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Transcript

Trump Celebrates High Gas Prices · Pod Save America

0:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
0:23
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:24
Speaker 1: On today's show, we'll talk about Trump's declaration that we've
0:27
Speaker 1: won the war in Iran and which is tricky to
0:30
Speaker 1: square with the new Ayatollah's promise to keep fighting and
0:34
Speaker 1: keep the Strait of Hormuz closed as oil hits $ 100
0:37
Speaker 1: a barrel again. But don't worry, Trump also said high
0:41
Speaker 1: oil prices are a good thing. We'll talk about his
0:44
Speaker 1: famed political instincts and how it's all playing with the
0:46
Speaker 1: voters he needs, especially young men. Then the White House
0:49
Speaker 1: warns Republicans not to talk about mass deportations as they
0:53
Speaker 1: run for re-election. The dogebags are finally being held accountable, maybe. And...
0:59
Speaker 1: Why little Marco is wearing shoes that are too big.
1:02
Speaker 1: That was enjoyable. That was enjoyable. I can't wait for
1:08
Speaker 1: that story. Also, please consider becoming a subscriber if you
1:12
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1:20
Speaker 1: Only Friends. We got a new episode in the feed
1:23
Speaker 1: right now. Tommy and I did an episode on Wednesday,
1:26
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Speaker 1: Weiss isn't in charge of. So head to crooked.com slash
1:45
Speaker 1: friends and subscribe today. All right. Let's talk about how
1:49
Speaker 1: Trump's Iran war is going. 2,000 people are now dead,
1:53
Speaker 1: mostly civilians. Hundreds of children, including over 100 little girls,
1:58
Speaker 1: who our government has now determined a U.S. missile strike
2:01
Speaker 1: killed when it hit their elementary school. Seven American troops
2:06
Speaker 1: are dead. 140 have been wounded, eight severely wounded, many
2:10
Speaker 1: with brain injuries. Our government says that the first week
2:13
Speaker 1: of this war has cost us $ 11. 3 billion, with a B,
2:19
Speaker 1: more than a third of what it would have cost
2:21
Speaker 1: to prevent 22 million Americans from seeing their premiums double.
2:24
Speaker 1: by extending the Obamacare subsidies. Instead, we spent it on
2:28
Speaker 1: this war. And our intel agencies say that for the
2:32
Speaker 1: $ 11 billion we've spent, Iran's leadership is still largely intact
2:37
Speaker 1: and not at risk of imminent collapse. This is per Reuters.
2:41
Speaker 1: On that note, we got the first public statement from
2:44
Speaker 1: the new, younger, more extreme Ayatollah who vowed to take
2:46
Speaker 1: revenge on Israel and America. This is a day after
2:50
Speaker 1: the FBI issued an urgent warning to local law enforcement that, quote,
2:54
Speaker 1: Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack on California
2:59
Speaker 1: using drones fired from a ship off the coast. And
3:02
Speaker 1: Trump said that he's been briefed on the existence of
3:04
Speaker 1: terrorist sleeper cells in America. But, quote, we know where
3:08
Speaker 1: most of them are, I think. Naturally, the president's public
3:14
Speaker 1: remarks this week have reflected the seriousness of of the
3:17
Speaker 1: crisis at hand. Operation Epic Fury.
3:21
Speaker 2: Is that a great name? Well, it's only good if
3:25
Speaker 2: you win, you know, you can only do, and we've won.
3:28
Speaker 2: Let me say we've won. You know, you never like
3:31
Speaker 2: to say too early.
3:32
Speaker 1: You won. We won. We won the bet in the
3:34
Speaker 1: first hour.
3:34
Speaker 3: It was over.
3:36
Speaker 1: Won the bet. First hour. First hour. He's now, he's
3:40
Speaker 1: now using the name of the military operation that has
3:44
Speaker 1: led to a gigantic war in the Middle East, the
3:47
Speaker 1: biggest US deployment since the Iraq war, seven Americans are dead,
3:52
Speaker 1: hundreds wounded, thousands of people dead in the Middle East.
3:57
Speaker 1: And he's using it as an applause line at a rally.
4:02
Speaker 1: You tired of all the winning yet, Dan?
4:04
Speaker 2: I would admittedly say that I have pretty low expectations
4:07
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump on any issue, particularly one as complicated
4:11
Speaker 2: as the Middle East. But I have to say, even
4:13
Speaker 2: I am blown away by what a gigantic clusterfuck this is,
4:18
Speaker 2: just at every single level, at every point, they have
4:24
Speaker 2: screwed this up. The military is obviously doing what it's
4:27
Speaker 2: supposed to be doing. They are executing the mission, obviously
4:31
Speaker 2: not flawlessly, given the missile that hit the girls' school.
4:36
Speaker 2: But it's just the messaging around it is terrible. There
4:40
Speaker 2: seems to be no strategy. We are two weeks in
4:42
Speaker 2: and there's still no definition of victory. Trump can't describe
4:46
Speaker 2: what's happening in any coherent way. And it seems to
4:48
Speaker 2: be spiraling out of control in a way that has
4:51
Speaker 2: going to have really serious short, medium term implications for
4:55
Speaker 2: the world and Americans, American safety, security and our economy
5:00
Speaker 2: and potentially dramatic long term consequences for the world order,
5:06
Speaker 2: the shape of the Middle East, our allies, both in
5:09
Speaker 2: the region and in the world. I mean, it's just
5:12
Speaker 2: an absolute mess. And the thing about it is It's
5:15
Speaker 2: one of the worst own goals in history. There was
5:19
Speaker 2: no argument for this. There was no strategic imperative, no threat.
5:23
Speaker 2: Trump just stumbled ass backward into something that could become
5:27
Speaker 2: World War III.
5:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. When you listen to some administration officials like Marco Rubio,
5:36
Speaker 1: and the White House has been putting this out as well,
5:39
Speaker 1: they say the objectives now are to destroy Iran's Navy,
5:44
Speaker 1: which they have almost done, to seriously degrade their ballistic
5:50
Speaker 1: missile capabilities. So destroy the missiles, destroy the factories that
5:54
Speaker 1: make the missiles. I guess they have made good progress
5:56
Speaker 1: in doing that. And then the other objective is making
5:59
Speaker 1: sure they can never, ever build or seek a nuclear
6:03
Speaker 1: weapon again. They have not done anything else on that front.
6:07
Speaker 1: And that's an impossible test. Like, what does that even mean?
6:11
Speaker 1: because you can't do that with airstrikes alone. You'd need
6:13
Speaker 1: ground troops. We don't have ground troops so far. Obviously,
6:15
Speaker 1: that would be a terrible idea. But the enriched uranium
6:20
Speaker 1: is still there. And so that hasn't been achieved. And,
6:24
Speaker 1: you know, the goal of regime change, which was never
6:28
Speaker 1: an official goal, though Donald Trump talked about it all
6:30
Speaker 1: the time. And now there's reporting saying the Israelis think
6:35
Speaker 1: it's a goal. Benjamin Netanyahu thinks wants regime change for sure.
6:39
Speaker 1: And now the Americans are saying, well, it'd be a bonus,
6:44
Speaker 1: be a bonus. But either way, it doesn't seem like
6:47
Speaker 1: it's close to happening because we get the Ayatollah vowing
6:49
Speaker 1: revenge and the Strait of Hormuz continue to be closed
6:54
Speaker 1: and attacks from Iran continuing to happen. There's an Axios
6:57
Speaker 1: story about all this, like what Trump's thinking, because the
7:00
Speaker 1: way we know what Trump's thinking now is He goes
7:03
Speaker 1: to events like this and says crazy shit, and then
7:05
Speaker 1: I guess he just takes the call of any reporter
7:07
Speaker 1: who dials him up. He talked to Axios, and someone
7:12
Speaker 1: told Axios— sorry, maybe this wasn't Trump, but someone told Axios,
7:16
Speaker 1: a source who spoke to Trump on Tuesday evening, described
7:19
Speaker 1: the president as, quote, enthusiastic about continuing the war for
7:23
Speaker 1: at least three to four weeks before making a decision.
7:27
Speaker 1: Three to four more weeks?! We're going to continue this
7:32
Speaker 1: into mid-April. What's going to happen in that time period
7:37
Speaker 1: if this has been a clusterfuck after fucking a couple
7:40
Speaker 1: weeks now?
7:41
Speaker 2: Think about what it's going to do to the oil markets. Like,
7:42
Speaker 2: there's an estimate out today that if the Strait is
7:44
Speaker 2: closed through April, oil will reach $ 140 a barrel. I mean,
7:48
Speaker 2: this is the greatest shock to our oil supply in
7:52
Speaker 2: the history of the world. And with a global economy
7:55
Speaker 2: that's already fragile. I mean, it's an absolute disaster. And
7:59
Speaker 2: there's just no, like, You say Marco Rubio's articulated some
8:03
Speaker 2: set of goals, but those aren't even really goals. That's
8:07
Speaker 2: just slightly more coherent than the verbal applesauce that Trump
8:10
Speaker 2: is putting out every day. And he's the person who's
8:12
Speaker 2: supposed to know. There is a world, we've seen this
8:14
Speaker 2: in other things with Trump, where what he says makes
8:17
Speaker 2: no sense. But then there are people behind him who
8:19
Speaker 2: are saying things that it's not a worldview we would
8:21
Speaker 2: agree with, not one that we think would even be effective,
8:23
Speaker 2: but it's like a plan of some kind. And here
8:27
Speaker 2: there is none.
8:31
Speaker 1: Would you make of the New York Times story headlined,
8:35
Speaker 1: How Trump and His Advisors Miscalculated Iran's Response to War?
8:39
Speaker 1: Because there's like, I wanted to laugh and then I
8:42
Speaker 1: wanted to scream when I realized that it was all reality,
8:46
Speaker 1: even though it sounds so fucking buffoonish, the whole piece.
8:49
Speaker 2: This is one of those things that I do think
8:50
Speaker 2: is scarier if you've actually worked in a White House
8:53
Speaker 2: and you know how it works. And like, they obviously
8:56
Speaker 2: seem very stupid. These are unserious people who don't even
8:59
Speaker 2: take their jobs that seriously. They, you know, there's a,
9:03
Speaker 2: we've been war gaming and thinking out what a war
9:06
Speaker 2: with Iran would look like since the day the Ayatollah
9:09
Speaker 2: took over in 1979. And there's a reason we don't,
9:13
Speaker 2: it hasn't happened in all this time. It's because these
9:16
Speaker 2: are the consequences. They can control the Strait of Hormuz.
9:18
Speaker 2: If that closes down, like everyone, like every game, every
9:22
Speaker 2: war gaming of this has shown this to be the case,
9:24
Speaker 2: but they did it anyway. They ignored all of that
9:26
Speaker 2: so-called expert advice to go forward. And there's a part
9:29
Speaker 2: in there to me that I think is the most
9:30
Speaker 2: scary part It says in there that a lot of
9:33
Speaker 2: aides think this is going very poorly, but they're afraid
9:36
Speaker 2: to tell Trump because he keeps saying it's going great.
9:38
Speaker 2: And if you can't tell bad news to the president,
9:42
Speaker 2: then the president is going to operate from a false
9:44
Speaker 2: set of facts going forward. And that's an even bigger
9:47
Speaker 2: problem when that president lives in a hermetically sealed right-wing
9:51
Speaker 2: news bubble that tells him what he wants to hear.
9:52
Speaker 2: So he has no information that actually would allow him
9:56
Speaker 2: to make a decision that would move this in a
9:57
Speaker 2: better direction because he thinks it's in a good direction.
10:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's, um, it's incredibly unsettling, scary that we're living
10:08
Speaker 1: through this. And also the fact that even if Trump
10:11
Speaker 1: wanted to stop the war today, even if he said, okay,
10:14
Speaker 1: we're declaring victory and we're, you know, we're, we've, we've
10:17
Speaker 1: bombed everything we can bomb and all that, like, Iran's
10:20
Speaker 1: not going to stop. The regime is in place. They're
10:23
Speaker 1: going to stop firing missiles all over the Middle East.
10:26
Speaker 1: They're going to stop trying to incite terror attacks, have
10:30
Speaker 1: their proxies incite terror attacks all over the world. It's
10:33
Speaker 1: just the idea that the war stops when Donald Trump
10:37
Speaker 1: says it stops is just so fucking stupid and flies
10:40
Speaker 1: in the face of all history.
10:43
Speaker 2: Also, the reports are the Iranians are minding the straight.
10:47
Speaker 2: And once you put minds in the straight, it's not
10:50
Speaker 2: countries that decide where they go to this rate. It's
10:52
Speaker 2: companies who have borrowed tens of millions of dollars to
10:56
Speaker 2: buy these tankers. And what guarantees do they have that their, their,
11:02
Speaker 2: their tankers are not going to run into mines. Like
11:04
Speaker 2: it is like it is. So even if we were
11:06
Speaker 2: to stop tomorrow, are we going to trust the Iranians
11:08
Speaker 2: to go tell us where all the mines was? We
11:10
Speaker 2: can go pick them up. Of course not.
11:13
Speaker 1: No, they're so they've, um, It seems like they have
11:16
Speaker 1: laid at least 10 mines in the Strait of Hormuz,
11:20
Speaker 1: according to reports. They're also just firing tankers. They've had
11:24
Speaker 1: a couple tankers who are going through the Strait anyway.
11:29
Speaker 1: The Secretary of Energy this week posted a tweet saying
11:33
Speaker 1: the Navy has accompanied its first ship oil tanker through
11:38
Speaker 1: the Strait of Hormuz and then immediately had to take
11:40
Speaker 1: down that tweet because it wasn't true. So don't know
11:44
Speaker 1: what's going on there. He just announced again before we
11:47
Speaker 1: started recording that the Navy will be sort of accompanying
11:50
Speaker 1: tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. I don't know why
11:53
Speaker 1: that's like a magical solve, especially if they are laying
11:57
Speaker 1: mines in the Strait of Hormuz because they can lay
12:00
Speaker 1: mines without Navy ships. Iran can. They can do it
12:02
Speaker 1: with smaller ships. So I don't really know that that's
12:06
Speaker 1: going to solve it. You mentioned oil prices hit $ 100
12:10
Speaker 1: a barrel again. And the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps,
12:16
Speaker 1: has threatened to push prices up to $ 200 per barrel,
12:20
Speaker 1: which would cause gas prices to exceed $ 5 a gallon.
12:23
Speaker 1: So that's something to look forward to. But, you know,
12:26
Speaker 1: Trump was asked about this complete fucking mess in the
12:28
Speaker 1: Strait of Hormuz the other night. And here's what he said.
12:32
Speaker 1: Straits are in great shape. We've knocked out all of
12:36
Speaker 1: their boats. I think we're in very good. We're in
12:39
Speaker 1: very good shape. The Straits are in great shape.
12:42
Speaker 2: So everyone, that's what people are saying.
12:43
Speaker 1: The Straits are in great shape. I guess there's a
12:46
Speaker 1: couple now. President followed up those comments with a post.
12:52
Speaker 1: Was the post to correct himself? Was the post to
12:56
Speaker 1: offer more information? No, here's what the post said. The
12:59
Speaker 1: United States is the largest oil producer in the world
13:01
Speaker 1: by far. So when oil prices go up, we make
13:05
Speaker 1: a lot of money. Never thought of it that way, Dan.
13:09
Speaker 1: Are you impressed with Trump's Cunning political jujitsu there. Actually,
13:13
Speaker 1: higher prices are good.
13:16
Speaker 2: Saying for months that Trump needed a message on affordability.
13:19
Speaker 2: And now he has one. High prices are good. And just,
13:23
Speaker 2: you know, it is worth just like stepping back and like,
13:27
Speaker 2: I hate to say this, but dissecting that truth because
13:30
Speaker 2: it does speak to his, like how his brain works,
13:33
Speaker 2: which is if prices go up, who makes more money?
13:38
Speaker 2: Oil companies. And how do they make more money? Because
13:40
Speaker 2: prices have gone up on American consumers. So if big
13:44
Speaker 2: oil is getting rich, that is a win for our
13:46
Speaker 2: country in his mind. If companies make money and the
13:49
Speaker 2: American consumer has to pay more in higher prices so
13:53
Speaker 2: those companies can make money, then that's a win.
13:55
Speaker 1: I don't even know if he really believes that. Part
14:00
Speaker 1: of it is this. He sees everything through his own
14:05
Speaker 1: interests and the country. He now equates the country to him.
14:09
Speaker 1: And so if the country makes money, if some people
14:12
Speaker 1: are making money, then he can point to that. Then
14:14
Speaker 1: everything's wonderful because it's sort of like what he does
14:16
Speaker 1: with the tariff things. Like we were we're being ripped
14:19
Speaker 1: off by the tariffs and now all the money's coming in.
14:21
Speaker 1: The money's pouring in from the tariffs. It's like even though,
14:24
Speaker 1: you know, Americans are paying the extra tariffs, just like
14:27
Speaker 1: Americans are paying the higher gas prices. But as long
14:29
Speaker 1: as money's coming into companies, America's great. Things are going
14:33
Speaker 1: things are going well. His country's going well. He did
14:35
Speaker 1: a good job because America's rich now.
14:37
Speaker 2: But at least with the tariffs, the money does go
14:39
Speaker 2: to the U.S.
14:39
Speaker 1: Government.
14:40
Speaker 2: Here, the tariffs just go to the Exxon guy or
14:43
Speaker 2: the higher prices go to the Exxon guy. I mean,
14:46
Speaker 2: I think that obviously we think the tariffs are stupid,
14:47
Speaker 2: but you can at least point to like an increase
14:49
Speaker 2: in revenue for the federal government. Here, the government gets
14:52
Speaker 2: no money. In fact, we're getting less money than we
14:55
Speaker 2: should because we've given all these tax breaks and subsidies
14:56
Speaker 2: to big oil anyway, and the big oil companies get rich.
14:59
Speaker 2: And so I think you are correct that what is
15:02
Speaker 2: happening here is like a heavy dose of cope. to
15:05
Speaker 2: try to explain away the terrible situation and say, oh, no, no, no,
15:08
Speaker 2: don't worry. $ 140 barrel oil in the middle of a
15:12
Speaker 2: rapidly escalating global crisis in the Middle East is fine.
15:14
Speaker 2: Look how it's good for, like, I think that's the
15:15
Speaker 2: main thing happening here. But there is, I think, something
15:17
Speaker 2: about his mentality, which is if American companies get rich,
15:21
Speaker 2: that's good for America. And that is, that doesn't work
15:24
Speaker 2: if the people who are making, if the way the
15:26
Speaker 2: companies get rich is by charging more money to American
15:28
Speaker 2: consumers who are already struggling with high prices.
15:30
Speaker 1: And they also don't have a lot of tools in
15:32
Speaker 1: the toolbox left to do anything about this. They announced
15:36
Speaker 1: a release of like the largest release ever from the
15:39
Speaker 1: strategic petroleum reserve. And oil still went up to a
15:44
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a barrel. So it's like, I don't really
15:48
Speaker 1: know how, I mean, I guess they can start doing,
15:50
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they'll do export controls on oil to
15:53
Speaker 1: keep the oil here. And that's like a short-term solution,
15:55
Speaker 1: but that's the long-term that's even worse for us. So
15:58
Speaker 1: like there's nothing really to do here. Except, I don't know,
16:03
Speaker 1: just continue to tell ships to sack up and take
16:05
Speaker 1: a chance going through the Strait of Hormuz, which is
16:08
Speaker 1: basically what Trump and Brian Kilmeade, the Fox & Friends host,
16:12
Speaker 1: were doing. He's like, these ships got to have some
16:15
Speaker 1: balls and just go through the Strait of Hormuz. And
16:17
Speaker 1: if you get blown up, you get blown up. They
16:19
Speaker 1: can't get all of us, right?
16:20
Speaker 2: That's right. If there are 10 mines and 12 ships
16:23
Speaker 2: go through, at least two of them are making it.
16:28
Speaker 1: I have to say, we talked about this a little
16:30
Speaker 1: bit yesterday, but the whole, we kind of skipped over
16:33
Speaker 1: the FBI bulletin about California and the drones.
16:36
Speaker 4: Yeah.
16:36
Speaker 1: Now, the White House has since said that this was
16:39
Speaker 1: like unverified intelligence. Of course, we can believe everything the
16:43
Speaker 1: White House says. And Gavin Newsom said that he had
16:46
Speaker 1: heard about it and everyone's on high alert. It seems
16:49
Speaker 1: like this was intelligence from February that the Iranians aspired
16:54
Speaker 1: to do this. I do think that would require somehow
16:57
Speaker 1: getting a ship out to the, West Coast of California
17:00
Speaker 1: and then the drones and who knows. But I do
17:03
Speaker 1: think that one got a lot of Americans' attention. I
17:05
Speaker 1: think that that might have broken through.
17:07
Speaker 2: It broke through to the school mom group chat in
17:13
Speaker 2: my house.
17:13
Speaker 1: Yes.
17:14
Speaker 2: I had some questions for Tommy and Ben from a
17:16
Speaker 2: lot of people. They needed good responses. And then Hallie
17:20
Speaker 2: didn't trust me to do it. So she wanted me
17:21
Speaker 2: to screenshot their text and send it to them. Just
17:24
Speaker 2: like as proof that things were okay.
17:27
Speaker 1: I mean, I also saw in that What's Resonating newsletter
17:30
Speaker 1: that posts about and stories about that FBI warning were
17:35
Speaker 1: like one of the most shared stories yesterday by far.
17:39
Speaker 1: Because I just think that, you know, we– Americans right
17:43
Speaker 1: now don't like the idea of this war. They don't
17:46
Speaker 1: like the idea of spending a lot of money on
17:47
Speaker 1: this war. They don't like the idea of high oil prices.
17:49
Speaker 1: They certainly don't like the idea of like American troops
17:52
Speaker 1: risking their lives and potentially dying in this war. Some
17:54
Speaker 1: already have. But– If there start being credible threats to
17:59
Speaker 1: the homeland and, you know, terror attacks, God forbid, like
18:03
Speaker 1: that's when things are, shit's really going to hit the fan. And,
18:07
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that Trump was talking about sleeper
18:10
Speaker 1: cells and terrorist sleeper cells and, oh, we've got an
18:12
Speaker 1: eye on most of them, I think, is fucking terrifying.
18:17
Speaker 1: We're sitting here and just today there was a shooter
18:20
Speaker 1: at Old Dominion University in Virginia. And they believe that
18:24
Speaker 1: was someone who was ISIS-inspired and had been in jail
18:28
Speaker 1: already for some ISIS-inspired activities back, I think, as far
18:31
Speaker 1: as 2017, got out of jail in 2024. There was
18:34
Speaker 1: also just an attack on a synagogue in Michigan. And
18:38
Speaker 1: early reports say it is a naturalized Lebanese-American who was,
18:44
Speaker 1: I guess, just last night posting pictures of relatives who
18:47
Speaker 1: died in the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Um, which is
18:51
Speaker 1: just fucking horrific that now we are seeing, um, potentially
18:56
Speaker 1: attacks or attempted attacks play out, uh, across the United States.
19:00
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I just have a real fear
19:03
Speaker 1: that this is just the beginning of that.
19:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, that is the, it's, it's not just
19:08
Speaker 2: that the war is happening. It's the way in which Tommy,
19:10
Speaker 2: I talked about this on YouTube, uh, yesterday, but it's
19:15
Speaker 2: also the way they're messaging the war. It's the video
19:19
Speaker 2: game footage, the triumphalism, the snuff porn videos of things
19:24
Speaker 2: blowing up that they keep tweeting out as if it's
19:26
Speaker 2: a joke. And that seems designed to radicalize people against
19:31
Speaker 2: the United States, whether they're in Iran or elsewhere.
19:34
Speaker 1: Yes, that is certainly the scariest effect. I've been thinking
19:39
Speaker 1: about this a lot because it's really bothered me, the
19:41
Speaker 1: video game shit. And they keep doing it. And some
19:45
Speaker 1: of them are... Some of them are like sports related
19:48
Speaker 1: and so they'll show like NFL clips. and they'll like
19:52
Speaker 1: cut it with like every touchdown they'll cut it with
19:54
Speaker 1: like a missile that hit like actual footage of a
19:57
Speaker 1: missile that hit they did it with baseball to like
20:00
Speaker 1: baseball highlights and they just keep doing this shit I
20:03
Speaker 1: kind of think it's meant to numb us to the
20:08
Speaker 1: real consequences of and risks of war. And this idea
20:12
Speaker 1: that like, oh, it's all fun. It's no big deal.
20:15
Speaker 1: You're scrolling through your feed. You're seeing a million different
20:17
Speaker 1: things anyway. And when you see stuff about war, it's
20:19
Speaker 1: just one more thing and it's a game and we're
20:21
Speaker 1: winning it and everything's awesome and America's fucking great and
20:24
Speaker 1: let's keep going. And I realized that like every government
20:28
Speaker 1: uses propaganda to sell war, but this is like, it
20:31
Speaker 1: feels like it's propaganda for the sake of propaganda, just
20:35
Speaker 1: to like not even sell a war, but just to
20:36
Speaker 1: convey a message that everyone should go about their business.
20:39
Speaker 1: and not think this is a big deal and not
20:41
Speaker 1: worry about all the scary headlines that you're reading or
20:45
Speaker 1: all the people who are upset about this. Just like,
20:47
Speaker 1: we're great. We're fucking awesome. Good luck.
20:51
Speaker 2: I think you are correct. That's the net effect of
20:54
Speaker 2: what they're doing. I think that gives them way too
20:57
Speaker 2: much credit for strategy here. I think it's just a
20:59
Speaker 2: bunch of fucking incel gripers who got social media jobs
21:02
Speaker 2: at the white house, just doing shit to like get,
21:05
Speaker 2: like kudos in their local discords. I get you. Like,
21:08
Speaker 2: it's so stupid. It serves no actual purpose. And I
21:11
Speaker 2: think even the, the, I mean, there's because of the
21:16
Speaker 2: way the media works now. And because of the fact
21:18
Speaker 2: that it's happening, I ran a place where there is
21:20
Speaker 2: essentially almost no Western media at all. And they can
21:22
Speaker 2: shut the internet down in a second. Like this already
21:25
Speaker 2: could just be happening without us ever seeing anything.
21:28
Speaker 1: Right.
21:29
Speaker 2: It's just, you know, but they're, they put out the,
21:31
Speaker 2: I think they put out these videos because they're unserious,
21:33
Speaker 2: terrible people. Like that's what it is. Like they don't,
21:35
Speaker 2: There's just no.
21:36
Speaker 1: But it has been... I mean, it has been their
21:38
Speaker 1: digital strategy since their campaign in 2024 that they have
21:43
Speaker 1: carried into the White House and they've done it around deportations.
21:46
Speaker 1: And yeah, it is a bunch of incel grippers. Those
21:49
Speaker 1: are the people who are now staffing the government at
21:52
Speaker 1: some of the highest levels. But their view on communication,
21:57
Speaker 1: if you want to call it a few, doesn't have
21:59
Speaker 1: to be a strategy that was on a whiteboard anywhere.
22:01
Speaker 1: But the way they do this is just pump out shit,
22:04
Speaker 1: troll people, everything's fucking, LOL, nothing matters. Yeah, that's for sure.
22:10
Speaker 1: That is their strategy, per se. And it's just, it's nihilism.
22:15
Speaker 1: And it's really scary. Despite all these efforts, the war
22:33
Speaker 1: still isn't popular with most Americans, including some prominent podcasters
22:37
Speaker 1: whose support for Trump in 2024 probably helped him make
22:40
Speaker 1: inroads with younger Gen Z men. The most prominent, of course,
22:44
Speaker 1: is Joe Rogan, who has been on something of a
22:46
Speaker 1: tear about Iran. Let's listen.
22:49
Speaker 4: It's terrifying, and it's exactly the opposite of what we
22:52
Speaker 4: were told leading into this administration, that it's going to
22:55
Speaker 4: be America first.
22:57
Speaker 3: Right.
22:57
Speaker 1: No more.
22:58
Speaker 2: unnecessary foreign wars.
23:00
Speaker 1: It's going to be bad.
23:00
Speaker 2: I mean, if oil prices spike, we're fucked.
23:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:03
Speaker 2: You know, and the Republicans are really fucked.
23:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:07
Speaker 2: He's 80. He doesn't have much to lose.
23:10
Speaker 1: Right.
23:10
Speaker 2: Last term. That's the scary thing about old leaders. You know,
23:14
Speaker 2: you're making decisions for babies and children and the future
23:17
Speaker 2: of the world, and you've only got 10, maybe 10
23:20
Speaker 2: years left on Earth. I mean, the last part is
23:26
Speaker 2: quite telling of our times in a pretty powerful way.
23:31
Speaker 1: It is. It also just made me think, you know
23:34
Speaker 1: who wasn't 80, who's still not 80? Kamala Harris. She
23:39
Speaker 1: was a candidate in the last election. She has hopefully many,
23:43
Speaker 1: many years to live and make decisions on behalf of
23:47
Speaker 1: the family and her life and everyone else and other children.
23:50
Speaker 2: And I can pretty much guarantee with all, with every
23:55
Speaker 2: ounce of fiber in my body that We would not
23:57
Speaker 2: be at war with Iran if she was president of
23:59
Speaker 2: the United States.
24:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, as you know, don't like to like scream
24:04
Speaker 1: at people who scream like I told you so at
24:08
Speaker 1: people who voted for Trump. I think it's a shitty
24:10
Speaker 1: way to like win people over. And so, you know,
24:12
Speaker 1: welcome Joe Rogan, right, to seeing the light on this one.
24:17
Speaker 1: I just hope that there's going to be another presidential
24:20
Speaker 1: election in 2028. And I hope that Joe Rogan and
24:24
Speaker 1: a lot of these other podcasters you know, just thinks
24:27
Speaker 1: about what lessons can be learned from 2024 and the
24:32
Speaker 1: lies that were told in 2024 and the people who
24:35
Speaker 1: told them. And it wasn't just Donald Trump. It was,
24:38
Speaker 1: you know, his vice president, who is probably going to
24:41
Speaker 1: be the, you know, front runner for the Republican nomination.
24:43
Speaker 1: Many of the other people around him in the White House,
24:45
Speaker 1: many of the other Republicans who are running for Congress
24:47
Speaker 1: and running for president. So, you know, I do think
24:49
Speaker 1: that all the people who are disappointed in Trump, who
24:52
Speaker 1: supported Trump, think next time around, the next election, that
24:57
Speaker 1: what they're hearing from Republicans, from MAGA Republicans like Donald Trump,
25:01
Speaker 1: might not be on the level.
25:03
Speaker 2: And that every Republican has stood by Trump as he's
25:05
Speaker 2: done this. With the exception of Rand Paul and Thomas Massey,
25:08
Speaker 2: every single one of them is totally fine with this war.
25:11
Speaker 1: So our pal Peter Hamby at Puck has a new
25:14
Speaker 1: piece with reactions from young men, including Trump voters, who
25:18
Speaker 1: participated in one of John De La Volpe's focus groups
25:21
Speaker 1: on the war. Talked to John a couple times in
25:23
Speaker 1: the show. Spoiler alert, these young men Not fans, not
25:27
Speaker 1: fans of the war. What do you make of these
25:29
Speaker 1: groups and how big of a problem do you think
25:31
Speaker 1: this is for Republicans as we look ahead to the midterms?
25:35
Speaker 2: You know, as we looked at the polling over the
25:37
Speaker 2: last year, the group that has abandoned Trump the fastest
25:40
Speaker 2: are young men. And I think it's primarily been driven
25:42
Speaker 2: by affordability and the fact that Trump ran on lowering
25:45
Speaker 2: prices and that has just found truly diabolical ways to
25:48
Speaker 2: keep raising them. Like if you thought the tariffs were bad,
25:51
Speaker 2: wait till you go to the gas pump this week.
25:53
Speaker 2: But I think there is this level of consistency. If
25:56
Speaker 2: you listen to the focus groups in 2024, there was
25:59
Speaker 2: this very real concern. Obviously, it was based on bad information,
26:03
Speaker 2: but this very real concern that Kamala Harris would get
26:08
Speaker 2: us into wars and Donald Trump would keep us out
26:10
Speaker 2: of wars. Donald Trump said he was against forever wars.
26:12
Speaker 1: All the time.
26:16
Speaker 2: People's views on this were complicated by U.S. support for Ukraine.
26:20
Speaker 2: And I think this fear also unfounded and based on
26:23
Speaker 2: bad information that somehow we were going to get involved
26:24
Speaker 2: in Ukraine because of our support for Ukraine. There was
26:27
Speaker 2: U S support for Israel and what was happening in Gaza,
26:29
Speaker 2: all was pushing to this. And Donald Trump was saying
26:31
Speaker 2: no forever wars, no forever wars, no forever wars. Now
26:34
Speaker 2: he was also saying he was going to blow the
26:35
Speaker 2: shit out of bad guys all the time. But, and
26:37
Speaker 2: so you're, you know, even, you know, when Pierre talks
26:39
Speaker 2: about this piece is that he would like go to
26:41
Speaker 2: colleges and talk to young men. They would be worried
26:43
Speaker 2: in 2024 about being drafted. Like the Trump, I mean,
26:46
Speaker 2: that was the thing that got brought up during the
26:47
Speaker 2: campaign that the Kamala Harris would bring the draft back and,
26:50
Speaker 2: and draft you. And you're hearing that again, like there
26:52
Speaker 2: is this, like it is a consistent viewpoint and Donald
26:56
Speaker 2: Trump has broken a core promise. I mean, there are
27:00
Speaker 2: three reasons why people voted for Donald Trump who were like,
27:02
Speaker 2: we're actually legitimately on the fence. Prices, immigration, and by immigration,
27:07
Speaker 2: I mean the border, and war. And he's raised prices.
27:12
Speaker 2: He has run a immigration strategy that went so far
27:16
Speaker 2: beyond anything he promised and is not what people want.
27:19
Speaker 2: And now he has gone and started multiple wars and
27:21
Speaker 2: now has us embroiled in the greatest conflict we've been
27:24
Speaker 2: in in a decade. Yeah.
27:26
Speaker 1: And I do think it speaks to the need for
27:30
Speaker 1: and I know, you know, Ben and Tommy talked about
27:32
Speaker 1: this this week on Pod Save the World and have
27:35
Speaker 1: been talking about it for a while. But like the
27:37
Speaker 1: need for Democrats clearly to become an anti-war party or
27:43
Speaker 1: at least back to a war as a last resort,
27:46
Speaker 1: military force as a last resort party. because it is
27:50
Speaker 1: clear that the impression that a lot of these young
27:52
Speaker 1: men and other voters had about Kamala Harris and the
27:55
Speaker 1: potential that she might get us into war or start
27:57
Speaker 1: a draft is based on, you know, a lot of
28:00
Speaker 1: lies and misinformation pushed by Trump and his supporters, for sure.
28:06
Speaker 1: It's also true that if you inspected all of Kamala
28:08
Speaker 1: Harris's positions closely, you would probably come to the conclusion that, yeah,
28:13
Speaker 1: she's not going to start World War III, nor is
28:15
Speaker 1: she going to bring back the draft, right? That's pretty obvious. But,
28:19
Speaker 1: In the years that Joe Biden was president and Kamala
28:21
Speaker 1: Harris was vice president, and even in her campaign, did
28:26
Speaker 1: it seem like there was an emphasis on keeping America
28:29
Speaker 1: out of wars or on keeping America out of foreign wars?
28:33
Speaker 1: I would say probably not, particularly with the way that,
28:37
Speaker 1: like you said, Biden behaved in Gaza and also the,
28:43
Speaker 1: I would argue, necessary support for Ukraine against Putin's invasion.
28:48
Speaker 1: But also it was something that was, it wasn't just
28:51
Speaker 1: happening that like, oh, well, you know, we're going to
28:55
Speaker 1: help defend Europe and we're going to do this. It
28:57
Speaker 1: was like touted all the time, talked about because it was,
29:01
Speaker 1: you know, we connected this fight against Russia and Ukraine's
29:03
Speaker 1: fight against Russia to sort of like the global fight
29:05
Speaker 1: against authoritarianism. And again, lots of good reasons to make
29:10
Speaker 1: that connection and to offer that support. But I do
29:13
Speaker 1: think as Democrats run again in 2026, especially 2028, You
29:18
Speaker 1: got to be pretty clear about our stance on war
29:20
Speaker 1: and the use of force and not do the thing
29:23
Speaker 1: that every fucking Democratic nominee does, particularly Democratic nominees who
29:27
Speaker 1: don't have military background, who don't have foreign policy experience,
29:30
Speaker 1: and just say a lot of words to show how
29:33
Speaker 1: tough they are because we know that strength is important
29:37
Speaker 1: and the only way to– and we somehow equate strength
29:41
Speaker 1: with talking tough about war.
29:44
Speaker 2: That is the most important point, which is in the
29:47
Speaker 2: post-Vietnam era and sort of really– exemplified in Carter's presidency
29:53
Speaker 2: around Iran, ironically enough, and the seizing of the embassy
29:58
Speaker 2: and then the failed missions to try to rescue the people,
30:02
Speaker 2: the Americans held hostage in the embassy, Democrats became seen
30:06
Speaker 2: as weak. And we have tried to solve that problem
30:11
Speaker 2: by being pro-war, by being bellicose. That is how we
30:15
Speaker 2: stumbled into the Iraq war. That's why so many Democrats
30:18
Speaker 2: thought that they should vote for it. I mean, the
30:21
Speaker 2: problem was worsened in the 90s, when early 90s, when
30:25
Speaker 2: a bunch of Democrats voted against the first Gulf War
30:27
Speaker 2: and it ended like in 30 days and George W. Bush, H.W.
30:30
Speaker 2: Bush went to a 90% approval rating. And so then
30:32
Speaker 2: we're like, we're not going to make that mistake again.
30:34
Speaker 2: When what takes actual strength is to oppose war, right?
30:40
Speaker 2: That was ultimately why Obama succeeded in 2008, because he
30:43
Speaker 2: was the candidate who was seen as strong enough, who
30:45
Speaker 2: had the courage to stand up against war. And if
30:48
Speaker 2: you think.
30:50
Speaker 2: That we are in these messes as a party because
30:54
Speaker 2: we have conflated being tough with being pro-war. And that
30:58
Speaker 2: is not how the American people see it. They want
30:59
Speaker 2: someone who is strong enough and smart enough to get
31:01
Speaker 2: us out of wars, to keep us from getting in
31:04
Speaker 2: these sort of fights.
31:06
Speaker 1: And the media and punditry contributes to this.
31:09
Speaker 2: Oh, they're so fucking pro-war.
31:12
Speaker 1: Because inevitably, every campaign, there's like a million stories at
31:15
Speaker 1: some point in the campaign about how This Democratic candidate
31:18
Speaker 1: must pass the commander-in-chief test. And then, you know, dutifully,
31:24
Speaker 1: the Democratic presidential candidate will say things like, I'm ready
31:27
Speaker 1: to be commander-in-chief on day one. And I will use
31:30
Speaker 1: the most lethal military force and all the fucking shit
31:33
Speaker 1: that the blob who's advising, the D.C. blob who's advising
31:37
Speaker 1: that candidate tells them to put in their speeches. And
31:40
Speaker 1: no more. No more. And I get why some candidates
31:45
Speaker 1: feel the need to do it, because they don't have
31:46
Speaker 1: the background, they don't have the experience, they don't have
31:48
Speaker 1: the military experience. A lot of this is gendered as well,
31:50
Speaker 1: which is why Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton helped deal
31:52
Speaker 1: with it too. But it is an artificial facade of
32:01
Speaker 1: bellicose militarism that no one's buying, first of all, and
32:05
Speaker 1: only makes you look more hawkish when people don't want that.
32:10
Speaker 1: So that was what the young men thought in that
32:12
Speaker 1: focus group. Marjorie Taylor Greene also tweeted on Thursday. We've
32:16
Speaker 1: been talking about people like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly
32:19
Speaker 1: who were against this war. Marjorie Taylor Greene, certainly one
32:22
Speaker 1: of these MAGA folks. She tweeted on Thursday that she's
32:26
Speaker 1: been talking to other, quote, America first conservatives. She's not
32:30
Speaker 1: MAGA anymore. She's America first. There's a split.
32:32
Speaker 2: Tomato, tomato. Yeah.
32:34
Speaker 1: And they all agree that the party has been hijacked
32:36
Speaker 1: by neocons and boomers. And that, quote, an entire generation
32:42
Speaker 1: of elected leaders, their donors and controlling interests on both
32:45
Speaker 1: sides have to be, quote, removed by outside pressure. What's
32:50
Speaker 1: what's Marge got going on there?
32:51
Speaker 2: Just as a point of fact, I'm pretty sure Trump's
32:53
Speaker 2: member of the silent generation.
32:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
32:57
Speaker 2: He's older than the problem is that the boomers.
32:59
Speaker 1: Is he not a bomber? He's silent.
33:01
Speaker 2: I think he and Biden were both silent generation. Wow.
33:06
Speaker 2: Those are the people, we don't even think about the
33:07
Speaker 2: silent generation, but they're the ones pulling the strings in
33:09
Speaker 2: Washington these days. On the day that Jim Clyburn announced
33:14
Speaker 2: he's running for re-election at age 86.
33:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a spring chicken. Spring chicken. It's just as...
33:23
Speaker 1: I can't. I don't even get into that.
33:25
Speaker 2: It's bad.
33:25
Speaker 1: How about that? That was my take. It's bad.
33:27
Speaker 2: It's a good take. Here's the thing that I think
33:30
Speaker 2: this war is showing us more than anything else is
33:32
Speaker 2: that MAGA doesn't really exist as a lot of people
33:36
Speaker 2: think about it. I think we've talked about how, you know,
33:40
Speaker 2: Trump is the symptom of a larger problem in American politics.
33:42
Speaker 2: And that is true. And we've talked about this idea
33:45
Speaker 2: of Trumpism as a sort of a movement or a
33:48
Speaker 2: philosophy that it would extend past Trump. And then, you know,
33:50
Speaker 2: all these discussions, Trump's going to ask people, who thinks
33:52
Speaker 2: a better leader for MAGA, JD Vance or Marco Rubio?
33:56
Speaker 2: MAGA is fake. It's a cult of personality. If you
33:59
Speaker 2: look at it in this, like there are definitely elite
34:02
Speaker 2: leaders in mostly in the podcast space, who are like
34:05
Speaker 2: true believers of some of the shit, like the people
34:07
Speaker 2: Marjorie Taylor Greene is talking about. But in the polling,
34:10
Speaker 2: when they look at MAGA or self-identified MAGA Republicans and
34:14
Speaker 2: non-MAGA Republicans, the ones who are more pro-war are the
34:17
Speaker 2: MAGA Republicans because they're more pro-Trump. And so whatever Trump
34:20
Speaker 2: is for, they're for. So what is going to happen
34:24
Speaker 2: when Trump fades into the background and there is this
34:27
Speaker 2: 2020 Republican nomination is is not a battle for who's
34:31
Speaker 2: going to lead Trump's movement. Trump's movement dies with him.
34:34
Speaker 2: It's what the rest of the Republican Party looks like
34:36
Speaker 2: after Trump. Right. I'm not saying it's going to look
34:39
Speaker 2: good because of the decade of radicalization of people into
34:44
Speaker 2: this sort of depraved, nihilistic, megalomaniacal politics, but it's not
34:48
Speaker 2: America first. It's not nationalism. It's not, it's like race-based
34:53
Speaker 2: grievance politics, then take it where you want from there.
34:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that they're, I think you
34:59
Speaker 1: could see an America First movement that is very nationalistic, xenophobic, populist. Again,
35:07
Speaker 1: it doesn't look great, but you could see it stand
35:10
Speaker 1: in contrast with the hawks that are left in the party,
35:14
Speaker 1: the deficit hawks that are left in the party. There's
35:17
Speaker 1: not a lot of them, right? There's going to be
35:19
Speaker 1: some segments of the party that really are driven by
35:21
Speaker 1: more racial grievance and immigration. There's going to be others
35:26
Speaker 1: that are maybe driven by more economic concerns, even though
35:30
Speaker 1: they're not going to end up embracing any decent economic policies.
35:34
Speaker 1: But like, I do think it is a I think
35:36
Speaker 1: the point is it's going to be a war for
35:37
Speaker 1: the soul of the party.
35:38
Speaker 2: Yes. Not not not a war for the whole for
35:41
Speaker 2: the to lead the Trump movement, because that's not a
35:44
Speaker 2: real thing.
35:45
Speaker 1: Right. And I don't think it's going to be a
35:46
Speaker 1: battle between like the never Trumpers and the rest of
35:49
Speaker 1: the party. I think they're I think that they're out
35:51
Speaker 1: for good. I think it's going to be the different
35:53
Speaker 1: warring factions of MAGA that we're seeing right now.
35:56
Speaker 2: It's just, it doesn't stand for any, like if Trump
35:58
Speaker 2: came out tomorrow for Obamacare, they'd all be pro Obamacare.
36:03
Speaker 2: Like that's the thing that is here. And so it
36:05
Speaker 2: doesn't really mean anything. Like it is just a, the
36:08
Speaker 2: voters serve, the Republican based voters serve Trump, whatever Trump wants.
36:13
Speaker 2: They don't serve a bunch of ideas that Trump then
36:17
Speaker 2: because come to represent for them. Like you see this
36:19
Speaker 2: with abortion, right? Like this is, was the, you know,
36:22
Speaker 2: obviously Dobbs happened, but Trump, you know, has not said
36:28
Speaker 2: anything about abortion for years now, right? Since the election
36:31
Speaker 2: and no one, and you don't hear anything from the
36:33
Speaker 2: evangelicals about it because that's not what Trump wants. But
36:35
Speaker 2: if Trump were to pick it as his top issue tomorrow,
36:37
Speaker 2: that would be the top issue again. It's just, I
36:39
Speaker 2: just think it's important to understand the difference between an
36:42
Speaker 2: America first movement that Trump's the head of and a
36:45
Speaker 2: movement that is about Donald Trump that is sometimes called
36:48
Speaker 2: America first and may have some America firsters in it.
37:05
Speaker 1: Well, Donald Trump's still here and Republicans are about to
37:08
Speaker 1: face their last midterm with Donald Trump as president. And
37:11
Speaker 1: they are clearly aware that their prospects aren't looking so hot,
37:15
Speaker 1: which is why this week's House Republican retreat in Florida
37:17
Speaker 1: gave us headlines like this one from Axios. Quote, White
37:20
Speaker 1: House tells House Republicans to stop talking about mass deportations.
37:24
Speaker 3: What?
37:26
Speaker 1: Here's House Speaker Mike Johnson valiantly trying out the new
37:29
Speaker 1: line on Tuesday.
37:30
Speaker 3: We got a little hiccup with some of the Hispanic
37:32
Speaker 3: and Latino voters for certain. because some of the immigration
37:35
Speaker 3: enforcement was viewed to be overzealous, and everybody can describe
37:38
Speaker 3: it differently, but here's the good news. We're in a
37:41
Speaker 3: course correction mode right now. We're going to have a
37:43
Speaker 3: new Secretary of Homeland Security. Mark Wayne Mullen is going
37:46
Speaker 3: to do a great job in that role.
37:50
Speaker 1: Just a hiccup. Just a flesh wound. You know, and
37:56
Speaker 1: it could be some people have described it as overzealous
37:59
Speaker 1: and it could be described different ways.
38:00
Speaker 2: By other, you know, just you pick your adjective. I'm
38:04
Speaker 2: not saying it's overzealous in case Donald Trump is watching
38:06
Speaker 2: this right now. I'm not saying that. Some may have
38:09
Speaker 2: said that. Also, just like what an annoying doofus he is.
38:15
Speaker 2: It's just like he is. It's just it's so the
38:18
Speaker 2: way like this. He's describing mass deportation and the massive
38:23
Speaker 2: political problem the Republicans have because of it. In this
38:25
Speaker 2: like weird sing-songy Ned Flanders voice. It's just, it's so bad.
38:30
Speaker 1: It is very Ned Flanders. Just a hiccup. Just a
38:32
Speaker 1: hiccup with some Latino voters. Just a small hiccup. Over
38:35
Speaker 1: the fact that we have a paramilitary force hunting them
38:38
Speaker 1: down in their neighborhoods, regardless of whether they're citizens or not.
38:42
Speaker 1: So James Blair, who is the, this is the White
38:44
Speaker 1: House's top political guy. He's deputy chief of staff. They
38:49
Speaker 1: always trot him out to try to say what the
38:52
Speaker 1: message should be. And then everyone else in the White
38:55
Speaker 1: House just ignores the advice. It says do Republicans. Remember,
38:58
Speaker 1: he did that around affordability. He's like Donald Trump after
39:01
Speaker 1: after the off year elections. He's like Donald Trump's now
39:03
Speaker 1: going to focus on affordability. We know that we get
39:05
Speaker 1: the it's really important. The next day, Donald Trump's like
39:07
Speaker 1: affordability is a hoax. So he also told House Republicans
39:12
Speaker 1: he was the one who said stop talking about mass deportations.
39:15
Speaker 1: He told them to turn the midterms into a choice
39:17
Speaker 1: election by reminding voters about Democrats, Biden era positions on crime,
39:22
Speaker 1: cashless bail. and open borders. That was the quote. Would
39:26
Speaker 1: that be your advice, too?
39:28
Speaker 2: I wouldn't give them advice, John. but I would point
39:32
Speaker 2: out that the strategy is doomed to fail for one very,
39:35
Speaker 2: very bitter pill for Donald Trump and James Blair to swallow.
39:39
Speaker 1: Which is Joe Biden isn't president.
39:42
Speaker 2: Well, not only is Joe Biden not president, 60 percent
39:45
Speaker 2: of voters in a recent NPR Marist poll believe that
39:49
Speaker 2: things were better when Joe Biden was president. That includes
39:53
Speaker 2: 68% of independents. And so your message cannot be, watch
39:58
Speaker 2: out for Biden's old policies. Even if they didn't like
40:00
Speaker 2: Biden's old policies, they think your policies suck more. Majorities
40:04
Speaker 2: think that their life is worse off because of Donald
40:06
Speaker 2: Trump's policies. And at a time of war with $ 100
40:11
Speaker 2: a barrel oil, do you think cashless bail is going
40:14
Speaker 2: to tip the elections for you? Like truly, these guys
40:18
Speaker 2: are so far up their own asses that it's like
40:20
Speaker 2: hard to see straight.
40:24
Speaker 1: Someone from Fox called up the White House after that
40:27
Speaker 1: Axios story and asked about the mass deportations policy. And
40:30
Speaker 1: the White House said there's no change whatsoever in the
40:32
Speaker 1: White House's deportation or immigration policies. So they're still pursuing
40:37
Speaker 1: mass deportation, but they just can't talk about it. Can't
40:40
Speaker 1: talk about mass deportation. The war that you're seeing is
40:44
Speaker 1: actually over. It's going great. The get. It's going great.
40:48
Speaker 1: The tariffs you're paying that the Supreme Court said are illegal,
40:52
Speaker 1: you're not getting a refund. The higher gas prices you're
40:56
Speaker 1: paying are actually great because, you know, we're all making money.
41:00
Speaker 1: Oil companies are making money and everything's great. And I
41:03
Speaker 1: don't know, what else is there? Everything's wonderful. Everything's wonderful.
41:07
Speaker 1: Check out this ballroom. Look at that. It's great. Yes.
41:10
Speaker 2: And don't worry, the president is spending at least three
41:12
Speaker 2: to four times as much time as he is on
41:14
Speaker 2: the war in the economy on decorating the ballroom he's building.
41:17
Speaker 2: Because his true passion is interior design.
41:20
Speaker 1: I don't know what I would tell them the message is. Like,
41:22
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, and then the other thing, you know,
41:23
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, you got to talk about the prescription
41:25
Speaker 1: drug thing, which, like, he didn't do anything on prescription
41:28
Speaker 1: drugs that's, like, anything of significance at all. But he
41:33
Speaker 1: did some, like, fake website and a couple things here
41:35
Speaker 1: and there that might help some people who don't have
41:37
Speaker 1: insurance if they go on the website and get some
41:39
Speaker 1: discounts on prescription drugs. It's very, it's, I looked into it.
41:43
Speaker 1: It's very, very little. But this is their big thing.
41:45
Speaker 1: They think, oh, if the Republicans are out there and
41:48
Speaker 1: they've done the polling on this, and they're telling all
41:50
Speaker 1: the candidates, go out there and talk about what Trump
41:52
Speaker 1: has done on prescription drugs. Like, that is the key. Okay. No.
41:56
Speaker 2: You know, that's almost exactly, like, it is eerie how
41:59
Speaker 2: similar it is to some of the things we read
42:02
Speaker 2: about Biden's plans. And honestly, I don't know what I
42:04
Speaker 2: would tell them either, other than to go fuck themselves,
42:06
Speaker 2: but the, that'd be my advice, James Blair, but if
42:12
Speaker 2: they were going to do anything to be helpful is
42:14
Speaker 2: they would kind of do what Biden actually did, which
42:16
Speaker 2: was just be quiet for the last six months. Biden
42:19
Speaker 2: wasn't out there campaigning for anyone. He wasn't trying to
42:21
Speaker 2: make the election about him. Up until he gave that
42:23
Speaker 2: democracy speech at the very end, he just kind of.
42:26
Speaker 1: Let the candidates run. He showed a lot of discipline,
42:29
Speaker 1: even though he was unhappy. Yeah.
42:31
Speaker 2: I don't think Trump will be showing that discipline.
42:34
Speaker 1: That's what I was saying. I also think if you
42:37
Speaker 1: told Mike Johnson to go fuck himself, it would fly
42:40
Speaker 1: in the face of his Covenant Eyes app that he
42:42
Speaker 1: shows his son. So I think that's going to be.
42:44
Speaker 2: Somewhere his son is just getting an alert on his phone.
42:48
Speaker 1: Something I thought about that message wouldn't be received as well.
42:51
Speaker 1: So the president basically had one piece of advice for
42:54
Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress. It's become more of an all-consuming demand,
42:58
Speaker 1: which is to pass the Save America Act, a bill
43:01
Speaker 1: that would require, as we've talked about, every American to
43:05
Speaker 1: present their passport or birth certificate in person at a
43:08
Speaker 1: local elections office in order to register to vote. Trump
43:13
Speaker 1: is also demanding that the bill include a nationwide ban
43:15
Speaker 1: on most mail-in voting and and a ban on trans
43:19
Speaker 1: participation in sports and gender-affirming care for minors, because why not?
43:23
Speaker 1: He said that he won't sign any legislation until the
43:25
Speaker 1: bill is passed, and yet the votes still aren't there
43:29
Speaker 1: in the Senate without nuking the filibuster, which Republicans also
43:33
Speaker 1: don't have the votes for, as John Thune continues telling
43:36
Speaker 1: everyone who will listen. They did just get one convert, however.
43:40
Speaker 1: Texas's John Cornyn, who's locked in a primary runoff with
43:43
Speaker 1: Ken Paxton, who said he'd only consider dropping out of
43:46
Speaker 1: the race if the SAVE Act passes. So because of that,
43:50
Speaker 1: Cornyn wrote an op-ed in the New York Post this
43:52
Speaker 1: week explaining that he now does support ending the filibuster
43:57
Speaker 1: to pass the SAVE America Act. Again, they still don't
44:00
Speaker 1: have the votes. But Cornyn is having a hard time
44:03
Speaker 1: answering questions about his change of heart after many, many
44:06
Speaker 1: years in politics defending the filibuster. Let's take a listen.
44:09
Speaker 4: Previously said that nuking the filibuster would be taking a
44:12
Speaker 4: wrecking ball to Senate rules.
44:14
Speaker 1: Is that no longer true? I said I'd be open
44:18
Speaker 1: to reforms. What would you say to those who say
44:21
Speaker 1: you just changed your mind to win the president's endorsement?
44:25
Speaker 1: I'd say that's not true.
44:27
Speaker 2: You also said that it's.
44:29
Speaker 1: I think we're through.
44:30
Speaker 3: Go ahead.
44:30
Speaker 2: Go away.
44:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're through. Still seems like there's absolutely
44:36
Speaker 1: no way this thing is getting passed, but am I
44:38
Speaker 1: missing something? There's some secret trick they got up their sleeve?
44:42
Speaker 2: I don't, you're not missing anything. You should be clear.
44:46
Speaker 2: Trump's made this so much harder. It was almost impossible anyway,
44:49
Speaker 2: if they could just pass the House's past version of
44:51
Speaker 2: the original SAVE Act. Instead, Trump has decided to add
44:54
Speaker 2: all these provisions, including a ban, as you said, like
44:57
Speaker 2: these completely extraneous things around trans sports participation and gender
45:00
Speaker 2: affirming care, but also mail balloting. Like Susan Collins, who
45:04
Speaker 2: insanely supports the SAVE Act, has said that she is
45:08
Speaker 2: very concerned about a bill telling states how to handle
45:12
Speaker 2: their absentee ballot programs, which I mean, the constitution may
45:15
Speaker 2: also have a thing or two to say about that, but.
45:17
Speaker 1: Yep.
45:17
Speaker 2: So it seems hard for them to pass the old version.
45:22
Speaker 2: The new version seems like an impossibility. I've been trying
45:25
Speaker 2: to think like, just to like take a, like a
45:28
Speaker 2: dive on the dark side, like how could they actually
45:31
Speaker 2: do it? Cause they can lose three Republicans.
45:35
Speaker 4: Right.
45:35
Speaker 2: So you assume even if she supports the bill, Susan
45:38
Speaker 2: Collins really going to nuke the filibuster to pass the
45:40
Speaker 2: save act. No. Lisa Murkowski. Tillis. Mitch McConnell's still kicking around.
45:48
Speaker 2: That's three right there.
45:48
Speaker 1: And Tillis has said he's not going to do it.
45:53
Speaker 2: And then Kennedy has said that, so it seems hard.
45:56
Speaker 1: They just don't have the votes.
45:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't seem like it is possible for them
45:59
Speaker 2: to do it, even if Trump has pulled off, with
46:02
Speaker 2: at least House Republicans in the past, what seemed to
46:05
Speaker 2: be impossible votes. But usually that's getting conservatives to vote
46:09
Speaker 2: for something more moderate. More moderate, I'm saying, with all
46:12
Speaker 2: kinds of air quotes because not particularly moderate. But it's
46:17
Speaker 2: getting– there are no moderates here, but getting the less
46:21
Speaker 2: Trumpy Republicans to come over to the Trumpy side is
46:23
Speaker 2: something he's had less success with. It seems very, very
46:25
Speaker 2: hard as we sit here today, so I'd say that.
46:27
Speaker 1: It seems like where this is headed is it fails.
46:31
Speaker 1: They have the vote. They speak and yell and scream
46:36
Speaker 1: and all the right-wing influencers freak out and all that shit.
46:40
Speaker 1: It doesn't go anywhere, dies. And then Trump announces he's
46:44
Speaker 1: doing an executive order that is the Save America Act.
46:48
Speaker 1: And he's just going to, you know, claim by fiat
46:51
Speaker 1: that it is passed or just, you know, EO the
46:53
Speaker 1: provisions into being and then into law. And then it'll
46:57
Speaker 1: be challenged in court and thrown out. And that'll be that. Yeah,
47:02
Speaker 1: that seems right. And maybe it'll be a pretext for
47:05
Speaker 1: when they lose the midterms. for them to all scream
47:08
Speaker 1: about how Democrats cheated. And if we had passed the
47:10
Speaker 1: save America act, and if the courts hadn't, you know,
47:12
Speaker 1: the Supreme court hadn't betrayed Donald Trump, then Republicans would
47:16
Speaker 1: have won the midterms. And so now we're going to
47:18
Speaker 1: see some voting machines. I don't know, but like you can,
47:21
Speaker 1: you can see where this is headed.
47:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair. I think that's a good, that that's
47:24
Speaker 2: a good articulation of what's likely to happen. Yeah.
47:27
Speaker 1: It'll be a real fucking shit show. One other story
47:29
Speaker 1: to file under a Republicans acting fucking nuts on Monday, uh,
47:33
Speaker 1: Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles tweeted, quote, This came after Florida
47:37
Speaker 1: Congressman Randy Fine tweeted in February, quote, Then just on Thursday,
47:43
Speaker 1: after a popular right-wing troll account posted a tweet, juxtaposing
48:00
Speaker 1: a picture of the Twin Towers exploding with Zoran Mamdani
48:04
Speaker 1: hosting an Iftar celebration, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville retweeted it
48:09
Speaker 1: with the comment, quote, the enemy is inside the gates,
48:13
Speaker 1: referring to Mamdani. Maybe even more disturbing than those three,
48:17
Speaker 1: when reporters asked a bunch of Republicans in Congress this
48:20
Speaker 1: week for their reaction to Ogle's tweet about how Muslims
48:23
Speaker 1: don't belong in American society, a lot of them just
48:25
Speaker 1: refused to condemn it. The number three ranked Republican in
48:28
Speaker 1: the House, Tom Emmer, was asked six times by a
48:32
Speaker 1: reporter whether he thinks Muslims belong in American society. Six
48:36
Speaker 1: times in a row. Each time, he refused to say yes.
48:39
Speaker 1: Just would not say yes. I don't know. I'm like,
48:42
Speaker 1: I'm at a complete loss for this one. Like, it's disgusting.
48:46
Speaker 2: It is....
48:48
Speaker 1: If anyone said that about any other religion, Judaism, Christianity,
48:53
Speaker 1: it would be a fucking national uproar. This has nothing
48:57
Speaker 1: to do with... you know, sort of Islamic inspired terrorists
49:04
Speaker 1: or any kind of extreme, it's nothing to do with
49:05
Speaker 1: any of that, even though some of them in their
49:07
Speaker 1: backtrack can try to make it. It's just people who
49:09
Speaker 1: are Muslim in this country, they do not want here.
49:13
Speaker 1: And you have elected Republicans saying they do not want
49:15
Speaker 1: Muslims in the society. You have elected Republicans saying that
49:19
Speaker 1: Zoran Mamdani, the mayor of new york city should be
49:21
Speaker 1: denaturalized and deported you have other ones just calling for
49:24
Speaker 1: just people who practice islam in this country to be
49:28
Speaker 1: deported it's fucking it's it's disgusting and i like what
49:33
Speaker 1: i don't even know what like what should democrats say
49:36
Speaker 1: about it i feel like I've seen a lot of
49:38
Speaker 1: tweets from a lot of Democrats saying that it's disgusting.
49:41
Speaker 1: I really don't know what else there is to do,
49:44
Speaker 1: but it's something people should realize is happening out there.
49:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I had the exact same reaction, which
49:51
Speaker 2: is it's so horrifying. It is an effort to make
49:55
Speaker 2: anti-Muslim bigotry socially acceptable, certainly within the Republican Party, if
49:59
Speaker 2: not in America. As you said, if you were to
50:03
Speaker 2: substitute any other religion there, there would be a fierce uproar.
50:07
Speaker 2: And I think Democrats who have called it out are
50:09
Speaker 2: good to do it. I always wrestle with this, which
50:10
Speaker 2: is these people are disgusting trolls and they want our outrage.
50:16
Speaker 2: And are we giving them what they want by addressing it?
50:20
Speaker 2: You know, I just like, I really like it should
50:22
Speaker 2: be called out. Like it absolutely should be called out
50:24
Speaker 2: and no one should be afraid to call it out.
50:25
Speaker 2: This is not a situation where like, oh, we, you know,
50:27
Speaker 2: this might be politically precarious. No, you should call. I
50:30
Speaker 2: think this is terrible, but it's not just disgusting morally. It's,
50:34
Speaker 2: I think it's also terrible politics. I think people look
50:36
Speaker 2: at that and think, that most Americans are like, I
50:38
Speaker 2: think that's disgusting. Like, why would you even say that? Like,
50:40
Speaker 2: why would you be so divisive? Like, why would you
50:42
Speaker 2: be so hateful? Like, I don't think it's good politics.
50:45
Speaker 2: That's why I think it's the right thing to call
50:46
Speaker 2: it out. I think what to do here is, like,
50:50
Speaker 2: you're never going to get Andy Ogles, Tommy Tuberville, Randy
50:54
Speaker 2: Fine to be less horrible. They're not going to have
50:56
Speaker 2: an epiphany one day and not be these disgusting people
51:00
Speaker 2: they show themselves to be. The thing to do is
51:02
Speaker 2: to deliver fierce, Powerful political punishment on the people who
51:08
Speaker 2: are enabling this in the Republican party. Tom Emmer, the
51:11
Speaker 2: number three Republican. I mean, Mike Johnson lets us go
51:13
Speaker 2: every single day, right? They could call this out. They could,
51:16
Speaker 2: they could, they could speak up for their constituents. There
51:21
Speaker 2: are Muslims who live in every district, almost every district
51:24
Speaker 2: and certainly every state in this country. None of them
51:26
Speaker 2: call out is the way to do is to make
51:28
Speaker 2: them pay a huge political price for this, to challenge,
51:31
Speaker 2: to channel our anger and our outrage. not for certainly
51:35
Speaker 2: into protecting and thinking about and caring for the Muslims
51:40
Speaker 2: who are being targeted here, but into efforts to just
51:44
Speaker 2: beat the living shit out of these Republicans in the election.
51:48
Speaker 1: I think Mamdani had maybe the best response. He, he
51:52
Speaker 1: quote tweeted Tuberville and said, let there be as much
51:54
Speaker 1: outrage from politicians in Washington when kids go hungry as
51:57
Speaker 1: there is when I break bread with New Yorkers.
51:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
52:00
Speaker 1: Which is just bringing the whole thing back onto, onto politics.
52:03
Speaker 1: his terms right and not having to deal with that
52:05
Speaker 1: but it is it's fucked man all right a couple
52:20
Speaker 1: things before we go elon musk's doge is back in
52:23
Speaker 1: the headlines thanks to a lawsuit filed last year to
52:26
Speaker 1: reverse cuts to the national endowment for the humanities Apparently,
52:30
Speaker 1: Elon's doge bros fed every NEH grant into chat GPT
52:35
Speaker 1: and asked it, does the following relate at all to DEI?
52:40
Speaker 1: Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with yes
52:44
Speaker 1: or no. That was the prompt. The result was the
52:47
Speaker 1: cancellation of $ 100 million in already appropriated funding. Congress already
52:51
Speaker 1: appropriated it. And the firing of 65% of the staff
52:56
Speaker 1: at the National Endowment for the Humanities. which some of
52:59
Speaker 1: the Doge Bros are having to answer for under oath
53:02
Speaker 1: as part of the lawsuit. Here's part of a video
53:04
Speaker 1: that 404 Media put together with some of the highlights
53:07
Speaker 1: from former Doge staffer Justin Fox.
53:11
Speaker 4: How do you interpret DEI? There was the EO explicitly
53:22
Speaker 4: laid out the details.
53:24
Speaker 2: I don't remember it off the.
53:25
Speaker 4: Top of my head. I'm asking for your understanding of it.
53:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, my understanding was exactly what was written in the EO.
53:29
Speaker 4: I don't remember what was in the EO.
53:31
Speaker 2: So right now, do you have an understanding of what
53:32
Speaker 2: DEI is?
53:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
53:34
Speaker 1: Okay, so what's your understanding as you sit here.
53:36
Speaker 3: Today in this deposition?
53:39
Speaker 2: Well, it was exactly what was written in the EO.
53:41
Speaker 1: Why is a documentary about Holocaust survivors DEI?
53:49
Speaker 2: It's the gender-based.
53:53
Speaker 1: Story.
53:54
Speaker 2: That's inherently discriminatory to focus on this specific group. It's
54:00
Speaker 2: inherently discriminatory to focus on what specific group? The gender-based,
54:07
Speaker 2: so females, during the Holocaust.
54:12
Speaker 4: And you believe that's inherently discriminatory? I'm just saying that's
54:17
Speaker 4: what it's focused on.
54:18
Speaker 1: Sure.
54:19
Speaker 4: But this is related to the E.I.
54:22
Speaker 1: Oh my God. I hadn't seen that clip.
54:24
Speaker 2: No, this is the first time. First time. What?
54:30
Speaker 1: The Holocaust is a... These people are fucking stupid. Elon
54:33
Speaker 1: Musk is fucking stupid. The fucking people he hired are stupid.
54:36
Speaker 1: And everyone during the whole Doge thing that was like,
54:39
Speaker 1: these kids are brilliant and they blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
54:42
Speaker 1: and just give them a chance. No, they're all fucking stupid.
54:45
Speaker 1: They should have been anywhere near the government and fuck them.
54:50
Speaker 2: Just... some of the worst, dumbest people were given the
54:53
Speaker 2: most important jobs and with incredible consequences.
54:56
Speaker 1: Oh, because you can code? Oh, good for fucking you.
54:58
Speaker 1: Where's that code getting you now? Replace you with fucking Claude. Exactly.
55:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, chat GPT my ass right there. We are laughing
55:13
Speaker 2: at this, and we should, because these clowns should be
55:16
Speaker 2: ridiculed out of polite society, but USAID programs gutted, children died,
55:22
Speaker 2: people got sick, people lost their jobs.
55:24
Speaker 1: I know, I know.
55:25
Speaker 2: Because of a bunch of fucking goobers who had no
55:29
Speaker 2: idea what they're doing, who worked for the world's biggest goober,
55:31
Speaker 2: who had no idea what he was doing.
55:33
Speaker 1: Got in there. Back to the Groyper incels. Yes, exactly.
55:36
Speaker 2: Put in a bunch of poorly worded prompts into a
55:40
Speaker 2: old version of ChatGPT and fired a bunch of people
55:43
Speaker 2: and cut off a bunch of programs.
55:44
Speaker 1: I just fucking... You cannot run against Silicon Valley hard
55:49
Speaker 1: enough in the next race.
55:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a story today about a bunch of tech
55:54
Speaker 2: venture capitalists who want to raise a half a billion
55:56
Speaker 2: dollars to shape California politics.
55:58
Speaker 1: Saw that. Saw that. Yeah. I was just arguing with
56:01
Speaker 1: Chamath on Twitter, although I will say I didn't. Here's
56:04
Speaker 1: the thing, Dan. He tweeted about the Washington, the new
56:07
Speaker 1: Washington state millionaires tax, income tax. They've all been bitching
56:11
Speaker 1: about the wealth tax. This is just an income tax
56:14
Speaker 1: that hits millionaires. That's it. And, um, I just quote
56:18
Speaker 1: tweeted it and, and said, Oh, this, this billionaire, um,
56:23
Speaker 1: you know, this billionaire has a problem with, uh, with
56:25
Speaker 1: millionaires paying a little bit more. So something very like anodyne.
56:28
Speaker 1: And he just like responded with this long fucking thing.
56:30
Speaker 1: And it was just a complete asshole. And you know
56:33
Speaker 1: what I did? I didn't respond.
56:35
Speaker 2: You know what, John, I feel like it's, it was
56:37
Speaker 2: two weeks ago. We had what some of our listeners
56:40
Speaker 2: thought was a mild intervention on my part. It was,
56:42
Speaker 2: I think it was more of an inquisition about your
56:43
Speaker 2: mental health. Um, But you've grown in those two weeks.
56:47
Speaker 1: If it's not a senior administration official, I'm going to
56:48
Speaker 1: let it go, which is I did.
56:49
Speaker 2: Does he not end up following us for you to
56:51
Speaker 2: get your jollies out of it? Is there a level
56:54
Speaker 2: which is no longer thrilling?
56:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, who cares what your mouth does? But anyway, I
56:59
Speaker 1: do think that people like him and the David Sachses
57:02
Speaker 1: and all the AI fucking overlords now, the politics there
57:08
Speaker 1: are so bad for them. And I do think that
57:10
Speaker 1: people in this country are so angry and have fucking
57:13
Speaker 1: had it. with like Elon Musk and the tech bros
57:16
Speaker 1: and all these fucking assholes that like, you know, I,
57:20
Speaker 1: like I said, I do not think you can run
57:22
Speaker 1: hard enough against that, that whole crew, if you're a
57:25
Speaker 1: Democrat or a Republican for that matter, running in 2028.
57:27
Speaker 2: And you're going to get a chance to, because the,
57:30
Speaker 2: between the crypto industry and the AI industry, there's going
57:32
Speaker 2: to be hundreds of millions of dollars spent in super
57:34
Speaker 2: PAC funding. And even in democratic primaries, we're seeing the
57:37
Speaker 2: crypto PACs have come in against Juliana Stratton, who's Lieutenant
57:41
Speaker 2: Governor running in Illinois as soon as she would, you know,
57:43
Speaker 2: got near the top of the polls. They dropped, you know,
57:45
Speaker 2: I think $ 5 million in ads on her. So there's
57:47
Speaker 2: a real, like, this is the real thing. And also
57:49
Speaker 2: this is a different topic, but these people are also
57:51
Speaker 2: so fucking bad at politics. Yeah. Because like all these
57:56
Speaker 2: AI people who are in there being like arrogant assholes
57:59
Speaker 2: who are, uh, insert themselves in politics. They do not
58:04
Speaker 2: seem to recognize, because even though they're making a ton
58:06
Speaker 2: of money, you know, it's like Sam Altman sweeping in
58:08
Speaker 2: with the chat GPT contract, uh, with the Pentagon, uh,
58:12
Speaker 2: is that they have to get their data centers built
58:15
Speaker 2: in local communities. And if your brand is in the
58:18
Speaker 2: shit because you're being run by an arrogant asshole who
58:21
Speaker 2: is caping up to the least popular president in recent memory,
58:26
Speaker 2: then it's going to be really hard to get local
58:28
Speaker 2: communities to approve your data centers. It's like these people
58:32
Speaker 2: are really, they're bad at politics. They're being advised by
58:39
Speaker 2: greedy people people who are bad at politics. Like, it's just,
58:43
Speaker 2: they're all fucking clowns.
58:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. That's not the only Doge story we have.
58:47
Speaker 1: The Washington Post also just reported that a whistleblower has
58:49
Speaker 1: come forward alleging that a different Doge staffer at the
58:52
Speaker 1: Social Security Administration copied two highly sensitive databases so he
58:56
Speaker 1: could use them at his new job with a private employer.
58:59
Speaker 1: The guy in question apparently asked the whistleblower for help
59:01
Speaker 1: in transferring one of the databases off of a thumb
59:04
Speaker 1: drive to his personal computer so that he could, quote,
59:07
Speaker 1: sanitize the data and said that he expected to receive
59:10
Speaker 1: a presidential pardon of course if his work was found
59:13
Speaker 1: to be illegal one of the databases was called the
59:18
Speaker 1: master death file included records for more than 500 million
59:23
Speaker 1: living and dead Americans including social security numbers places and
59:26
Speaker 1: dates of birth citizenship race and ethnicity and and parents' names.
59:32
Speaker 1: Doesn't that give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside?
59:35
Speaker 2: Should be one of the biggest stories in America because
59:37
Speaker 2: it would be one of the biggest data breaches in
59:39
Speaker 2: the history of the federal government.
59:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. And at the end of the story, they're like,
59:44
Speaker 1: and no one knows, was there one copy made of it?
59:46
Speaker 1: No copies? A dozen copies? A hundred copies? No one
59:50
Speaker 1: can say. I'm sure DOJ is looking into it, right?
59:53
Speaker 1: I guess right now they're all over it. There's an
59:55
Speaker 1: Inspector General internal investigation at the Social Security Administration. That's
59:59
Speaker 1: how we found out about this story in the Washington
1:00:01
Speaker 1: Post because they had to notify Congress that they were
1:00:04
Speaker 1: doing this Inspector General investigation. But like, I don't know.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: Seems a little crimey to me. Seems like there could
1:00:10
Speaker 1: be some crimes here.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: When you bring up a prospective presidential pardon in the
1:00:14
Speaker 2: discussion involving how to get something onto a jump drive,
1:00:17
Speaker 2: you're probably.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: Committing a crime. Yeah, and when the stuff on the
1:00:21
Speaker 1: jump drive is the most private information for every American.
1:00:26
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see what dipshit startup this guy
1:00:29
Speaker 2: went to go work for.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: Probably OpenAI.
1:00:32
Speaker 2: You could think it could be something like that, but
1:00:36
Speaker 2: it's probably something just so ridiculous. I don't know, like
1:00:41
Speaker 2: Uber for bowling lanes or something.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: Fuck. Finally, finally. This is a light one. A story
1:00:51
Speaker 1: about how our wartime president has been extremely focused on
1:00:55
Speaker 1: footwear and not just his either. Earlier this week, the
1:00:59
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has, quote, fallen in
1:01:01
Speaker 1: love with shoes from a company called Florsheim, which he
1:01:05
Speaker 1: keeps gifting to, quote, agency heads, lawmakers, White House advisors
1:01:09
Speaker 1: and VIPs. So Trump has apparently been checking out people's
1:01:14
Speaker 1: shoes during cabinet meetings and then guessing their shoe size
1:01:18
Speaker 1: in front of everyone. which hilariously led to Marco Rubio
1:01:22
Speaker 1: saying he's an 11 and a half, which he's not
1:01:26
Speaker 1: because shortly after the article was released, various photos of
1:01:30
Speaker 1: Rubio and a pair of obviously oversized dress shoes went viral. So,
1:01:41
Speaker 1: and JD Vance has told the story as well that like,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: Trump said to Marco and J.D. in some meeting, like, hey,
1:01:47
Speaker 1: you both have shitty shoes. I got these new shoes
1:01:50
Speaker 1: that I love. What are your shoe sizes? And so
1:01:52
Speaker 1: they give him the shoe sizes and J.D. Vance says
1:01:54
Speaker 1: he's a 13. It's like fucking Bigfoot over there. And
1:01:58
Speaker 1: then Marco says 11 and a half after J.D. Vance
1:02:02
Speaker 1: says 13. And Donald Trump says, you know, you can
1:02:05
Speaker 1: tell a lot about a man from his shoe size.
1:02:10
Speaker 1: So Rubio inflates his shoe size. Trump gives these shoes
1:02:15
Speaker 1: to everyone as a gift, and then they're all stuck
1:02:17
Speaker 1: wearing their shoes around, in Marco's case, that don't fit him.
1:02:24
Speaker 2: It's so funny. I mean, just such small dick energy
1:02:29
Speaker 2: for Marco Rubio. He's like.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: Little Marco. Trump nailed that nickname.
1:02:33
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:02:34
Speaker 1: Nailed it.
1:02:35
Speaker 2: Marco Rubio measures his shoe size from the base, so
1:02:38
Speaker 2: it's like... But could you just imagine, like, he wore
1:02:44
Speaker 2: them to Davos. Like, the man is on his feet
1:02:46
Speaker 2: like 18 hours a day wearing shoes that do not
1:02:49
Speaker 2: fit because he's afraid to admit to the president of
1:02:52
Speaker 2: the United States that his shoe size is smaller than
1:02:54
Speaker 2: he thinks. He did want to be more than a
1:02:56
Speaker 2: size and a half smaller than.
1:02:59
Speaker 1: J.D.
1:02:59
Speaker 2: Vance.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: Who was also probably lying about his feet as well.
1:03:04
Speaker 2: How many pairs of socks do you think he's trying
1:03:05
Speaker 2: to put on?
1:03:05
Speaker 1: I was just going to say that. Well, also the
1:03:08
Speaker 1: internet sort of did its thing and sort of they
1:03:11
Speaker 1: did like a Zapruder-like collection of like various Marco Rubio pictures, photos.
1:03:17
Speaker 1: So there's one where he clearly looks ridiculous. There's some
1:03:20
Speaker 1: others where you can still see a little space in
1:03:22
Speaker 1: the shoes. And then they have pictures from before he
1:03:24
Speaker 1: got the shoes when he was wearing other shoes, which
1:03:26
Speaker 1: clearly fit him quite well. So you can just see
1:03:31
Speaker 1: the evolution and suddenly Rubio is just walking around, tripping
1:03:34
Speaker 1: over his fucking feet and Big dumb shoes that Donald
1:03:38
Speaker 1: Trump gave him. Oh, also, by the way, Business Insider
1:03:40
Speaker 1: helpfully pointed this out, that Florsheim's parent company has sued
1:03:44
Speaker 1: for a refund on Trump's tariffs.
1:03:46
Speaker 2: Fucking perfect. Perfect.
1:03:49
Speaker 1: Well, enjoy your shoes, everyone. Why is Trump... It really
1:03:53
Speaker 1: does speak to something that's going on with Trump in these...
1:03:57
Speaker 1: It's very, like, aging dictator, declining empire vibes, where he's just, like...
1:04:03
Speaker 1: It's very in line with the... caring about the ballroom
1:04:07
Speaker 1: and the decorations and the Kennedy Center and the armrests.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, he's just sitting around these meetings,
1:04:14
Speaker 1: probably like they're talking to him about fucking missile launches.
1:04:18
Speaker 2: About the street of Hormuz.
1:04:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, oil prices or, you know, any number of other
1:04:24
Speaker 1: important things. And he's sitting there looking under the table
1:04:26
Speaker 1: and he's like, what shoe size are you? I don't
1:04:28
Speaker 1: like those shoes. I got to send you some Florsheim
1:04:30
Speaker 1: shoes for 145 bucks a pair. And will it be
1:04:34
Speaker 1: your size? Who knows? Who knows? You better tell me
1:04:37
Speaker 1: a big size. You better tell me a big size
1:04:38
Speaker 1: or I'm going to think you have a small dick.
1:04:41
Speaker 2: Do you think we would not be in war with
1:04:43
Speaker 2: the Ram right now if Marco Rubio had shoes that fit?
1:04:46
Speaker 1: It's unclear. Unclear. Oh, boy. Well, that's our show for today, Dan.
1:04:53
Speaker 1: We're going to end on that note.
1:04:54
Speaker 2: It's a good note to end on.
1:04:55
Speaker 1: Hope everyone's wearing the shoes that fit them. Love It
1:04:58
Speaker 1: will be back in the feed on Sunday with a
1:05:01
Speaker 1: conversation with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, maybe he'll find out
1:05:05
Speaker 1: how big his shoes are, huh?
1:05:09
Speaker 4: Bye, everyone.
1:05:10
Speaker 3: Bye.
1:05:14
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