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Huge Verdict Against Trump (with Sen. Elizabeth Warren!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: This is a special President's Day weekend episode. That's what
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: we're calling it. Elizabeth Warren stopped by the studio on Thursday.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: She and I had a great conversation about 2024, Biden,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the mess in Congress, the State of the Union, Gaza,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: legal weed, and most importantly... who she'd choose as part
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: of her dream Blunt rotation.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: How'd that go?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I tried to do Nightmare Blunt rotation, and she was
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: not having it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Big structural getaway for me.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Though when I said the name Jamie Diamond on the list,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: she actually physically winced. So that was cool.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: She's cool, though.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Bruce was here, I believe. Bruce was here.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: In studio.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I missed all this.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: You missed everything. Emily, Teddy, and Charlie were here. We
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: had a whole fun late night Thursday.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Running around.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, we have some big news. We're recording this on Friday,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and since you're not going to hear another episode from
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: us until Wednesday, we have to cover some of the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: big news that just happened today.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Let's cover it.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: First of all, Donald Trump's been found liable for fraud,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: ordered to pay $ 350 million, and he has been barred
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: from doing business in New York for three years, along
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: with his two adult sons. He can appeal this, but
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: he still has to come up with the money within
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the next 30 days or secure a bond. This is,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of course, on top of the $ 83 million he owes
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: to E. Jean Carroll. He owes $ 443 million altogether. Donald Trump.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a President's Day sale at Trump Tower.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Let's get rid of some
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: gold toilets. This is bad for him.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: He's going to dip his hand right into the RNC coffers.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Pull out some cash and keep it.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Here's what Judge N'Goran said in his ruling. This is,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: of course, by the way, this is the New York case.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, brought it against
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Trump and the Trump Organization for committing business fraud, for
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: manipulating the value of their assets. The English poet Alexander
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Pope first declared, to err is human, to forgive is divine.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Defendants apparently are of a different mind. Does that rhyme?
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: After some four years of investigation and litigation, the only
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: error that they acknowledge is the tripling of the size
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of the Trump Tower penthouse, which cannot be gainsaid. Their
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: They are accused only of inflating asset values to make
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: more money. The documents prove this over and over again.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Defendants
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: they adopt a see no evil, hear no evil, speak
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: no evil posture that the evidence belies.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Now, there are people out there including some producers of
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: this very podcast, saying that this is a bit overwritten.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: And I say no.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: It's a 92-page ruling?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I say swing for the fences, Engeron. This is your moment.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: You sing. You sing beautifully.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: One other detail I thought was interesting here.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Webster's defines fraud.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: The judge said there's substantial evidence that Allen Weisselberg's $ 2
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: million separation agreement was negotiated to compensate him for his
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: continued non-cooperation with with any entities with any legal interests
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: adverse to defendants. So they paid Weisselberg off just to
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: prevent him from cooperating. It's just such a fucking mob.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Same playbook.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I have said that my position is that Donald Trump
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: would rather go to jail for a year than run
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: out of money. And that continues to be my position.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: People were estimating when the E. Jean Carroll verdict came
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: out that his liquid assets are in the range of
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: $ 500 million to $ 600 million. So $ 440 million that he's
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: going to, even if he wins on appeal, he has
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to pony that up in the next 30 days. That's not...
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: That's so much money. That's a lot of money. My God.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Hey, and I think we all agree that's a lot
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: of money.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: That's a lot more money than he spent on his
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: entire 2016 presidential campaign. Poof.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And you know what? He has expenses.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Legal fees for the other 91 felony counts that he
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: is going to be... litigating over the next.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Uh his monthly nut must be fucking bananas.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: And just saying don jr and eric each have to
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: pay four million dollars each two.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: In weisselberg a million two yeah yeah brand.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Of law is expensive like affect the cocaine economy.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah trump's not happy uh about this ruling he put
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: out a statement calling tish james racist I helped New
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: York City during its worst of times, and now, while
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it is overrun with violent Biden migrant crime, the radicals
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: are doing all they can to kick me out. Not happy.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Not happy.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: He already left. He already changed his residency to Florida.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Anyway, so that's tough for Trump. And then Supreme Court
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: saying next Wednesday they could have some opinions, perhaps.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Let's go. Hurry up.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Let's go. So, yeah, we'll see.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: We talked to, you know, My Valentine's Day pal, Chris Christie,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: was saying that he did not believe the Supreme Court
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: was going to delay the trials, that the trials would happen.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I'm with Chris, as I am with everything else.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: He was a prosecutor.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a tough one. So the New York Times also
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: reports that Trump has been telling advisers he likes the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: idea of a 16-week national abortion ban because it's an
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: even number.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: That can't be. Well, of course it's real.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: That's what he's been telling advisers. So he wants 16 weeks.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: He wants exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the mother. We, of course, know from experience in Texas
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: that even the exception in life of the mother does
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: not ensure that women who are facing a life-threatening situation
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: pregnancy can get an abortion because the Texas Supreme Court
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: ruled otherwise in that case.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I think you're being unfair. I think people will take
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: solace when they're dying of sepsis in a hospital parking
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: lot that Trump thought it was a nice even number.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Trump thought it was a nice even number. And he
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: also he was and he was for that exception.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I thought that Trump was maybe flirting with no national
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: ban at all and that he was he could say like, oh,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: it's been left to the state. And so I'm going
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: to leave it to the states or just continue punting.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: And there may be some evidence that at least the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: campaign didn't want this story to come out because they're
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: saying it's a fake New York Times story, but they
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: didn't say it wasn't true.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's what my read on this was, which
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: is he is not going to be saying that in public,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and he can be able to deny that in public,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: but it also sends a message to Republicans that this
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: is the sort of, that after Trump came out against
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: DeSantis and the six-week ban, that he views 16 weeks...
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: as what like his sort of governing position would be.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Like he's basically signaling, like, I'm not going to talk
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: about a ban on the campaign trail. I'm going to
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: avoid this question, or at least I'll try to as
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: long as possible. But hey, hey, you base freaks, here's
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: where I'm at.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: It seems very likely that this decision is being made
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: with Donald Trump and his pollster and nobody else. There's
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: no doctors in the room. There's no healthcare professionals. There's
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: no policy people.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: You don't think there's medical professionals when he's having these conversations?
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: You don't think he's been holding a series of salons?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Sort of insulting to the orthodontist at Mar-a-Lago he surely.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Brought this up with.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: He has no deeply held beliefs. I mean, it is
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: notable that this leaked now that he is pretty safely
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: out of the primaries where people like Ron DeSantis tried
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: to make this an issue and failed miserably, but they tried.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, for Democrats purposes, and this happens to be true,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Trump wants national abortion ban. If he becomes president, very
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: likely that the Republicans have the Senate, possible that the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Republicans have the House, they could pass a national abortion ban.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Abortion is currently outlawed in 20 states, thanks to Dobbs,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: which Donald Trump takes credit for. And if he becomes president,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: he will now outlaw it in 30 other states. Even
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: if he doesn't have a Republican Congress, he doesn't need
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: one to ban Mifepristone. He can take an executive action
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: that would do that all across the country, and that's
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: where 50% of abortions are done through the abortion pill, Mifepristone. So, yeah,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: pretty bad. And Joe Biden, if Joe Biden wins, and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Ruben Gallego replaces Kyrsten Sinema, Democrats keep the Senate, Democrats
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: flip the House, those are the votes we need to
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: get rid of the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: And if Donald Trump becomes president, the House and the
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Senate could very well move with him. And that would
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: mean that nothing... Nothing you can do, as we've talked
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: about before, like, you know, one thing that happened in
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: 2022 is abortion feeling less salient in places like New
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: York and California made those issues less salient to voters.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: And it meant that we didn't lose the House in
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Michigan or Wisconsin. We lost the House in California and
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: we lost the House in New York. If Donald Trump wins,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: and that would mean that we lost, that we in
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: all likelihood did not win back the House and probably
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: lost the Senate, they will pass a ban that will
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: hit New York. It will hit California. At every liberal place,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: there will be no hiding from it.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And Tom Suozzi made that point in his special election
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: that he won in that district.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: That's my home district.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: It does remind you that in 2016, Trump did that
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: interview with Chris Matthews where he talked about how women
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: who got abortions illegally needed to be punished in some way.
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I imagine that will be front and center in all
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: the ads about this discussion.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: So President Biden today said there was no doubt that
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Putin is responsible for the death of Putin's biggest critic,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison on Friday.
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: So Biden went out to speak about it. Nikki Haley
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: has been posting about it, tweeting about it. She attacked
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Trump saying, quote, Putin did this, the same Putin who
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump praises and defends. Nikki Haley, she's just she's
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: going full, full, full bulwark. She's moving on to full
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Lincoln project.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's going to be sitting at that table with Tim.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: and Sarah and JVL soon enough.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Same day, this was before the tragic news that Navalny died,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the Biden campaign had launched a new ad hitting Donald
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Trump for saying he'd let Putin do whatever he wants
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: to NATO countries if they don't spend more on their
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: own defense. And a lot of Democrats were pointing out
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: also that, again, Ukraine funding is being held up. So
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of letting Putin do whatever he wants
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: coming from the Trump MAGA establishment right now.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I was glad to see Biden come
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: out and deliver a speech on this today. I mean,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Alexei Navalny, for folks who don't know, he emerged in
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: the Russian political scene around 2008, got famous internationally around
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: 2011 when there were big anti-Putin protests. He tried to
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: run for president, got barred by the Russians. They tried
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: to poison him while he was in prison. They poisoned
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: him again in 2020. He nearly died. And then Alexei Navalny,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: he escaped after being poisoned with his nerve agent. He
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: was in Siberia on a trip. He went to Germany,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: got treatment, and then he came back to Russia. The
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: most unbelievably brave, you know, courageous thing you could ever imagine,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: knowing full well that when he landed, he would get arrested.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: He'd get thrown in prison. I think he was serving
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: out a 30-year prison sentence. The guy was living in a,
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: in a cell that was seven feet by eight feet
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: in solitary confinement almost all the time. So just an
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: incredibly courageous individual. Um, and, uh, the biggest threat there
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: was politically in Russia to Putin. So, you know, I
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: think Biden probably had deeply felt beliefs about Navalny and
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: like his character and, uh, the courage he showed not
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: like there's a lot of things Navalny's done or said
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: in the past that like, uh, I disagree with and that, um,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: you know, wouldn't make him a liberal Democrat by any means, but,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: He's a Russian nationalist. But so I think it was
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: smart of Biden to come out and sort of talk
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: about this in a principled way, but also try to
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: use this moment to rally support for Ukraine funding.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Because just this week, there has been this weird leak
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: out of the hill that the Russians are working on
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: some sort of nuclear powered weapon. In space.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Space nukes.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: In space. Yeah, we tried to do a... A quick
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Pod Save the World bonus YouTube on that if you
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: want to learn more.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Where?
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: Space.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: What?
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Nukes.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Nukes in space. And then, you know, the murder of
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Lexi Navalny. I mean, it's an odd moment for this
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: to happen.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Also, we got Tucker Carlson over in Russia being like, look,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: they got chandeliers in the airports. This place is amazing.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: No, Tucker was like, we were.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: Shocked to see that Moscow has nice train stations. And
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: it's like, Moscow has famously beautiful train stations. You can
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: buy like coffee table books or just photos from these
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: fucking train stations. The subways are incredible there. But anyway,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I was glad to see Biden try to use this
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: moment to focus attention on Ukraine funding. He went hard
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: at Congress for going on a two week vacation recess
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: while this funding is just lingering and dangling out there.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: So we'll see if it moves anybody.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Two week recess while the Ukraine funding's out there. And
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: also when they come back from recess, three days until
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the government shuts down. And they don't have, they haven't
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: figured that out either.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: It's always three days from the conference, so it's always
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: right around the corner.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: And by the way, if you want to know more
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: about Alexei Navalny and his death and the global reaction,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Ben Rhodes and I just filmed a special episode of
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Pod Save the World that should be available now on
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: the Pod Save the World feed.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Where was Ben? World does never sleep.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Where was Ben for this?
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Ben was in the beating heart of the blob. He
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: was at the Munich Security Summit.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I believe they let him in.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: I just like, I was like, Tommy, I'm coming to
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: you from the Munich Security Conference. Words a person has
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: never been happier to say on this pod.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Speaking of courageous, brave dissidents.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, no.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I literally did not know where we were going.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin announced he won't be running for president on
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: a third party or independent ticket. Our long national nightmare
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: of Joe Manchin is just about over, guys. We dealt
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: with him for the first couple of years.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: Hey, hey, hey. Retire.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Retirement Reduction Act. Katonji Brown-Jackson. Do you forget yourself? This
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: man saved us.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: He did.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: We love Joe. Now that he's not running, we love
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: We love Joe Manchin. That's right. Yeah, we don't want
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: him to change his mind.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Come on.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Good work.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Joe Manchin, you catch more houseboats.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: With what?
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: With, you know, nice stuff. Nice stuff.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: I think, at the end of the day, I sort
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: of assumed he was too lazy to really mount a
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: run for president, and I'm glad to see that that
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: worked out for us all.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: No Labels is running out of options here. Larry Hogan
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: is running for Senate, former Maryland governor. He's running for
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Senate there. No Manchin. Haley said no. Romney said no.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Huntsman basically closed the door, but said, I don't, I'm
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: not interested. Sununu said no. Andrew Yang said no. Like,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how many people they
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: have left. And they're going to have, they might, so
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: they might have ballot access in a lot of these
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: states and no candidate, which is also troubling, but who knows? Yeah.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Because who knows who might jump in at the end,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: And, you know, just a reminder that they told their
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: donors when their donors who, you know, I'm sure are great.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: We're like, hey, but what if this spoils things and
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: reelects Trump? And they said, if it gets to the
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: point where we are not seeing polling that shows our
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: candidate has any kind of chance, we are not going
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: to put a candidate on the ballot. And they're running
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: out of time.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: And they're running out of candidates.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Well, they've certainly, they've already run out of candidates, but
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: they're also running out of time to find any way
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: of doing this that wouldn't obviously from the beginning and
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: end be a spoiler.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: Guys, I'm making a Venn diagram. No labels, no vaccines. Oh, no.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: That's RFK Jr. There we go.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: RFK.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Well, they need a unity ticket, too.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, who knows what they need.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Marianne Williams and baby Travis Kelsey.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: On RFK Jr., just update there. There have been some
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: rumors that he is trying to possibly get on the
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Libertarian ticket and be the Libertarian ticket nominee. The Libertarian
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Party is on the ballot in all 50 states. So
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: that would be quite troubling. He's speaking at the Libertarian
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Convention out here in California at the end of the month.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: That's the time.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: But apparently there is a, I went deep on this,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: apparently there's a radical faction within the Libertarian Party that
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: controls actually most of the delegates at the convention. That's
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: how they pick their nominee. And they have decided that
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: RFK Jr. is not libertarian enough for them. He's just
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: using the ticket to try to run, which he would be.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: This is the faction that's upset that a Gary Johnson
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was on the ticket, even though Gary Johnson got more
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: votes than any other Libertarian candidate. This faction is pissed
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: because they're like, he's not a real Libertarian, so they
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: want to go pure.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: John, you might find this hard to believe, but a
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: radical Libertarian doesn't necessarily have the most cogent theory of change.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well. Who do they want? Like a Ron Paul type?
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Just some no-name. There's a bunch of candidates already running
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: that you wouldn't know any of their names. No one
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: knows any of their names.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: But they don't like RFK's efforts to own the libs?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Basically, yeah.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: That's good.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Thanks.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: That's good.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: So now, so far, RFK Jr. is only on the
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: ballot in Utah. And I think they have some money troubles,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: not just in the campaign, but in the Super PAC. So,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: you know. Did you see the story?
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. RFK Jr. got like a nearly $ 10 million contribution
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: to this Super PAC from this guy, Gavin DeBecker, who
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: is this sort of security consultant that lives in Silicon Valley,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: works for people like Jeff Bezos. Remember when Bezos was
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: in that big fight with the Inquirer over his divorce
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: and all these things. Like, he hired this guy to help, like, Well,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: to suss.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Out, because there's some data leak.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what they thought. So, and they were, like,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: blaming the Saudis for a while. It was weird. Anyway,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: this guy, Gavin DeBecker, he donated, like, nine point something
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: million dollars.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: He donated ten and they returned it all. Nine point
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: six or so back.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: He got it all back.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: It was basically just a bridge loan. Like, he loaned
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: nearly ten million dollars to the Super PAC and got
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: it all back. It's the weirdest thing.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: And really, right, well, so it's sort of, first of all,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: It was also, was it used to signal to other
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: people that the organization was well-funded? Like, what is the
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: purpose of that?
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: It's not clear. I think that's what a lot of
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: people think was that, you know, there were a bunch
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: of headlines who were like, oh my God, RFK Jr.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: got $ 10 million to his super PAC. He's like a
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: real candidate now. And the guy took it all back.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: And is that, but my question also is like, look,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: we're not lawyers here, but you get $ 10 million that
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: you know you're returning to tell a bunch of donors
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: how well-funded you are. Then you try to get other
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: money to put behind that money, then give that money back.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Doesn't sound like not a crime.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: Seems a little shady.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: So RFK Jr. is not exactly doing well this week.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: A lot of good news for democracy on the third
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: party front this week. I would say that we still
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: have to be pretty vigilant and worried about it. But
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: between the mansion thing, the no label stuff, the RFK stuff,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I think we're in a better position than we were
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: on the third party stuff.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Take good news. Take any good news.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Well, then on that note, when we come back, You'll
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: hear my interview with Elizabeth Warren. Joining us now is
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Massachusetts Senator and longtime friend of the pod, Elizabeth Warren.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Senator Warren, welcome back.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's good to be at the pod.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: It's good to have you here in studio. So four
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: years ago, you were running for president in a race
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: that ended up being Biden versus Trump.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Four years later, we are somehow headed for a rematch.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: Deja vu.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: In February of 20, the polling average had Biden beating
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Trump by about five points, which was pretty close to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the final margin. Right now, the average has Trump leading
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: by one. We got a criminal defendant who tried to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: overturn the last election versus a president who has presided
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: over a pretty strong economic recovery. What's going on?
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling about things right now?
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: If you're going to ask me to explain polling, you
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: got the wrong guest in here. But I will say, look,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: I actually feel pretty good about what's coming up. And
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: the reason I do is the contrast is so clear.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: Think about this. This is like the first time in
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: almost forever, in our lifetime certainly, that two people are
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: running for president, both of whom have actually been president. Mm-hmm.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: And so you can really get a not what are
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: your highfalutin fancy promises. It's really what have you done.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: And here's where we go. Donald Trump has done, count them,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: two things. Big ones, big ones. An extremist Supreme Court
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: that overturned Roe versus Wade and a giant tax break
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: that was mostly sucked up by millionaires, billionaires and giant corporations.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: So there's his record ready to go. OK, that's in
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: one corner. In the other corner, you've got Joe Biden.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: And what's Joe Biden got to show for his time
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: in office? Well, he's got $ 35 insulin and Medicare drug
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: price negotiations for the first time. He's got canceling a
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: lot of student loan debt. He's got, oh, getting rid
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: of junk fees. He's got the biggest climate package in
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: the history of the world and is paid for by
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: the my 15% tax on billionaire corporations. So to me, like,
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: there it is. It's not like there's a bunch of
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: mush and not a nickel's worth of difference. Man, the
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: difference is huge. The contrast is huge. And I think
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: that's what this election is going to come down to.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: It's going to be that contrast.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that people, all these polls show
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: like a lot of voters look back on the Trump
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: years and they think, They didn't like a lot about it,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: but they think the economy was good in the Trump years.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And I know that like we weren't, well, at the end, clearly.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And then at the end when COVID happened and, you know,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: they figure, oh, well, COVID happened all around the world.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And so, of course, the economy went south. But, you know,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: before that, Donald Trump was, he was presiding over an
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: okay economy.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: You know, again, I don't know. I can't explain polling.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, I can't.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: I can't. And I can't explain how the narrative's come
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: to be. I also can't explain how sensitive are they.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: I'm going to now sound like the professor I used
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: to be. How sensitive are they to the exact questions
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: that get asked? Because you do get real differences in this.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: All I can do is do the look ahead. And
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: the look ahead is going to be draw this contrast.
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: We know what kind of a president Donald Trump was.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: And let us be clear. He has said if he
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: gets a chance, he will be a different president. Next
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: time around, he will be dictator on day one, not
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: just wait until the insurrection on January 6th after four years.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: He will be a dictator on day one. And we
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: know that there's this group putting together what's called Project 2025,
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: millions of dollars to figure out how to weaponize government
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: against political enemies, how to make government independent. not work. Like,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: in effect, how to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency,
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: how to take the legs out from underneath the Consumer
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Financial Protection Bureau. The stuff, the kind of parts of
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: government that are not sexy, they're not, you know, they
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: don't get headlines most of the time when they're doing
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: their job. But damn, they're about being able to breathe
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: the air and drink the water. They're about not getting
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: cheated every time you walk into a bank or you
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: pull out your credit card. So Trump has aspirations that
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: he's making pretty clear and pretty damn scary. And the
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: thing is, Biden has aspirations too. And I give him
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: a lot of credit. I like his aspirations.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Well, that brings up, I think one of the big
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: challenges on a re-election campaign, we faced this in 2012
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: when I was with Obama, is you have this great
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: frustration that people, that your accomplishments haven't broken through. And
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a successful re-election campaign is about telling a story of
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: where we were and then where we're going. What do
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you think about where we're going in terms of a
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: story and not just like a set of policies?
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: So I want to be careful here because I know
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: when I'm talking to you about this, I'm talking to
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: the master. You know a lot more about telling a
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: political story than I do, but here's how I see it.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: If I can, I would reframe slightly. I think of
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: the story of Joe Biden is who does he fight for?
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: And sometimes he wins those fights, sometimes he loses those fights,
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: but this is the motivating, this is how to understand
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: who this human being is. And I'll give you the
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: best example, and that is student loan debt. So, okay,
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: so four years ago, we're running for president. He says, yeah,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: he'd do something on student loan debt, not as much
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: as I wanted, but he said he was gonna do something.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: He gets elected and he kind of looks around, well,
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: tries to figure it out. And finally, after this important,
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: he listens, talks to a lot of people, talks to
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: a lot of union folks, talks to a lot of
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: people who are getting crushed by student loan debt, talks
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: to a lot of leaders, leaders of the NAACP, says
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: it's a big issue because African-Americans borrow more money to
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: go to school, borrow more money while they're in school,
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: have a harder time paying it off when they get out.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: So he talks to a lot of people. He says, OK,
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: I'm ready. I'm going big. I'm going to cancel a
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: big chunk of student loan debt for about 43 million Americans.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Shazam. Right?
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: Then the Republicans say, we're not going to let you
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: do that. Well, the law pretty clearly says he can.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: But the Supreme Court knocks him back and says, no,
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: we can't. They read the word waive as not meaning
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: you could actually cancel some debt. I mean, like, really? But, okay,
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: that's what happens. Now, you know what a lot of
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: politicians would do at that point? They would say, I tried, done. Okay,
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: didn't work. Let's not advertise it because it didn't win.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: Let's just back away as quietly as we can and
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: hope everybody forgets. Not Joe Biden. Literally, the afternoon that
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court opinion had come out in the morning,
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: he said, so what else could we do? How else
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: can we cancel debt? Because he had become convinced people
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: needed help. So the question was, How can we get
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: help to them? And now I'm going to tell you
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: one of the many stories around this. So back in 2005,
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: George W. Bush is president, and a bipartisan Congress passes
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: something called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. You could
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: have taken advantage of this when you were in public service.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: So it's anybody who works for the government. It's about
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: public school teachers. It's about nurses and firefighters. And basically
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: what this law says is that Pay on your student
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: loan debt, whatever is due, and after so long a
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: period of time, so many years, if you haven't paid
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: it off, we're just going to cancel what's left. It's
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: our way of saying thank you for getting an education
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: and working in public service. I love this, right? Up
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: until the day that Joe Biden was sworn in as president,
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: you know how many people had gotten student loan debt
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: canceled under that program? How many? 7,000. Joe Biden has
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: been president now for three years, right? You know how
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: many people have gotten student loan debt under that program
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: canceled over the last three years? How many? Right around 800,000. Wow.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: And I say right around because every single day, it's
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: another group of people hit the right marks and get
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: their student loan debt canceled. And I use that as
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: just one example of that's what the guy is doing.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: He's picking up here. He's picking up there. Whatever tools
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: he's got, sharpening, he's building some new tools through his
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: Department of Education. We are now at about just a
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: little shy of 4 million people have had their student
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: loan debt canceled. And Joe Biden is just staying after it.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: So you started out by asking the question, where's he been?
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: Where's he going? And I was saying, this is how
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: I think of Joe Biden. He's committed to trying to
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: help working families. And when he gets focused and he
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: finds the families who needs help, he's going to stay
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: after it until he gets the job done. And that's
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: what he's doing right now on student loans and a
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: whole bunch of other stuff.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: He's got the State of the Union coming up. It's
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: his chance to sort of lay out a potential agenda
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: for a second term. What do you want to hear
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: from him in the State of the Union?
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Well, I want him to take credit for all the
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: things he's done. It's a good night. You know this.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: You've written that speech, right? It's a good night to
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: be able to talk about that. Look, I want him
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: to talk about the things with real ambition that our
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: country needs to do. Can I put in a big
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: pitch here? Universal child care. When you line up the
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: world's richest nations, you know where we are and how
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: much we spend per child on helping take care of
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: our little children. We are number 33. I mean, when's
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: the last time you heard a cheer? A big bunch
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: of people say, we're number 33, right? This is an
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: embarrassment that most all the nations of the world spend
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: more on their children. And why do they do that? Well,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: first of all, if you want mamas and daddies to
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: be able to go to work, do I need to
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: say this to the parents of two young children?
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I always supported childcare as a good Democrat. Now that
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I'm a parent of two young children, I'm like, oh
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: my God.
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: Exactly. And that is exactly the right way to look
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: at this.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Oh my God.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: If we want parents to be able to go into
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: the workforce, then we need to provide childcare. But I'll
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: give you a second reason. And that is if we
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: want children to to have good learning experiences. We've come
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: to understand that childcare is also early childhood education. In fact,
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: what the data show is that parents who can afford it,
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: even if they have a stay-at-home parent, will put children
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: in some kind of group setting for starting very, very young. Why?
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Because good for brain development, all those colors and sounds
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: and noises and pictures and all the things that are
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: going on. So that's the second reason, but there is
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: a third reason. And that is we have taken advantage
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: of our childcare workforce for too damn long. Mostly, these
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: are women, mostly, These are black and brown women who
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: do this work, and they are paid nowhere near a
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: living wage and nowhere, nowhere near the kind of responsibilities
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: that they take on. So it is time as a
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: nation for us to say that just in the same
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: way that we invest in highways so that people can
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: get to work, And in the same ways that we
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: invest in electricity and clean water so that all those
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: businesses can run, we need employees to be able to
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: get to work. And that means we need to invest
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: in child care all across this country, available for every parent, available, affordable,
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: high quality. And I'm in and I want to hear
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: the president talk about it. Are you listening, Joe Biden?
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I know he's a fan.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know he is.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Congress, which seems like it must be
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a hell of a good time right now.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, you bet.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Party on. You know, it's I'm telling you.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: So Trump, Johnson, some Senate Republicans killed the bipartisan border
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: national security deal. I believe you were one of five
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Senate Democrats who also voted against that bill. What was
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: your thinking there on that?
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: So look, the Republicans had already killed it. And they
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: had said there will be no border deal. But I
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: just want to put in my stick here that I
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: don't want that border bill to be the basis for
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: the next round of negotiation. We need more security and
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: more resources at the border. We also need a path
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: to citizenship. And I just want to keep shoving both
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: of those on the table at the same time.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: So you then supported a bill that's out there now
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: that's just waiting for a vote in the House that's
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: only foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, humanitarian aid for
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Ukrainians and Palestinians. Mike Johnson won't give that a vote either.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Is there a plan? What's the next plan? What's the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: strategy to get that done?
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: So, 218. A discharge petition. Let's get really wonky because
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: I love your audience because we really can. These are
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: people who say, yeah, 218 maybe.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: 218.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: If we can get 218 votes in favor of this bill,
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: you can do a discharge petition in the House. And
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: it doesn't matter that Mike Johnson won't put it on
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: the floor. We can go ahead and pass it. And
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: I think Joe Biden will sign it into law.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: That takes a while, right? The discharge petition?
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: It's like a cumbersome, long process.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: Yes. Is it a pain? Would it be better if
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: Johnson will put it on the floor? And look, if
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: he's getting, you know, you sign your name literally on
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: a petition. He may start counting those. He may be
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: struggling to learn how to count votes.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, seems like it.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: But he may look at a lot of names on
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: that petition and say that he's ready to go.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Three other Senate Democrats voted against the foreign aid bill.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders said, I'll be damned if I'm going to
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: give another nickel to the Netanyahu government. You've called for
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: ceasefire in Gaza. You've been very critical of Netanyahu's military
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: operation there. What made you feel comfortable voting for that?
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: Comfortable over states. But this is a hard time. So
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: let me back it up just a tiny little bit
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: as we think about this moment. So There's a terrorist
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: attack on Israel. About 1,200 people are killed. Hostages are taken.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: There are still more than 100 hostages held in Gaza.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: And the Netanyahu government and his right-wing cronies on that
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: government have killed probably best estimate is nearly 30,000 people,
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: the majority of whom women, children, civilians. And so this
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: has got to stop. This has got to stop. This
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: is a moral issue. It's also an issue of how
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: to build a future for the people of the region.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: So the way I think about this is that I
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: had started a long time talking about conditioning aid to Israel.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: When I say a long time, I mean years ago.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: And also working on questions about– protection of civilians in
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: war zones. It was not focused on Gaza and Israel.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: It was focused in other parts of the world. But
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: I worked with Senator Van Hollen and others to put
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: together an amendment that said any money that goes out
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: is going to have conditions put on it. And we
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: built up enough Democrats. This is kind of the nuts
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: and bolts of how you get things done. We got
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: altogether a couple of dozen Democrats, not as many as
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: I'd like, but it's a whole lot more than three
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: of us, Democrats to say, I'm willing to co-sponsor, I
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: will definitely vote for conditioning aid. The White House saw that.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: We engaged in some negotiations. And last Thursday, President Biden
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: put in writing that aid to all nations that use
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: military assistance from the United States would be conditioned on
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: two things. One is care for civilian life in the
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: middle of conflict. And the other is not blocking access
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: to humanitarian relief. And then he followed that up also
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: in writing with saying that any place that is engaged
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: in a conflict within every 90 days, that nation must
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: certify that it meets both of those conditions and that
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: if it fails to report at all or fails to
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: certify in a way that our Secretary of State certifies
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: is credible, that nation can lose aid. This is a
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: big deal. It's a big deal because while America's talked
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: about for a long time that we condition aid, some
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: people use that language I have for a long time,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: condition it on countries that are working consistent with our values.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: We've never been this explicit about it and never had
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: these pinch point moments, 90 days and you gotta come
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: up with it in writing and then somebody's gotta certify
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: that what you said is right. Does that guarantee we
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: get everywhere we need to go? No, but it is
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: a significant shift in U.S. policy. Now, it only matters
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: if there's real oversight. And this is something I commit to,
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: and there are others I know for certain in the
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: Senate that are committed to this, to making certain that
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: we follow through on these conditions to make sure they
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: are met. And so with the aid to Ukraine, which
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: I think is just critically important. I felt like that
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: this was moving our government in the right direction, and
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: that's what I wanted to do.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: So, obviously, President Biden, beyond aid, President Biden has been
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: reportedly criticizing Netanyahu in private. We've heard a little bit
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: of criticism in public the other week when he said
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: that the military response is over the top. But he
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: hasn't been more forthcoming publicly. And clearly Netanyahu is not
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: listening to any of this criticism, whether it's private or public.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Do you think the president, our president, needs to change
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: tactics here?
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: You know, I just want to underscore how truly awful
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: Prime Minister Netanyahu has been, that for a long time now,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: he has promised Israel security. And when the attacks came
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: on October 7th, he put together a right-wing cabinet that
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: has had a response that has created a humanitarian crisis
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: unlike anything we've seen in modern times. And in doing this,
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: he has pulled away from every opportunity, both my view
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: on it is to negotiate, to keep his focus on
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: getting back the hostages. I've met with hostage families. I've
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: talked with Massachusetts families who have friends and relatives who
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: are held hostage. He has moved that out of the
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: spotlight and engaged in bombing in civilian areas, bombing that
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: would kill tens of thousands over time, tens of thousands
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: of civilians, women and children. But the biggest problem now
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: is that the way out of this, the way forward,
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: is something he has already rejected. How do we have,
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: how do they have a Middle East government that's peaceful?
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: The answer is two states, two states for two people,
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: where people can live with dignity and security, self-determination. And
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: this is something the United States has supported since the 1940s.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: It's something Joe Biden has reiterated just in recent days.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: And Netanyahu has said flatly no. And I think the
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: real issue worth focusing on is whose interest is Netanyahu serving?
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: I understand that if he's not prime minister, he's subject
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: to personal legal problems, and that the Israeli people, good people,
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: and Palestinian people, good people, deserve a national leader who
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: wants to help build bridges for peace for all of them.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: And if Benjamin Netanyahu is not there, then the Israeli
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: people deserve a better leader.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: And what about President Biden?
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: President Biden will find his own way to press that,
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: but I know that he strongly believes in a two-state
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: solution and is committed to to finding that path and
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: finding it as quickly as humanly possible.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Would you like him to push a little harder on
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu publicly?
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Look, I will push on Benjamin Netanyahu as much as
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: I can. And I think we all should. This was
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: part of the conversation we had about Conditioning A. Benjamin
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: Netanyahu does not get a blank check. And the American
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: people are not going to stand by while he bombs
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: more Palestinian civilians, more Palestinian babies. We will not. And
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: the sooner Netanyahu understands that, the sooner we can start
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: building toward safety and security and self-determination and respect and
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: dignity for both Israelis and for Palestinians.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: You have a bill to crack down on people who
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: use crypto to launder money.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Hamas has raised over $ 130 million in crypto to fund
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: their operation. How's that going? What are the chances that passes?
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: So let me just remind everybody how this one works.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: So think about it this way. Everybody knows a little
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: about what crypto is now works. There are kind of
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: two areas where you could have problems. One is you
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: can have problems because the crypto exchanges don't have enough
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: cash to back it up. And, you know, you get
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: cheated in a rug pull or a pump and dump,
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: you know, the things that happened on Wall Street 100
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: years ago. That's what the regulators take care of. That's
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: the SEC, the CFTC. Over on the law enforcement side, though,
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: there's something else, and that is money laundering, it's called,
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: using crypto as a way to pay for bad stuff.
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: So China, for example, there are about 90 companies in
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: China that export Fentanyl precursor drugs to Mexico to be
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: mixed into fentanyl. How do they get paid?
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Crypto.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: Rogue Nations, North Korea right now, about half of its
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: missile program, it's paying for using illicit crypto. Hamas gets
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: part of its funding through crypto. So does Hezbollah. Iran
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: and Russia are using crypto to evade sanctions. Oh, here's
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: one for you. You know ransomware. You know what that is.
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: Do you know what portion of ransomware is paid for
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: through crypto?
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Most of it?
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: 100%.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah. The business model doesn't work without crypto. So here's
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: the deal. We have a set of what are called
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: money laundering rules. It's the Bank Secrecy Act. And it's
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: just a set of rules about how we try to
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: keep criminal money out of the banking system, make it hard.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: for them to be able to use their ill-gotten gains
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: to buy things. So we have those laws applied, same laws,
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: to banks, to credit unions, to credit card companies, to
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: gold traders, to stockbrokers, to precious metal dealers, to Venmo,
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: to Western Union, right? Name me another, name me another. PayPal,
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: but not to crypto. So there are all these gaps
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: in the system when it comes to crypto. And the
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: consequence of that is that crypto has become the place
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: to go for the drug traffickers, the human traffickers, the
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: rogue nations, the terrorists. And what I want to do
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: is just go back. This is a law enforcement issue
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: and a national security issue. And say, let's just stitch
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: up those holes so the same rules that apply to
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: your checking account also apply to crypto. And by the way,
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: bipartisan bill, Democrats and Republicans, and we've got 20 senators
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: on it right now.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: That is pretty good.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: We've run into the House roadblock again.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Well, it's not just the House roadblock. There are some
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: crypto folks. who have giant buckets of money to spend.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: And so they hire this lobbying army to go out.
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: And here's the thing. There's no money on the not-drug-trafficker side.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: There's not like this big lobby for not-rogue nations.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Anti-money laundering.
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: Yes, the anti... There's just nothing. There's no big... political
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: action committee on this and an army of lobbyists and lawyers.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: And what I watch here, John, reminds me, do you
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: remember back in the run-up to 2008 and when the
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: banks crashed, ultimately crashed our economy? They always kept saying
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: two things. They said two things over and over and over.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: They said, well, I would explain to you these subprime
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: mortgages and these derivatives and But it's just too complicated,
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: too hard for you to understand, right? It's too complex.
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: And then they would say, and it's too complex to regulate.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: You can't regulate, right? You got to leave us.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: What you're hearing with crypto now.
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: And that's what you hear with crypto now. You know,
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: that anyone who thinks maybe they ought to have to
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: follow the same rules as every other money system, they say, no,
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: it's too complicated. You clearly don't understand it. And it's
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: too complicated to regulate. And you know what? Not so.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Well, your push to regulate it has seemingly attracted a
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: potential challenger to you in your Senate race. I hear
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: that there's a Republican crypto enthusiast who might jump in
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the race. That could mean a flood of money from
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: crypto super PACs, like the one attacking Katie Porter here
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: in the California Senate race. Thoughts?
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: Well, let me start actually with Katie. Yeah. You know,
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: because she gave me a chance to do this. I'm
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: not at all surprised that corporate money comes after Katie.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: It may be of one flavor or another. But look
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: at what Katie has done. Here she is. She came in.
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: She turned a red seat to blue. Right. In Orange County.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: And then she went to the House of Representatives and
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: she did her job. She held people accountable. I love it.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: For anyone who doesn't remember, just just Google Katie Porter,
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: Jamie Dimon. when she fried his little fanny after he
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: had made some remark in the press a few days
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: before the hearing about how, well, people just need to
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: budget better. And she took him through budgeting for a
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: JPMorgan Chase employee. And, you know, that's Katie. Katie got
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: free testing kits during COVID. You know, she just puts
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: people on the spot. She is so good at what
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: she does. And that's a part of, here's the deal, John.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: It's what we see forever. And that is the corporate
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: money gets together and says, we're taking out that one.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: We're taking out that one. And we're going to support
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: the people, the corporatists. We're going to support the people
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: who are going to get in there and fall into line.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: And yeah, they may say they are you know, all
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: for the people, but we know they're really going to
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: watch out for us. It was true 12 years ago
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: right now. When I got in my Senate race, you know,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: here I was, somebody who'd never been in politics. I
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: got in that Senate race, and I still remember one
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: of the things I read was that my opponent, there
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: was a statement that Wall Street had said They would
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: open their checkbooks and spend any amount of money needed
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: to make sure that that woman, that's me, never made
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: it to the United States Senate. But here's the thing, John.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: That was 12 years ago. Yeah, it still happens. They
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: still spend obscene amounts of money. But the world has changed.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: We fight back. We do small dollar donations. Katie and
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: I both. We don't take corporate PAC money. We don't
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: do any of that sort of thing. But you can
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: build enough to fight back. And I love it.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I want to end with an issue that you've been
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: working on lately.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: Weed.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: You and other Democratic senators recently asked the Biden administration
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act entirely, which
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: would decriminalize it on a federal level.
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Have you heard back from DOJ or DEA or had
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: any conversations with the administration about this?
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: Okay. So administration, I won't talk about private conversations. But DEA.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: There was a wink for those of you listening into.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: The audio for me.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: DEA, we're pushing on them now. I want them to
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: de-schedule marijuana altogether. And look, just for anybody, since we're
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: talking to our wonky friends out there, look, if the
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: Republicans didn't block us, we'd run this through Congress. And
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: you just legalize it. Hello? But the Republicans block us
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: on this. Right now, marijuana is a Schedule I drug,
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: which means it's scheduled right up there with heroin and cocaine.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: That means it has already been proven. This is what's
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: supposed to be the case before it gets Schedule I.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: that it has no medicinal value, no help to anyone
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: under any circumstances, and you can't run tests on it.
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: You can't see how it works and does it work
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: better for pain relief, for anxiety, for PTSD. If we
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: just de-schedule it, look, there still could be regulations around
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: it like there is around alcohol. You've got to be
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: a certain age. You've got to have certain disclosures about
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: the potency and so on. I'm all for that. But
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: I really want to say to the DEA Guys, come on.
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: It is not 1958. And we don't need to be
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: terrified of this stuff. Let's just deschedulize it and go forward.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: And you think that the administration or the DEA has
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the power to do that without an act of Congress?
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, they do.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: They clearly have the power. They are the ones who
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: are responsible for scheduling. And it's just, it's the classic.
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: We're doing this all the time now. in places where
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: the Republicans are blocking us in Congress, then we're moving forward.
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: On the other side, we're moving forward and trying to
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: do what we can administratively.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: One last important question on this issue that comes from
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: our team here at Pod Save America.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: Okay, I'm ready.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a list of people, and
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: we'd love for you to pick four of them as
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: your dream blunt rotation. For those who aren't familiar... A
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: dream blunt rotation is a group of people you'd hypothetically
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: like to smoke weed with because they'd be really fun time. Okay.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: So all I'm really telling you, this has nothing to
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: do with weed.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: This is just who do you.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: Think is fun. These are people you'd go get pedicures with.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: This is what you're telling me. Just make sure I'm
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: following this.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: A couple edibles, pedicure, the whole thing.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm ready.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Janet Yellen, Ed Markey,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: The Rock, Oh.
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: The Rock. Oh, I'm stopping there. I'm just doing The
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: Rock four times.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Can I stop there?
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I had Nancy Pelosi, Snoop Dogg, Chuck Schumer, and Taylor Swift.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: I'm still at The Rock.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Just The Rock. You and The Rock.
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Okay.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: Four times.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: That's totally fine.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: It's the same thing.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: All right. Now, unfortunately, you have to pick your nightmare
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: blunt rotation.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: Nightmare.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: So, of course, this is the worst group of people imaginable.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: Okay. Nightmare for sitting there while we're doing a pedicure.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: I'm ready. And these are just the most annoying four people.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: that you can imagine sitting there smoking weed with.
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: Okay, I'm ready.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk, Ted Cruz, Jerome Powell, Mike Bloomberg, Mitch McConnell,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, Marianne Williamson, Peter Thiel, and Jamie Dimon.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: I'm starting to feel a little sick. That is really
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: awful to contemplate.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: You really know how to show a girl.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: A good time. I tried to put together a list
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: just for you on that.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks a lot. No, no.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: I had done it at the first one. I'm done.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to go back to The Rock.
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren, thank you so much, as always, for joining,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: for being wonky, for being fun. We appreciate it.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's so much fun to be here with you.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Take care.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 54:54
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• 54:56
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• 55:00
  Speaker 1: slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to
• 55:03
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• 55:06
  Speaker 1: YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: Wakeem is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: David Tolles, Kirill Pelleviv, and Molly Lobel.