a pain in
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: the ass like Manchin.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: I know, but we'd have some wiggle room. We'd have
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: some wiggle room. That's all I'm saying. Just something to
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: think about.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Perhaps. Or if someone could have figured out how to
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: fucking beat Susan Collins in Maine, we can think about
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Cal Cunningham.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: Think about Maine a lot, too.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: All right. Let's go around the horn with our under-the-radar
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: stories for this week. I'll go first. A few weeks ago,
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: we covered the effort to unionize the 6,000-person Amazon warehouse
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: in Bessemer, Alabama. when President Biden released a video supporting
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: the workers' right to organize. Sadly, those workers lost the
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: vote last week by a lopsided 71 to 29 percent margin.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: The retail, wholesale, and department store union blamed the loss
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: on Amazon's aggressive anti-union tactics like mandatory meetings, signs in
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: bathroom stalls, and texts to workers with the slogan, do
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: it without dues, an argument that they could have a
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: great job without paying for membership in a union. So,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: the question is, what happens next? I would Recommend everyone
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: go read Noam Scheiber's piece in The New York Times.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: He has a great piece on how labor leaders are
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: planning on maybe shifting strategies away from union elections and
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: towards a few different tactics. One is walkouts from workers.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Two is protests. Three is public relations campaigns that highlight
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: labor conditions and enlist the support of public figures. which
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: helped the Service Employees International Union, SEIU, win wage increases
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: for fast food workers over the last few years. There's
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: also a congressional strategy that includes oversight hearings of Amazon's
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: labor practices and a push for the Senate to pass
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: the House's PRO Act, which would outlaw mandatory anti-union meetings
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: and impose financial penalties on employers who violate labor law
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: because there currently aren't any. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: also had a great idea when she proposed that Biden
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh call on big companies
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: like Amazon and McDonald's to come to the bargaining table
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: with labor so that the negotiation is about the entire
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: industry instead of one warehouse. It's becoming really hard to
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: organize single warehouses, single offices at a time when so
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: much of this is about industry-wide conditions. And these companies
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: are so big and powerful that they can use their
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: power on a single warehouse. Whereas if you have the
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: entire industry at the table in terms of labor, against
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: some of these big companies, you're going to have a
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: better fighting shot. So hopefully Biden and Marty Walsh can
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: get on that.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: Get him, Matty.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Tommy, what do you got? All right.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: My topic today is the insurrection on the Capitol on
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: January 6th, Tucker Carlson and incitement. So avid Twitter users
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: may have seen that last week on Fox News, Tucker
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Carlson openly expressed his belief in a racist anti-Semitic conspiracy
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: theory called the Great Replacement Theory. Sometimes it's called the
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: White Replacement Theory. This theory is basically that some powerful cabal,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: sometimes it's the Democratic Party, sometimes it's George Soros or
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: prominent Jews, are trying to import non-white immigrants to replace
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: white people and white voters. Tucker said, this is a quote,
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: The voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: voters from the third world. He went on to say,
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: as a current voter. Poor Tucker. This isn't a new theory.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: It's not surprising that Tucker Carlson would say something racist
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: or vile on his show. But I do think it's
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: important to take stock of the fact that Tucker's rhetoric
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: is getting worse, not better, post-Trump, post-insurrection rhetoric. And to
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: understand that this theory, this great replacement theory, has been
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: a driver of white supremacist terrorism and neo-fascism. So people
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: like Tucker, they spin up this idea. They spin up
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: this idea that there's an existential threat to white voters.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: And they create a narrative that says to listeners, you
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: have to take action. You have to do something about it.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: So the results are the El Paso shooter quoted the
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: great replacement theory in his manifesto. The Christ Church shooter
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: in New Zealand talked about it. The Tree of Life
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: shooter in Pittsburgh referenced the theory. And people in Charlottesville
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: famously chanted, you will not replace us and Jews will
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: not replace us. This thing from Tucker last week, this segment,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: dovetails with a report today out from CSIS that shows
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: domestic terrorism in the U.S. has greatly increased since 2015.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: And that increase is being driven by white supremacist right-wing groups.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: The January 6th was not long ago. I'm not saying
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: that Tucker is to blame for all these incidents. But
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: it should worry everyone, especially Fox News executives, by the way,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: that this kind of incitement is happening in prime time
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: on Fox. This is stuff that was often relegated to
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: the Daily Stormer and really fringe websites. Now it is
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: like millions of people a night are seeing this kind
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: of content. So the ADL has called on Fox to
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: fire Tucker. But I don't think there's enough pressure and
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: attention to the fact that he's really escalating this narrative.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: You know, bad things happen when this kind of rhetoric
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: is just unchecked. So that's my under the radar.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: It's so scary. Like his argument is just simply all
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: immigration is destroying the American way of life.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Right. By saying that any time an immigrant comes here.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: And becomes a citizen that disenfranchises American voters. It's that simple.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: It's just no immigration from Tucker and the immigrants who
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: are here, even if they became citizens through legal channels,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: they are a threat to your way of life.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: It's just white supremacist rhetoric. That's all it is. Pure
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: and simple. Love it.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: What do you got?
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: So depressing.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Pick us up.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: Listen, remember when I saw Lachlan Murdoch at a fancy
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: Oscar party and I ran up to him and yelled
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: at him and then it was in the Daily Mail? Yeah.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Maybe I'll do that again. I think it'll help.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: Good nerd.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Should have yelled louder.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: I was trying to get invites. I think it might have.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: And after, it's just so uncomfortable to yell at someone
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: at a party. I just completely sweated through my suit.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: Just completely drenched with sweat from yelling.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: And then shortly after that, they canceled all parties.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That was it. That was it.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: It was one of the last things I got to do.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: I don't have an under-the-radar segment today. Instead, now it's
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: time for a game. Last week, Prime Minister of West
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: Virginia Joe Manchin published an op-ed in the Washington Post titled,
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: I Will Not Vote to Eliminate or Weaken the Filibuster.
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: You see a headline like that and you hope that
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: the headline belies a kind of nuance in the piece.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: That was not the case. The piece lacked nuance on
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: this matter. It was pretty tedious and patronizing. And the
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: arguments were rooted not in the hard realities of politics,
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: but in a kind of fantasy about American history and
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: the American president. So now it's time for a game
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: we call... What if, now that Disneyland is reopening, you
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: put Aaron Sorkin on the teacups for like five hours
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: without a break, and then you plopped him delirious and
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: confused in front of a laptop and said, you work
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: for Joe Manchin now.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: You work for him. So here's how it works.
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: I'm going to read you a quote, and you have
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: to decide whether it's from our boy Joe Manchin or
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: the twisted mind of Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin or Manchin.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: I'll start with you, John.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: No one in government takes responsibility for anything anymore. We fluster,
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: we obfuscate, rationalize. Everybody does it. That's what we say.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: That sounds like Sorkin.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: Yep, that's Jeb Bartlett.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Tommy, the time has come to end these political games
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: and to usher in a new era of bipartisanship where
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: we find common ground on the major policy debates facing
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: the nation.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: Hard. Manchin? Correct.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: You can stop using politics to divide this country. You
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: can show us how much we agree instead of how
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: much we disagree. You can put this country back together. Ooh.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: Sorkin?
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's Sorkin. That's Sorkin. I believe that that was
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: a Bartlett consultant during the reelect. Stopping all bipartisan legislation
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: is like saying, let's blow up the place. Maybe voters
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: will hire us to rebuild it.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: That doesn't even make sense. Manchin?
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: Manchin? Nope, that is John Schleiman in the West Wing.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I would have said Manchin too.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: John, the political games playing out in the halls of
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: Congress only fuel the hateful rhetoric and violence we see
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: across our country right now. The truth is my Democratic
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: friends do not have all the answers and my Republican
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: friends do not either. This has always been the case.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: Manchin. Correct.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: Tommy, generations of senators who came before us put their
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: heads down and their pride aside to solve the complex
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: issues facing our country. We must do the same. The
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: issues facing our democracy today are not insurmountable if we
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: choose to tackle them together.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: God damn it. Mansion? Correct.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: John, our votes may have been divided, but our country
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: will not be divided because ultimately it's not about left
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: or right. It's about doing right.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: Ugh, Sorkin.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: Well, actually, you're right, except it's Matt Santos. And as
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: I say that, I realize this is after Sorkin left
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: the show. So incorrect.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: Tommy, end the logjam.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: End the logjam. End the gridlock. There's only two choices.
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Lawrence O'Donnell. It was Lawrence O'Donnell who wrote that one.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: All right, Tommy.
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: I'll end with this. A million dollars isn't cool. You
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: know what's cool? A trillion dollar infrastructure package.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Sorkin?
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sure.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: It's both of them, I guess.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Got it.
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: Um, uh, because John attacked the rules, Tommy, which were
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: not fair, but nonetheless, it's not allowed. Tommy, you've won
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: the game. Uh, you've won the game. Uh, I like
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: saying from the twisted mind of Aaron Zorkin.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: It's like the Senate, the rules aren't fair, but we
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: have to abide by them, John.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: So you shouldn't have attacked the right. I, I, I basically, uh,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: demand justice. Steven Breyer right there. That was, I shouldn't
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: have attached it back.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: All right, that's our show for today.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in, and we will talk to you
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: guys on Thursday. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are Jordan Waller, Jazzy Marine,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: episodes as videos every week.