Latest / Pod Save America / War in the Group Chat

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War in the Group Chat · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 1: slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Leavitt.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we're going to talk
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: about one of the most insane stories of the year,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: which is saying quite a lot. The highest-ranking Trump officials
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: used a group chat to make war plans and accidentally
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: included the Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg. Hilarity ensues.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: It's the funniest person you could possibly include on that
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: group chat, too.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: It's perfect. Unless it was a Houthi. That would have
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: been pretty bad, too. Yeah.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: I wonder if Mike Waltz has any Houthis in his contacts.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: We'll also cover the ongoing, enraging legal drama over Trump's
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: new policy of declaring people terrorists and sending them to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a foreign gulag without due process. We'll talk about the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: disturbing trend of legal and academic institutions capitulating to the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Trump regime. And then later in the show, you'll hear
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: my conversation with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a potential 2028 contender,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: about how Democrats can win in red states and fix
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the party. But first, the three of us briefly escaped
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: our liberal LA bubbles this weekend. Lovett, you went the farthest.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: You bet. You went to Wisconsin to campaign for Judge
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Susan Crawford, who's running to keep the liberal majority on
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: the state Supreme Court against an Elon Musk-funded opponent. You
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: saw our pal Ben Wickler. How was it?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: So we had a great time out there. There's really
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: like tons and tons of people came out on a
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Saturday and Sunday. We did six kickoffs, a couple hundred
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: people over the course of the weekend knocking on doors.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: It was good to be out there. I know that
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of people feel a little bit discouraged about
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: what the value is of like getting out there and
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: doing like the phone banking and the texting and the calling.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: But being out there, it's a reminder that it is
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: valuable for you to be among like-minded people who are fighting.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: You get something from it. You learn something from it.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And knocking on doors and just talking to people, a
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: lot of it was just trying to remind people who
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: are already pretty progressive in places like Madison to turn
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: out to vote. Most of them already had, but it
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: was kind of a, it's a reminder that like so
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: much of our politics is asymmetrical, right? Like it is
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: totally normal for JD Vance to go on television and
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: insult liberals and the, and the people that live in cosmopolitan, uh,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: liberal cities, but it's so inconceivable to have that in
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: the other direction, right? Imagine Elizabeth Warren going on and said,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: we have a bunch of fucking trash idiots down there
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: and down there in Alabama.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Like it's not possible.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: So we just take a lot of hits. And there
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: were so many, there was this, this woman that really
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: stuck with me. She was an older lady and she
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: was gardening and she's like, I, I, They ran out
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: of signs for Judge Crawford, so I made my own,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: and I made some for my neighbors, and I just
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: can't believe what's happening to our country, and I'm just
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: so scared, and I'm just so sad. And we've taken
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of fucking shit, and we don't deserve it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And just being out in the world with people who
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: feel the same way was really inspiring. And a lot
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: of people are really pissed about Elon Musk dumping $ 13
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: million into the race.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I bet. Did you encounter anyone who's not supporting Susan
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Crawford because she's not burning enough Teslas?
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: So I will tell you, The number of.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: It didn't burn enough for her.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: A couple undecided people we met knocking on doors was
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: me and Nina from the Vote Save America team. And
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: one woman was like, I'm really not sure, but I'm
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: kind of on the phone. And we said, all right,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: we'll be back in 20 minutes. And so we left
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: and came back to kind of talk to her some more.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Did it sound like a threat like that?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: You'll vote correctly or you'll hear from us again. But
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: so we talked to her for a while. And it's
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: amazing how much the Tesla's being lit on fire has
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: broken through for non-partisan, non-political people. And I remember we
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: just started saying, well, we're not in favor of setting
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Teslas on fire, and Judge Crawford's not going to set
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: any Teslas on fire. We don't really have anything to
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: do with that, but here's why it's important for you
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: to vote in this race and why it's a bad
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: thing that Brad Schimel is fully funded by Elon Musk.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: So, All attention is not good attention.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. It really did make me, it did
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: just a reminder.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Even in Dane County, where Democrats get Putin margins.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I will say, though, there are very funny people on
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: the street. People just are bringing up the Teslas being
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: lit on fire. It's just like fully broken through. And
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: because we talk, like Elon Musk is dumping all this
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: money into the state. And somebody was like, and I'm
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: setting all the Teslas on fire, which is not something
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I agree with, but I'm not losing sleep over it.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: Nice.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: So Tommy and I drove up to Norco, California, or
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: out to Norco, California, I guess. Yeah, I guess east.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: East of here, to be part of a town hall
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: put on by our friend Ro Khanna, part of what
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: he's calling his Benefits Over Billionaires Tour. Ken Calvert, the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Republican congressman who represents the area, he isn't doing town halls.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: So Ro decided that he would. He went to Bakersfield,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: then he went to Norco, where we were, and then
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: he went to Anaheim. So he had three events yesterday.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: What did you think?
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Um, couple observations, people, Democrats in that district hate Ken Calvert,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: hate his guts. He's been around for decades. They can't
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: get rid of him. And they were really grateful to
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: Roe for, for coming out. I mean, we had a
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: similar experience.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: You did love it.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think Roe, Roe said the crowd we
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: saw was about a thousand people. It's definitely several hundred.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I was expecting like 50 and everyone we talked to,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: whether they're from the 41st district or not.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: They were scared. They were angry.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: They were desperate for any guidance on what to do
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: in this moment in any kind of leadership and someplace
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: to channel their energy. And I think the Democratic Party
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: needs to view these events as a huge opportunity because
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: all of us are having the same conversation about how
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: things feel worse this time. And it's scary and there's
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: no marches. There's no clear sense of activism and people
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: seem a little more resigned to what's to come. And
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: the reality is there are millions and millions of people
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: who are desperate for someone to help them channel their energies.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: And I think Roe, AOC, Bernie, people that are getting
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: out into the country and doing these town hall meetings
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: and listening are It's going to go a long way.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: And it's not just the midterms and sprinting towards 2026.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: It's that you want these Republicans in the battleground districts
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: to feel vulnerable and to see headlines of like a
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: thousand people for Ro Khanna in my district. And maybe
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't follow Elon Musk and Donald Trump down every
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: fucking path. So I thought it was great that Ro
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: did it. It was great to have been there and
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: talked to a lot of people.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: And I'm glad we went. And, you know, we talked
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to a lot of people before the event started. And
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: we were asking them, like, why'd you show up? And
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the answers were usually I just wanted to be around
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: other people because I follow the news on my phone
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and at home and it's like freaking me out and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: it's good to be around people. And the atmosphere just
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: felt good. You know, like it didn't feel as scary
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and heavy as it does when we're just sitting here
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: recording and reading the news. What did that lady keep
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: saying to us?
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Action.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Better than anxiety or something.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, actually. Yeah, exactly. And people were like, and I
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: just want to know what the plan is. I'm just
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: here because I want to know what the plan is.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, you're going to have to keep
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: waiting for that. People want to do something. I should
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: also say, thanks to a lot of the friends of
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the pod, a lot of friends of the pod showed up.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: They just heard that it was happening and then, and
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: then they went. So we love that. We'd love Ro
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Khanna for doing it like good for him. I hope
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: every Democrat in Congress goes out and does a bunch
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: of town halls, either in, in your district, in the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: nearby Republican district, anywhere you can. It is good to
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: get out and be with people.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Can I make just one note just on the Wisconsin race,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: which is a lot of this is about building long-term momentum.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: This is a really short-term fight. Voting is through April 1st,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: this coming Tuesday. So we're in the final week when
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: you're hearing this. If you know people in Wisconsin that
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: can cast a ballot, make sure if you have friends
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: in Wisconsin, call them, make sure they're calling people, you know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: one of the arguments that was, I think the most,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: I felt like the most response to in this race is,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: you know, Wisconsin has been on the like bleeding edge
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: of this fight to preserve democracy. But right now, like
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: all these Republicans that are seeing these, these, these town
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: halls in their district, they're seeing a lot of this energy.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: They just genuinely don't know in their most cynical, weaselly souls,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: whether or not it is smarter for them to stick
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: with Elon or to buck Elon vote against a bill
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: that's unpopular and and stand with their constituents. And basically,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: does Elon Musk's money in Wisconsin buy a Supreme Court seat?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: If it does, they'll say, fuck it. I can stick
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: with him and I don't have to worry about a
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: primary and he'll protect me in November. But if it doesn't,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, they'll start to have more questions.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: So like the stakes in the Wisconsin rate are incredibly
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: important in Wisconsin, but they're very, very big beyond Wisconsin.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And if you want to get involved, either by campaigning
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin or attending a town hall or a rally
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: near you, tons of helpful information on votesafeamerica.com. So check
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: it out. All right, let's get back to all the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: terrible news out there. Trump, like most authoritarians, has been
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: using the power of the state to weaken and punish
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: any potential opposition. And more of his targets are unfortunately
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: choosing to capitulate instead of fight. Last Friday, the law
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: firm Paul Weiss struck a deal with Trump to stop
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: an executive order designed to cripple the firm's ability to
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: take on clients and cases involving the federal government, even
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to telling you. So Paul Weiss struck a deal with
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Trump to stop an executive order designed to cripple the
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: firm's ability to take on clients in cases involving the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: federal government, even to step into a federal courthouse. The cost?
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Paul Weiss is committing to $ 40 million worth of pro
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: bono work across four issues favored by the Trump administration.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: In an email to colleagues on Sunday, the head of
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Paul Weiss, Brad Karp, defended the deal by calling the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: executive order an, quote, existential crisis that could easily have
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: destroyed the firm. At least two other law firms, Perkins
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Coie and Covington & Burling, are also staring down executive orders.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: But in a sign that appeasement never works, Trump then
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: released a memo Friday night directing Attorney General Pam Bondi
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to, quote,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: and vexatious litigation against the federal government. essentially trying to
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: choke off the inevitable and already numerous suits filed against
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: his legal actions. So this seems absolutely insane. What do
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: you guys make of Brad Karp's explanation for his firm's capitulation?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: It reminds me, it's oddly similar to Chuck Schumer's explanation
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: for why they're voting for the CR, which is like, yeah, no,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: we understand this. Maybe that's a good reason to fight them, right?
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: If they're using their levers of power in these sort
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: of unconstitutional, extra legal ways that maybe you should fight them.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: But I like, you know, You look at what they
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: actually agreed to do, and it's like $ 40 million in
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: pro bono. This is a firm that makes $ 2. 6 billion
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: a year. They don't actually spend that money. They assign
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: the value of the time that the lawyers spend on it.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: We should also say that it's not that the Trump
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: administration gets to pick the pro bono cases. They just said,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: in these areas, and then Paul Weiss gets to pick
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the cases. And they're like veterans, and it's not like
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: anti-Semitism work.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, stuff that they might have wanted to do. There's
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: a version of this where you read it more like
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: the way you read when Mexico or Canada came up
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: with a list of fake things to appease Trump to
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: get rid.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: The fentanyl czar.
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Like all that stuff. So like that's sort of how
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I read it. But the fact that we're still in
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: a position where a law firm just have the ability
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: to practice. I mean, this is such a fundamental violation
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: of the First Amendment and several other amendments along the way.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: But they're basically saying that we're going to make it
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: nearly impossible for you to do your job on behalf
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: of your clients, up to and including making it impossible
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: for you to enter federal buildings. If they sued, they
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: surely would have won. But what you then read is
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: that there are a bunch of litigators inside of Paul
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Weiss that want to fight this, but a bunch of
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: corporate lawyers inside of Paul Weiss that are saying, even
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: if we fight and even if we win, the corporations
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: we represent, companies like ExxonMobil, will all of a sudden
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: be afraid of having a law firm that is seen
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: as persona non grata with So they were looking for
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: some kind of piece of paper that they could sort
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: of use to kind of put this scandal behind them.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: And it's just yet again, Donald Trump inventing new authorities
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: that the president has. And then those authorities become real
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: because they're not actually challenged.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Vexatious litigation.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Fun to say.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I liked it. It's a term of art. It's a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: legal term of art.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: It means repeatedly filing frivolous, redundant lawsuits with the intention
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: of harassing the other party more than winning them.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: But fun to say.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: That was a big takeaway for me. I agree with you.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: I think Paul Weiss has $ 130 million per year.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: In pro bono support already.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: So I imagine they will just fold the $ 40 million
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: into that and call it a day. There was one
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: part that was weird where there seemed to be a
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: disagreement between the White House and what Paul Weiss thinks
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: they agree to around hiring. The White House says that
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Paul Weiss agreed to merit-based hiring and not doing anything DEI-related.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: Which is a problem because a firm like Paul White
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: should be able to hire whatever lawyers they want, including
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: people from diverse backgrounds. It's a good thing for them
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: as a practice. But there was also a piece of
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: it where White House said they agreed to retain some
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: expert in employment practices to review their hiring. Right, which
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: is super weird. Like some outside expert is going to
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: tell them how to hire. That seems bad. So, yeah,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the principle is terrible.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: But then it's also like, you know, the attention span
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: of the Donald Trump evil eye is quite short and
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: it's going to turn to something else. Is there going
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: to be somebody in the bowels of the OEOB that's
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: going to be like, now it's my day to follow
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: up with Paul Weiss to make sure they spent the
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: $ 40 million here, they spent the $ 40 million there? Maybe. Maybe,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: but I get the sense that what everybody's trying to
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: do is just get that evil eye off of them,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: and then they can go back to business as usual.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: That's what I think they're thinking.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: They're going to do. I agree with that, and I
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: think that there's a collective action problem here, which if
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: you look at Brad Karp's letter, and we just talked
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: about this, like the individual details do not seem as alarming,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: what they had to give up, right? As sort of
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the overall headline. The problem is, and I think that
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the memo Friday night, that's basically for everyone makes this clear,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: is these firms would be in a better position to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: fight this if they did so together. Each individual firm
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: is like, well, you know, if I become the target,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to lose a bunch of clients. This is
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: what Paul Weiss was saying, right? And you mentioned ExxonMobil,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: but like, you know, plenty of regular clients who weren't
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: ExxonMobil were like, no, no, I'm out of here. Because
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: any client that they had with a federal contract, the
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Trump administration would have pulled the contract if they kept
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Paul Weiss as the firm. So if you're one of
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: those clients now, you're like, well, I want to keep
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: my federal contracts. Well, I'm not going to, like, I
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: like the firm, but I'm not going to do. So
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: You can see where each individual and each individual firm
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: makes a decision that, okay, to save myself from this,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to, you know, I'm not going to give
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: up too much anyway. And this, I was going to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: do the pro bono work anyway, so it's not a
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: big deal. I'm just going to capitulate. But the problem
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: is Trump smells blood and then they're just going to
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: keep going. And like, if now the problem with what
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: happened on the Friday night memo, if someone wants to
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: sue the federal government for violating their rights or anything else,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: They're going to have a harder time finding a law
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: firm to do so if law firms are worried that
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: they will be investigated or punished for bringing a case
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: that Trump just decides he doesn't like. Is vexatious.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the first mistake was sending Brad Karp
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: to negotiate. You should have sent Paul Weiss.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Um, the second, where is Paul Weiss?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Where is Paul Weiss? The guy's in Heineck.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: But I agree with you.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, like in the first term, we all complained about, um,
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: the collective action problem among Republican elected officials and Trump
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: senior staff, right? Because they would complain to Maggie Haberman
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: on background, but never quit or like put anything on
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: the line.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Now, uh, the, the, the, the problem, the collective action.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Problem has broken containment and is in academia and with
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: CEOs and law firms and the media, and they're all
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: just preemptively caving. And like, not only did Paul Weiss
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: say they're going to lose clients, but they said that
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: other firms were trying to poach their clients, which yeah.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: That is shitty.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: That's the good stuff.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: That's the good stuff.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: That is shitty. But also I wanted to say, did
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: you expect a fight with the president to be easy?
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: We're all going to like, when you stand on principle,
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: you might lose money. You might lose status. You might
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: get harassed. You might deal with risk and hardship.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: That's the point.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: And like, there is a decent chance. that they made
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: things so much worse in the long term. Do we
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: really believe that Trump is sated? Do you think if
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Paul Weiss takes another case against him he doesn't like,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: that he'll be like, eh. We had a good meeting
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: with Brad back in the day.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Not a fucking chance.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: See, with Mark Zuckerberg, you can cut a million dollar
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: check to the inauguration. You can settle the lawsuit for
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: $ 25 million and bribe Trump that way. But do you
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: think he's going to side with you over Elon Musk
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: in the next big AI fight?
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: No way, buddy. Or like TikTok, right? Which Zuckerberg would
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: rather have banned.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: And now is our moment to establish some guardrails and
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: everyone is just caving.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Which is why I think that what we all did
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: this weekend and everyone who came out, this is why
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: that's important too. Like we... we're the only check left here, right?
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Like the institution, and especially corporate media outlets, we've talked
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: about that. These law firms, like they have, you know,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: they feel like they have responsibility to their employees, to
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: their shareholders. They are businesses. They are trying to make
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a profit. We would like them all to take on
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the hard fight and do the right thing. But for
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: some of them, they're just like, look, I'm just trying
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: to live my life and run my business here. And
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: so I think that it is incumbent upon every single
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: person in the country who was scared about this and
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: worried about what's happening to to like start organizing so
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that some of these firms and some of these corporations
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: become a little less scared of fighting because there's actually
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: a popular movement behind it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: G6 ain't going to gas itself up, buddy.
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Or, or scared of, or scared of the backlash when
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: they do the wrong thing. I will just say, like,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: I think one of the other things this exposes, right. It's,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: it is a collective action problem, but also like at these.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Firms, right.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Like the head of Paul Weiss, big, big Democrat, right.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: But whose biggest clients are, one of the biggest oil
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: companies on planet earth. There's kind of always been this
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: sort of dividing line between like how corporate lawyers make
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: their money and what these firms actually do. And then
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: there are good works, right? How they involve themselves in politics.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Some of their pro bono cases. And I just, it's,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: it's nuanced, right? Because some of the most important, uh, uh, uh,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: cases before the Supreme court have been by, uh, litigators
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: who like cut their teeth or are at these firms
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: representing clients as part of their, uh, uh, ethical pro
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: bono work that they do to, uh, pay back God
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: for what they did during the rest of their fucking
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: time so that the pearly gates they can explain. And
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: by the way, if you're a corporate lawyer who may
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: one day represent me, I'm especially grateful.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Didn't realize you were doing this for poverty wages. Get them.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Get them, Paul Weiss.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying there's... That's not the point, right?
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I think we don't read ExxonMobil ads, but they do.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: They sure do.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: You want to do.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: We could do ExxonMobil ads.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: But we say no to those things.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: We make ethical choices within a complicated and... gray system. Anyway,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: all I'm getting at is these guys are now being
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: put to the test. Of course, they're not going to.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Pass this test. That's not why they became corporate lawyers.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I just think that there's an argument just on the
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: merits for their bottom line long-term to fight now and not.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Fight later. Well, that is a good argument. Yes. Long-term,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: they think that short-term, this is good for them, and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: maybe they're right individually. But long-term, I don't think you
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: want to be in a country like this.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Well, that's, of course, the big problem, right? In the long-term,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: it is bad for the American economy to shift into
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: a kind of pay the regime a corruption fee in
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: order to do business, the better you know Trump, the
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: more likely you are to get the deal. Like that
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: has not been good for the economy of Hungary. But
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: in the short term, they think they can make some
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: money and avoid some of the fallout. And we all
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: collectively will slowly watch as opportunity and business go elsewhere
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: because it's just not worth the risk of starting here
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: when the Trump eye could come for you at any moment.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: So colleges are becoming a problem too. On Friday, Columbia
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: University ended up giving into Trump's demands in order to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: regain $ 400 million in federal funding. This includes adopting a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: definition of anti-Semitism that satisfies the administration, hiring 36 new
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: special officers that can remove people from campus or arrest them,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: banning the use of face masks during protests, and appointing
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: a new senior vice provost to oversee the Middle Eastern,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: South Asian, and African Studies Department. It's worth noting that
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: in its March 13th letter to the school, the administration
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: called its demands a, quote, precondition for formal negotiations to
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: maintain a, quote, financial relationship with the United States government.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: They're fucking easier on Putin. It's like... So we'll see
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: what comes next for Colombia. Meanwhile, Trump is still threatening
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the state of Maine. You might remember that back in February,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Trump called out Maine Governor Janet Mills for failing to
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: comply with his executive order banning trans athletes from women's
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: sports teams. Mills piped up that she would comply with
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: state and federal law, and then Trump said, she'd better
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: fall in line or, quote, you're not going to get
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: any federal funding. Mills replied, see you in court. In response,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration has launched multiple investigations into the University
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: of Maine system, one of which led to the Department
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: of Agriculture temporarily blocking millions of dollars of federal funding
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: for Maine's farmers and foresters. Then on Saturday, Trump claimed
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: on Truth Social that while the state has apologized, he
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: is now demanding, quote, a full-throated apology from the governor
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: herself and a statement that she will never make such
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: an unlawful challenge to the federal government again before this
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: case can be settled. Mills told reporters on Monday, I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: don't communicate with public officials by tweet or Instagram or
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: social media and said the EO was unconstitutional and the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: fight isn't about transgender sports before hitting Trump for not
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: having an economic plan beyond tariffs. What do you guys
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: make of the college, the college stuff?
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, my big takeaway was the point you made
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: about Trump calling it a precondition for formal negotiations. That
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: is the strategic approach we took to negotiating with the
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Taliban or the North Koreans or the Iranians.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: You have to meet certain thresholds to earn negotiations. To
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: get to the table. Columbia University. What are we doing here?
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, the anti-Semitism definition, I'm not entirely sure what
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: anti-Semitism definition is going to pass muster with the White House.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: I assume one that is pretty expansive. And as we've
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: discussed before, that is a problem. He's a lot of
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: those definitions of anti-Semitism, like the IHRA definition includes a
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: completely legitimate criticism of the Israeli government or Israeli government
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: policy or suggests that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are the same thing,
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: which they are not. It can have a hugely chilling
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: effect on free speech.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sure the anti-Semitism definition also specifically excludes any anti-Semitism
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that comes from the Trump regime.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Right wingers.
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And then, but like also just big picture, it is,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: what are we talking about?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: This is so heavy handed.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Like the White House is dictating whether student protesters at
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Columbia University are allowed.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: To wear masks. What? So, yeah. I mean, just like
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: stepping back.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Like this is as brazen and unconstitutional step that Donald
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Trump has taken since he became president. Look, the federal
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: government is a behemoth. It sends money to all kinds
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: of institutions, hospitals, colleges, universities. private companies, for contracts. The
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: money goes to a lot of different places. It is
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: a bedrock principle that when the federal government writes you
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a check, that cannot become a cudgel by which they
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: can control your speech. Now, if the money is for
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: something in specific, they have a lot of say as
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: to how that money is spent. Even then, even then,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: there are restrictions on how the federal money can be
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: used to demand certain speech, right? There's just a lot
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: of examples. Supreme Court, left, right, center, well-founded. What is,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: of course, unconstitutional is that because we are giving you
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: money for research over here, that gives us basically a
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: board seat at Columbia to have protest policies. We're inserting our...
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: This is the president of the United States making an
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: administrative decision about how to run a specific department at
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: a private university in New York City. That is... Beyond
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: the pale, it is obviously something Columbia should have fought.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: The Paul Weiss thing, I'd expect, I guess, not very
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: much from a corporate law firm on this front. And
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I actually can see the argument for why they did
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: what they did, even if I think it's wrong.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: This is ridiculous.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Columbia should be fucking ashamed of themselves. They had such
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: an ironclad case about how much of a violation of
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: the First Amendment this is. And the fact that they
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: chose to capitulate is such a disgrace, especially when they
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: are sitting on a 13 point some odd billion endowment.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: When this 400 million, it's a lot of money, but
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: it's less than the amount they receive from just in
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: gifts that go towards paying for school. It's less certainly
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: than the interest that they get on that endowment.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: And the broader context being that Mahmoud Khalil, this Columbia
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: student who was swept up by ice and disappeared to Louisiana.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's this unprecedented attack on one of their
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: own students. And I understand that that could create fear,
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: but it seems like it could also be a time
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: to fight for the kids who are enrolled in your institution.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I saw somewhere, someone made the case like Columbia just
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: did what the university wanted to do anyway on some
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of this stuff post protests and just felt like, okay,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: then it's a, you know, they can do that and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: they can do it under the cover of Trump doing this.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: And I also think that to your point about the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: federal funding, it's $ 400 million now, a quarter of all
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: of their like, annual operating budget is federal funding. And
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: so they could, Trump could have come after more, right?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: It's basically- And they threatened to do that.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And I only say this because, like, I think it
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: was a huge mistake that they did this. But to me,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: it is similar to the Paul Weiss thing in that
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: in the context of Columbia University deciding what is good
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: for Columbia, right? Which is if we lose $ 400 million
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: in federal funding and then we lose even more and
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: more and more, like, It is a death blow to
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the university, right? We're going to have to lay off professors,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: raise tuition, all this kind of shit. And yet they
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: had such a good case, like you said, that like
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: if Columbia reached out to Penn, which lost $ 175 million
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: because of, you know, a trans swimmer who graduated three
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: years ago from Penn. if they had all stood together,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: every college in the country, and was like, hey, fuck you.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: We're not going to take direction from the Trump administration.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: That's more powerful than each one individually thinking that you're
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: going to save yourself because they're going to come back
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: for more in Columbia too.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I think Levin made an important point, which is like,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: I think UPenn has like a $ 22 billion endowment. So
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: you could fill some of these gaps in the short
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: term and you could probably pay the legal fees to
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: fight here.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: This is where too, it's like, this is the culmination
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: of like, the right has been fighting the liberal universities
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: for half a century, more, more. Never in their wildest
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: dreams could they have ever imagined it would be this easy,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: that just by threatening funding in an unconstitutional way, all
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, all of these schools will capitulate. And
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry to harp on it, but it's like, because
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: these are the schools that are being basically victimized by
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration. But Donald Trump takes advantage of of
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of weaknesses, right? He's taking advantage of the
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: fact that people aren't going to respond as strongly as
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: they should. They're not going to band together. The firms aren't,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the schools aren't, but he takes advantage of something else,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: which is like, he is able to see the place
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: where these liberal institutions haven't really lived up to their
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: liberal values all the time.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: And that like that, that they haven't had their assumptions
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: really tested. Like this, like Columbia is many things. It
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: is a giant institution. It does a ton of amazing work.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Research.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: It has a lot of academic excellence. It also has
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: master's programs that are basically scams that saddle people with.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: It is like it is. It's just like it's a
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: bunch of different things, some of which is really good,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: some of which is, I think, pretty fucking shitty. And
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: because the the the left right debate has been basically
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: the right attacking the ideology of these schools, while the
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: left is basically trying to play defense and has been
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: for a very long time. We just haven't talked enough
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: about like, what is the purpose of higher education? Why
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: are these institutions getting so much money? Why are so
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: many people going into debt? getting degrees from this place,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: not just undergraduate, but like masters in journalism or masters
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: in social work and never, ever being able to earn enough, right?
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Like why do the schools not reform that? Why do
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: they not address these things? And then you see like,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: because these places have not really been living up to
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: their liberal values on the whole, these moments happen, they
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: are tested and they're just completely caught off guard because
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: they're not passionate. They're not, they have no great ideological defense.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: They don't know why they do have the shit they
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: fucking do. And like Donald Trump takes advantage of that
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: weakness and Like, we collectively need to, like, reassert what
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: we believe are these basic values. And some of it
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: is by not just fighting against the right, but fighting
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: to make sure these institutions actually live up to what
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: they claim to profess to believe in.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: What's to stop the Trump administration from, you know, next
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: year or even a couple months from now being like,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: you know, we looked at all the social media of
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: all the professors at the different Ivy League colleges or
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: other institutions.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: Nothing. Nothing.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: We think that there's too many liberal professors, and unless
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: there's this balance, you're going to take more federal funding, right?
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: So now it's the protests, but it could be, they
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: could do this for anything. It is that we are
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: setting precedents now that are going to come back and
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: bite everyone in the ass later.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: And then it's like, where are the wealthy Columbia graduates, alums, right?
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Coming out and saying, I'm not giving Columbia one more
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: dime unless they fight this, right?
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And this is to your point that he, The administration
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: sort of picking their battles.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: They know a lot of the wealthier donors and clubs
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: are they're mad about the protests. So they're probably like,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I don't like Donald Trump, but good. I'm glad they
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: did this.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: So this is what they're doing everywhere.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: And so that like he is finding that fissure where
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: these liberal institutions are not quite as liberal as they say.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: That's what he's doing with these law firms. That's what
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: he's doing here.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to try to I'm going to try
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: to make it about the worst Venezuelan gang members going
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to try to make it about like they're just this
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: is how they're this is how they're playing it. Sounds
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: like you need Rocket Money. They'll find your unwanted subscriptions
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• 31:47
  Speaker 1: That's rocketmoney.com slash crooked. rocketmoney.com slash crooked. Speaking of which,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: one person who isn't yet capitulating, D.C. District Judge James Boasberg,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: the judge who Trump, Elon, and many others have threatened
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: with impeachment for trying to block the administration from sending
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Venezuelan migrants to be tortured in an El Salvador prison
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: without due process. At a Friday hearing, Boasberg said the
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act was, quote, incredibly
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: troublesome and problematic and concerning and and said he'd get
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: to the bottom of whether the executive branch was intentionally
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: defying his orders. On Monday afternoon, Boasberg issued a decision
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: refusing to lift the temporary restraining order he'd put on
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: the administration's use of the law, saying he believes the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: people deported are likely to win their lawsuit on due
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: process grounds, meaning they were entitled to hearings about whether
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua before
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: their removal. The proceedings happen on Monday. It looks like
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: we'll get a ruling maybe Tuesday, maybe later this week.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: But One fun quote from one of the three judges
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: on the D.C. appeals court, Judge Patricia Millett, quote, Nazis
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: happened here. Meanwhile, as far as we know, all these
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: migrants are still sitting in prison in El Salvador. Time
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: had an incredible, horrifying account of their intake detailing how
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: these guys were being slapped and shoved, head shaved. Some
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: of them were sobbing, pleading that they aren't gang members. This,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: to me, seems like a five-alarm fire. What do you
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: guys think?
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, reading that time report was haunting. It's
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: one of those things you read and it just sticks
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: with you because what is happening to these people is
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: just so profoundly wrong and enraging. And obviously we all
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: want murderers deported, but what is happening is ICE is
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: just sweeping through communities and picking up Venezuelan men and
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: deporting them with no due process, in most cases seemingly
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: because they have tattoos. Do we trust them? the cultural
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: fluency of ICE agents to determine what tattoos mean your back. Like,
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: but that's what we're doing now. And the story of
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: this one man, his name is Andre. He's a makeup artist.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: He is a legitimate asylum case because he fled the
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Maduro government in Venezuela. And by the way, Trump just
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: slapped a bunch more sanctions on the Venezuelan economy today.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: He's going to put more, he's going to sanction other
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: countries that buy Venezuelan oil starting April 2nd. So we're
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: crushing their economy, making it so there's no Venezuelan country
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: to go back to. but also shipping Venezuelan men who
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: try to come here and seek asylum to El Salvador.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: And the Trump administration sent this man, Andre, he's a
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: makeup artist, to rot in hell in his gulag in
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: El Salvador, I think just because he had a couple
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: tattoos on his arm. And because Nayib Bukele is an
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: authoritarian sadist, he allowed this time photographer to witness what happened.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: And we have this account of Andre weeping and crying
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: for his mother and And in the response, getting slapped
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: and beaten and thrown to the ground, having his head
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: forcibly shaved.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: And I just think if you- This guy had no hearing.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: No hearing. If you hear a story.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Like that, and your response is to shrug it off
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: and not think, that could be me. That could be
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: my family. That could be someone I love. I think
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: there is something wrong with you. Because this should shock
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: your conscience.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: This is evil.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: It should not be how the United States of America
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: should act. I know we have fucked up in some
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: of our worst excesses after the war on terror or
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: other dramatic events. But this is so profoundly wrong. It's
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: hard not to throw your phone through the wall when
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: you read about what's happening to these people.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: And the other part of this is, all these Republicans
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: are going online and being like, I can't believe this
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: is who Democrats want to defend and this is who
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Democrat wants. These people are in detention. They're being sent
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: to a prison. By the way, not convicted, many of
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: them not convicted of crimes, right? Like, we don't know
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: when they're charged. Or even charged.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Which the government has admitted in legal filings.
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: And so now, they're in a prison in El Salvador.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: For how long?
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Like, what are.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Is it just forever?
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Is it indefinite?
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: Is it.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Are they ever... Like... It's not their country.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: They're being kind of.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: They're just sort of.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: They've... We keep saying deported, but they've really been rendered.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: They've really been... It's rendition.
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: Expelled.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: And... And.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: That would there are there are due process violations there,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: even if these.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Are members of a terrible Venezuelan gang. If you haven't been.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Convicted of a crime, why are you in a prison?
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: But the fact that we're we're not even we're relying
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: on their word. We have tons of evidence that a
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: bunch of these guys had nothing to do with this gang.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: And the Trump administration is defending. You got Tom Homan
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: going out there. And saying, well, you know, illegal immigrants
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: who commit crimes in America don't do due process with
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: their victims. And that's the standard we're going to hold
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: ourselves to.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: It's crazy, yeah.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: And just a quick reminder on these prisons. Again, the
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: human rights expert I was talking to, the people are tortured.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: They're killed in these prisons. Everyone in these prisons has scabies.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: because there are just rampant infestations.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: The forced labor. The forced labor.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: The only silver lining he could offer me is there's
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: less violence than in a lot of American prisons because
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: they essentially starve them and they're too tired to hurt
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: each other. So that is the conditions in these prisons
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: in El Salvador that we are shipping men into.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: One of the most disturbing parts of the story is
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: how Mago World seems to be dealing with the argument
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: that these people deserve due process. Let's listen.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, do they have any due process at all?
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: Due process.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Where was Lake and Ronnie's due process? Where were all
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: these young women that were killed and raped by members
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: of TDA? Where was their due process?
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Well, I also think it's not practical to think that
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: we can do due process.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: On 8 million people.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: If we're going to give ever these.
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: Guys a day in court and a lawyer, we can't
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: do it.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: They don't deserve it.
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: Get these people out of our country as fast as
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: we can.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: They're not immigrants.
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: They're illegal aliens.
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: Do you think with the way that the judges have
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: been issuing injunctions, it would be easier or harder to
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: send these Tesla domestic terrorists to a jail in El
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: Salvador than these MS-13 or trendy arrival guys.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: Well, I view these people as terrorists just like others.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: When I looked at those showrooms burning, you didn't have
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: that on January 6th, I can tell you. You didn't
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: have anything like that on January 6th.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: This is why I think it is helpful to remove
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the specifics of the case if you're not on board
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: with the argument we're making here. and just like step
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: back and think about what argument Trump and his administration
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: are making here, right? Which is now the government can
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: round up anyone, send them to a foreign prison without
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: due process. And the justification is, well, that person is
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: an alien enemy. And when you say, okay, prove it,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: they say, we don't have to, just take our word
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: for it. And then you say, oh, well, this person's
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: a citizen. You certainly can't send that person to the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: El Salvador prison. It's like, no, no, no. That person
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: is a domestic terrorist. You say, well, you can't strip anyone. Well,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: you want a domestic terrorist? Well, why are they a
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: domestic terrorist? Oh, well, because they burned a Tesla. Okay,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: so now if you burned a Tesla, you're labeled a
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: domestic terrorist, and then somehow you could lose your citizenship,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: and then you can be sent to El Salvador, and
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the whole time, no due process, no trial, nothing approved.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: That's where we are.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: The other, like, obviously they're just, these are dangerous morons,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: but like, These people don't deserve due process. How do
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: you know they're these people?
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Just take our word for it.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Just even on your own terms. How do you fucking know?
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: The way you know is by having a process.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, we can't.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: We can't possibly. America can't possibly. Our legal system, our
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: judicial system isn't possibly up to the task to protect
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: this country while upholding the Constitution. Turns out, first time.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: First time in the history of this country. We just
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: can't do it. We have to give up. We can't
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: have a Constitution and safe streets.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: It's just not possible. I've been watching a lot of Fox.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: They're trying to hype the threat from Trendyar Agar, TDA,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: to a post 9-11 Al Qaeda level. Like this is
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: some massive urgent threat we need to counter. And just
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: to sort of expand out the conversation about the collateral
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: damage from these terrorism designations. So if destroying a Tesla
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: is terrorism, if I drive someone to a Tesla protest,
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: am I providing material support for terrorism if they then
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: damage a Tesla? If I'm part of a peaceful protest
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: at a Tesla facility and then someone I don't know
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: shows up and commits vandalism, will everyone there get prosecuted?
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: We're all part of the same cause?
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: You know, now they're doing all the Bernie rallies and
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the AOC and all the town hall's. They're all paid protesters.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: And who's funding the paid protesters? Is it Soros?
• 40:31
  Speaker 6: Is it ActBlue?
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: And is ActBlue connected to foreign terrorism? You can see
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: where this is fucking going.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Can Kash Patel and the FBI now spy on people
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: who are suspected Tesla arsonists? Can the government designate evidence
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: of Tesla terrorism as classified in a state secret so
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: now I can't have access to it if I'm prosecuted
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: under this new made-up authority? Will people overseas who participate
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: in international Tesla protests be barred from entering the U.S.?
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: These terrorism designations, as we all learned after the war
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: on terror or during the war on terror, open up
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: a massive can of worms for the absolute worst government
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: overreach and excesses. And this is very, very scary that
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: it's happening again.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Well, and what's different and worse, and one of the
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: judges made this point, asked the government this question during
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: the hearing today, was like, there was no urgent, immediate
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: need to ship these men out of the country, even
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: if they were in Tren de Aragua. Like, they were being.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: They were an intention.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: There's no public... Like, our prisons are good enough, at
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: least temporarily.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they can't hold.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: They can't hold. They're not... This wasn't people roaming... It
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: wasn't a choice between... They want you to think it's
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: a choice between a violent gang member roaming the streets
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: or them being out of the country. And that is
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: just not the fucking case at all.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: I also just, like, We're so far down the road here.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Terrorism designations, if somebody, look, they've charged Luigi Mangione with terrorism, right?
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Gunning somebody down on the street is murder. That's a
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: crime you can go to jail for the rest of
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: your life. They add, you know, for political reasons, for
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: sensationalism reasons, they add terrorism charges on top. It's a
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: murky idea. It's always been murky adding the way terrorism
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: is a crime, right? Because the underlying act is the
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: terrible act. That's the crime. But the idea that we
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: are at a place where we are now saying vandalism
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: is terrorism. Vandalism. This is called vandalism. I don't agree
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: with throwing Molotov cocktails at an empty Tesla, but it's vandalism.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: It's destruction of property.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Whatever someone does to a Tesla, they should
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: be charged... to the fullest extent to the law, right?
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: If you break a law, you get charged and you
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: go to court over it. And that's how we should
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: deal with it.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: There's nothing you can do to a Tesla Cybertruck that
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: is worse than what it's already done to itself.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: That's true. You've seen these things. Or you by driving it.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: They're horrendous looking cars. So drive one if you want.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: But also, this is such a direct extension from the
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Bush era war on terror, right? Terrorists, we couldn't, they,
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: US prisons weren't tough enough for these terrorists.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: We had to send them to Gitmo. We couldn't just,
• 43:06
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  Speaker 1: slash crooked. So now for the real insanity. This one's
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  Speaker 1: a little funnier and also terrifying. Somehow, the Atlantic's editor-in-chief,
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  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Goldberg, ended up in a Trump administration group chat
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: on Signal. about bombing the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: chat was started by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: called Houthi PC Small Group. The chat included J.D. Vance,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe, Steve Witkoff, Tulsi Gabbard,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Susie Weil, Stephen Miller, and a bunch of other cabinet-level folks.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to go through all the details of
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  Speaker 1: this story, but it begins with Goldberg basically assuming he's
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  Speaker 1: being punked before proceeding to watch in real time over
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  Speaker 1: several days as the group debated in detail, in plenty
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  Speaker 1: of emojis, whether or not to launch strikes against the Houthis,
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  Speaker 1: which then happened. After the strikes, Waltz celebrated with, as
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: you always do after completing a mission, fist emoji, American
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: flag emoji, fire emoji, while Wyckoff offered, quote, two hands
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: praying a flexed bicep and two American flags. More appropriate,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: I think. At the White House on Monday, Trump told reporters,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: He didn't know anything about the story, but the National
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Security Council spokesperson ultimately confirmed the signal chat's authenticity and
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: wrote that it was, quote, demonstration of the deep and
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. All right, Tommy.
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: I never heard anything like this. Yeah, Houthi PC small group.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Houthis are an Islamist group.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Based in Yemen.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: They're the ones who have been firing missiles and drones
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: at ships in the Red Sea since 2023 in protest of.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: The war in Gaza. We've called them a terrorist group.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: The Iranians give them some support.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: PC is principals committee. So this is a meeting that's
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: convened by the White House National Security Advisor of all
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: the cabinet level officials who are relevant to national security.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: So you got the Secretary of Defense, CIA, et cetera.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: And then small group is usually the designation made for
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: one of those groups. When you don't want to invite everybody,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: you don't want.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: The squishes over at state or USAID to be there.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: You want the tough guys. So you skinny it down.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: But you do want the editor of The Atlantic. You
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: do want the editor of The Atlantic.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: You call it a small group so you can disinvite
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of people. So that means it's a really
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: sensitive topic. And in this case, they were talking about
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: literal targets to bomb in Yemen. What ordinance to use?
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: What sequencing to drop them in? And every PC or
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: principals committee I've ever been to in my life is
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: in the Situation Room at the White House because it's
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: all classified. And you're not allowed to bring your phone
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: into these meetings because of espionage concerns, let alone talk
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: about the substance on Signal. But here it seems like
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: they were hosting a principal's committee meeting. They were hosting
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: a principal's committee meeting on Signal, which you can't use
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: at all if you're a White House staffer because it
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: doesn't comport with the Presidential Records Act. But again, this
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: is classified information. And one thing that was funny, I
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: didn't realize until just now.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: It's like a. Strike one, operational security, because that's why
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: you don't communicate on message. And they bring up in
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: the chat at one point like, oh, some more details
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: about this are on your HiSite email. HiSite is classified email,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: which you don't have on your phone, so you have
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: to go to a skiff and do all that kind
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: of stuff. So they literally.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Did it to get around... Just for like convenience, I guess.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: Sometimes things happen in the world. Like you saw this
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: in Hillary Clinton's emails, actually. Sometimes things happen in the
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: world and it's Christmas day and no one's in a
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: skiff and no one's at their high side email. So
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: you're communicating obliquely to manage a crisis. This happened on
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: March 11th through 14th, which is like Tuesday through Friday.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Everyone should be sitting at their desk where they could
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: presumably get on the JWICs, the top secret email system
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: and fire off a classified message to each other or
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: walk downstairs into the sit room and have a meeting
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: with about this, this Houthi target they want to bomb.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: It's insane.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: At some point.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: J.D.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Vance was in an economic event in Michigan. Yeah, right.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: At some point too, like the things go really off
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: the rails when, so they're all added to this chat.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: And then at some point Vance replies with something like,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: I don't agree with this decision, just flagging basically some
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: version of that, like, I don't agree. And that's the
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: moment at which, you know, look, we talk a lot
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: about meetings that should be emails, right? That was the
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: moment this became an email that should have been a meeting.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Because then all of a sudden they're having a policy
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: debate over Signal.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Over Signal.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Now, the question I have is, so Marco Rubio is
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: added to this chat. It's not clear what participation Marco
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: Rubio actually had because I don't see very many messages
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: from him. And Jeffrey Goldberg judiciously avoids publishing the actual
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: classified information or the names of the guy at CIA.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Active intelligence officer.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: The active intelligence officer that was added to the fucking chat.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: But I wonder, too, if some of this is like
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Marco Rubio, who's a more serious person than Pete Hegseth,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: being like, these fucking jagoffs. I cannot believe they're discussing this.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. Or he's just irrelevant.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, my big takeaway from the kind of the
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: messaging flow and sequencing is it seemed like Stephen Miller
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: is the end all be all decision maker on this
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: chat about whether they're bombing Yemen.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Or the voice of the president, right? He sort of
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: comes in and says, this is what the president said
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: in the meeting, so this is what we're doing.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: It's like Mike Waltz, you're the national security advisor.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: You haven't talked to the president.
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: J.D.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Vance, you're the VP. You haven't talked to the president.
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I did take that as like, you know how this
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: is around the most senior levels of the White House.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: Everyone's like, well, I took what the president said to
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: mean this. And then someone else is like, oh, well,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I was meeting with the president afterwards, and I took
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: what the president meant to say this. And they all
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: try to like, you know, it's a big deal. In reality,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Trump's like, what's a Houthi? Well, no, in reality, when
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: they asked Trump later that day at a press availability,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: he goes, oh, this is the first I'm hearing of this.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: That was very funny.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: Well, that was just about the threat itself, right?
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: He was like, I don't know anything about that.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: He was like, I don't like the Atlantic, though. I'm like, okay.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: Well, your staff does because they copy him on deliberations.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Well, that was the part of it that was interesting,
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: which is like, so I guess... Does that mean he
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: was in Walt's phone?
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: Who's JG?
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Who do you mean to add?
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Who is JG? Who did they think they were adding?
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Why did nobody notice that that guy never applied? Why
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: did they not need his way in? So there was
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: either another JG or I was thinking, let's see, J.D.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Vance was on there and there was another J on
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: there too. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director. So unless, you
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: know how when you're in your phone, you do the,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: you do one letter and it's someone's name comes up.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: So maybe it auto-populated with Jeff Goldberg and he didn't
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: realize it.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: I wonder, what a world. I wonder too, like somebody,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: like when that time story came out and we had
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: this sort of blow-by-blow of that closed-press cabinet beating. It's like, well,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: somebody's leaking this pretty good. It sounds like somebody might
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: even be recording it. And then you see this, and
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: it's like, Jeffrey Goldberg is popping up so quick on
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: the fucking thing that you're accidentally adding him on signal.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: The J.D. Vance part is interesting in that, so as
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: you said, Lovett, he was like, flagging, I'm against this,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: or at least the timing. Can we wait a little bit?
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: And But can you talk about why he was against it?
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, J.D.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: Vance has been kind of an isolationist case against striking
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: the Houthis, which big picture I tend to agree with.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: But he comes at it by arguing that a much
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: higher percentage of goods come from Europe and are at
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: risk from the Houthis than U.S.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Goods. Through the canal.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because if you think about the Suez Canal, it
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea down to the
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Indian Ocean. So it links Asia to Europe. And it's
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: just weird that he makes all of this about Europe
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: in European goods, because the bigger argument you usually hear
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: about the Houthis scaring ships out of the Red Sea
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: is that everyone ends up going around the Horn of
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: Africa and all shipping takes longer and everything is just net,
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: net more expensive for everybody.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the point he seems to be making is, well,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: we're- The point he seems to be making is the
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Europeans are worse than the Houthis.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I think, yes, sure. I think, no, he's saying, well,
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: if we're arguing that Europe should be responsible for its
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: own defense and Ukraine, it's sort of, it's inconsistent to
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: then Have our Navy do their bombing for them when
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: we're only getting 3% of the trade, but they amount
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: to what, 40 or some odd percent of it.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: And then Stephen Miller jumps in and he's like, yeah,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, if we do this, Europe's going to have
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: to give us something for this. How is this about
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Europe and not Israel?
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: Right. The proximate cause, the reason the Houthis are firing
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: missiles and drones at ships is because they're doing it,
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: they say, in solidarity with. the Palestinian cause, and because
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: they want the war in Gaza to end, or they
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: want humanitarian relief to get into the Gaza Strip. This
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: is clearly an effort to help out Netanyahu, because the
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: Houthis are also firing missiles at Israel.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: One of the arguments they make for doing it now
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: is being afraid that if they don't, Israel will do
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: it for them. And so it's like, well, we don't
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: want Israel to do it. We'd rather have Europe do it,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: but Europe doesn't seem to have the Navy for it.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: So I guess we have to do it, but don't worry,
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: we'll get something after for it.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: We'll get a payment for it.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: I was thinking about this. I made a video for
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: the Crooked Media Instagram about some previous multifaceted mix-ups with
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: the wrong people getting CC'd on email chains.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Remember when we sent.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: About 30 emails to Lyle Lovett thinking we had copied
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: John Lovett?
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: And then he finally replied. It was like, hey, everyone.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: It made me think.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: And also, he finds it quite frustrating when people are
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: confused between our two shows.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: And not in a fun way. He gets a little
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: bit mad. Remember that?
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Look, I've been I've been sent notes on the Mandalorian.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: That's right. I was thinking about when we, in 07,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: when Obama first announced for president, there was some email
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: chain where we were talking about the first couple events
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: of the campaign and we like looped in a reporter.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: There have been several times. And the reporter was like
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: on the chain. I think I remember Bill Burton like
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: replying on being like, Take the reporter off. Again, take
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: the reporter off.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: Because someone removes them and you forget. Remember, Jen Psaki
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: got in trouble for this. She forwarded some opposition research
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: by accident to John McCormick, who then I think was
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: at the Tribune.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: We've all done this.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: We've all AOL IM'd the person we're talking shit about
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: directly instead of talking about them amongst the group with
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: our friends and colleagues.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Fortunately, none of us were doing war plans.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't about killing al-Baghdadi. Yeah. It was, yeah,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: it was about, it was about dinner, but the, yeah, the, uh,
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: I remember one of my favorite all time email fuck
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: ups was, and I actually, I, I don't want to
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: say it was in.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: The Hillary campaign.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: And you know, the classic is you want to talk
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: shit about someone, but they accidentally forward it to that
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: person because that person's on the mind and someone forwarded
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: an email from someone right back to them and said,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: I want to.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Kill this fucking bitch.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: That was brutal. That was brutal. Not as bad as this,
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: not as bad as this.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, and so Jeff Goldberg probably can't believe his
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: fortune here. And then he leaves. leaves the group chat,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: which is also funny because you get some kind of,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: at least the person who started the group chat gets
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: a notification of someone left. So can you imagine the
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: feeling in your body when you see Jeff Goldberg left
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the chat?
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: I can't, like, yeah, I don't know. Do these people
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: have feelings in their bodies?
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: That's the question. Maybe not.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: I was like a little bit bummed that he left.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: So he, in the piece, he talks about how he just,
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: once he couldn't, he wasn't sure if it was real,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: he thought it wasn't. Then all of a sudden they're
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: bombing Yemen and it's like, well, that's pretty conclusive.
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: And so he now is- Seems like more than a coincidence.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: So it seems confirmed for him. So then he feels
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: like he has to withdraw himself from the trap, which
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: is a bummer because we're denied the third act, which
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: would have been either somebody catching it or everybody just
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: leaving in about a 15 minute span, which would have
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: also been awesome. But I get why he had to
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: take himself out because at a certain point you've confirmed this.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: You're now like aware that you're receiving classified, deeply sensitive
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: government information on your private cell phone.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: It would have been awesome if he just- responded with
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: a poop emoji and then left the chat.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: See, I was going to say, he should have recommended
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: some targets and just started like mixing it up, getting
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: involved in the conversation, see if anybody noticed. But yeah,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, to those who were, there were some people
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: online who were like, how dare he leave? Why would
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: he do that? I do think in this, you know,
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: legal climate, there is some actual risks to you if
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: you're perceived as violating the Espionage Act.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Also, once the Houthi strike is over, don't they disband
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Houthi PC small group? No, they probably keep this group
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: revved up. You think there's a whole bunch of PC
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: small groups on Signal? I bet there are.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Of course there are.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: You think there's a Putin PC small group?
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: That is, I think, like.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Who do you think's in that one? Peter Baker? No,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: it's probably like Steve Wyckoff.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: I'd listen to an hour and six minutes of an
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: hour and a half of Steve Wyckoff talking with Tucker
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: Carlson about their entire foreign policy agenda, and I can't
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: wait to listen to the rest after this. But I
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: bet when all these guys are traveling... They are just
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: absolutely breaking the rules and ignoring the Presidential Record Act
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: and talking on Signal all day long.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Well, so we already know that they're breaking the Presidential
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Record Act left, right, and center. We already had tons
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: of reporting about that. This is as sensitive a conversation
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: as government officials have. I don't know what could be
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: more sensitive than this.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Like the name of a source. Right.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: This is a group of government officials planning an imminent
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: military operation. That's as sensitive as it gets. But they
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: are doing this on a public level. platform as opposed
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: to like in the actual protected secure government.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Facilities is absurd.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: But it means that think about all the chats that
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Goldberg isn't in right across the government. They are
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: all doing this on signal. They're all they're all they
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: are the classified part aside. None of them want any
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: of what they're saying in the presidential to be captured
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: under the Presidential Record Act. They all want that shit
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: to disappear. These messages, by the way, were set to disappear.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the timeframe was, but it's pretty short.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: So I assume he was screenshotting as he went.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, big time. Yeah.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, just look, Signal is broadly viewed as kind
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: of the gold standard in the safest communications app because
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: it's open source and it's got really strong encryption. But
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: we don't know. We don't know if the Mossad has
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: broken it or the Chinese or the Russians. We should
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: assume they have. If they can get access to your
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: device itself, it doesn't matter if it's encrypted flying across
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: the transom. If they are on your device somehow, then
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: they've got what you're saying. And given Steve.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Witkoff's fucking guileless, credulous conversation about Vladimir Putin giving Donald
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Trump a portrait and coming across like a fucking stone
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: cold moron, I do not believe his IT security is
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: state of the art. No fucking way. These guys are
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: getting a link telling them that they owe money on
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: a toll. They're clicking that link and they're paying that toll.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: I've gotten like four times in the last week.
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: Hey, guys.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: So many.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Nobody is texting you to pay a toll.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I wasn't going to fall for it or click it,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: but the first couple of times I was like, oh,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: maybe I did blow through the toll. I don't know.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: I want to. I know someone who got caught.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: So that's that. So, you know. Don't plan wars on Signal.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Don't plan wars on Signal. Do other things on Signal. Okay,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: when we come back from the break, you'll hear my
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: conversation with Governor Andy Beshear, but one quick thing before
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: we do that. Love It or Leave It will be
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: live in Washington, D.C. for one night only, April 24th
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: at the Lincoln Theater. Love it.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: We have some awesome guests lined up that we haven't
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: announced yet. We're putting the dot and those T's, crossing
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: those I's. But it's going to be a great show.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: It's mostly now sold. So please jump in, qriki.com slash
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: events to get tickets for that D.C.
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: Show.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: We're going to be coming to D.C. because that's the
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: weekend of the Correspondents' Dinner. We always like doing a
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: show around that. We also have, there's a Q &
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: A before if you want to buying some of those
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: fancier tickets, you know, get to yell at me in person.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: But it's going to be a great time.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Everybody should come.
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: All right. When we come back, Andy Beshear. Pod Save
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• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Governor Andy Beshear, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: So you are the Democratic governor of a state where
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: around two out of every three voters supported Donald Trump
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: last November. You were first elected towards the end of
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: Trump's first term. So you have more experience than most
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: elected Democrats representing and working with people who support Trump.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling about his second term so far?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: And how are the folks you're talking to in Kentucky
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: feeling about it?
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: I'm very concerned. I'm very concerned with the actions of
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 6: the president, his administration. I'm worried about the example he's
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 6: setting for the country and how kids growing up are
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 6: going to view not just this president, but the presidency itself.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 6: His policies are going to specifically hurt my people. Tariff
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 6: policy is going to hit Kentucky harder than just about
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: anywhere else. You look at what's already happening with bourbon.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 6: 95% of the world's bourbon is made in Kentucky, but
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 6: that's all the bourbon worth drinking. But this time, it's
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 6: not just a responsive tariff, say, from the EU or
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: from Canada, but Canada is actually removing it entirely from
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 6: some of the shelves. You look at our auto industry
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: and the fact that we have a company called Martin Rea.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: It's a Canadian company. It's got about 500 employees in
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 6: Western Kentucky, and its parts go from Canada to Kentucky
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 6: to Mexico, back to Kentucky again. and back to Canada.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: So these tariffs are gonna impact our state. Our number
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: one export target is Canada. It's about 23% of all
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: of our exports. And this president is picking on an
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 6: ally and a friend in a way that it's gonna
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: hurt my people. The other thing it's gonna do is
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 6: raise prices for all Americans. And we need to be
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: talking about it like what it is. It is the
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 6: Trump tax. So with the tariff, if it goes into
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: effect on Canada, it's going to raise the price of gas.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: The amount it increases it is a Trump tax. Mexico
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 6: tariffs will increase the price of fruits and vegetables. The
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 6: amount it increases it is a Trump tax. Tariff on
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 6: lumber is going to make that first home even harder
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 6: to buy. That extra amount that it costs is the
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 6: Trump tax. And so we just need to be really
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 6: clear that these are decisions being made by one individual alone.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 6: But the thing that moves people the most right now
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 6: that they understand maybe at a level that wasn't understood
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 6: 10 years ago is Medicaid. So in Kentucky, how I
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 6: describe it is that it covers the people we love
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 6: the most, our parents and our kids. Half of Kentucky's
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: kids are covered by Medicaid. 70% of our long-term care
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 6: costs are covered by Medicaid. And without Medicaid and expanded Medicaid,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: rural healthcare ends. That hospital that's in somebody's community closes.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 6: And then whether they have private insurance or are on Medicaid,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 6: they got to drive two hours just to see the
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: same doctor that used to be in their community. So
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 6: we are seeing people respond and respond strongly, especially on
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 6: those threatened cuts.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: Are you hearing from any folks in Kentucky who may
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: have supported Trump who are now like, what's going on
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: with these tariffs? What's going to happen with my Medicaid?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 6: So I think the first thing you hear is concern
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 6: over the health care system. And they may or may
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: not be talking about Medicaid directly. But they recognize that
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 6: what's being threatened right now could really impact their community.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 6: So in many Kentucky communities, the number one employer is
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: the school system. And what they're doing to the Department
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 6: of Education could impact those jobs. And the second biggest
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: employer is the hospital system or the clinics. And so
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 6: you think about how this could gut rural America and jobs.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 6: I mean, I see it and I hear about it
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: in each of these communities.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: So obviously, you know, his economic policies are inflationary. This
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: is what people are going to feel more than anything else.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: If you polled people, they're going to be more concerned
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: about Medicaid. They're going to be concerned about the tariffs.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: There's also some pretty, I think, alarming, scary things that
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: he's doing as well. So in the span of just
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: one week, the New York Times reported that Trump administration
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: believes ICE agents can now enter people's homes without a warrant.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: All they have to do is claim they're looking for
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Venezuelan gang members. The president himself has called for the
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: impeachment of a Bush-appointed federal judge who blocked his administration
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: from jailing people in an El Salvador megaprison without due process.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: This morning, we're speaking Friday afternoon, Trump said that Americans
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: who vandalize Teslas are domestic terrorists who should be sent
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: to that same foreign prison in El Salvador where people
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: have been starved and tortured.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 6: For vandalizing a Tesla?
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, that's the new thing now. You're a lawyer.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: You served as attorney general. Like, Is this a five
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: alarm fire for the country? It feels like that to me.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: I don't like, you know, alarming people unnecessarily. And I
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: realize that this is probably isn't the highest polling issue
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: right now, but it seems pretty scary what he's doing.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: Well, people should be alarmed in the very least that
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: we have a president who apparently does not believe in
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: his oath of office and doesn't value the fact that
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: the constitution only makes him one branch of government. You know,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 6: I look at whether it's the president or Republican members
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: of Congress. They all took an oath to defend the Constitution.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: Many of them took that oath, putting their hand on
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 6: the Bible, making a promise not just to our country,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 6: but in some instances, the Almighty. And look at what
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: they're doing now. Republicans in Congress are letting the president
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 6: violate the very laws they passed and acting like it's
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: not a big deal, being more loyal to their party
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 6: than their country, being more concerned about how Trump will
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: react than whether they're violating that oath and that promise
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 6: that they took. And then with the president, it seems
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: like everything is the us versus the them. It's the
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: finding out who is the us and who is the them.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: And that's bad for America, and it's bad for our future. Now,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: we're going to have to post this presidency, find a
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 6: way to heal, because we cannot be red and blue
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 6: on every issue, left or right on every issue. We
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 6: got to get back to right versus wrong instead of
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: right versus left. And I do think that the more
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 6: that this president does and how he talks, especially about people,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 6: is and will make an impact. I mean, take the
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 6: veterans we're hearing from that serve their country and then
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 6: go into the civil service with our government. They're being
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 6: laid off and then told it's their fault because they
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: did a poor job, which is a total lie. You know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 6: that hurts people. It hurts them, and everybody sees what's happening.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: You mentioned our children. I have two kids, four and one.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: The oldest is very aware of Donald Trump, starting to
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: ask questions here and there.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 6: Only your and my four-year-olds would be aware. Yeah, right.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I know your kids are older.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 6: Fifteen and fourteen.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: How do you talk to them about what's going on
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: in politics in the country right now?
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: So at fifteen and fourteen, I've got to give them
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 6: the space.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 6: To talk to me about it, to make sure that
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 6: I'm listening and not just telling. Because it's important that
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 6: especially at that age and with me as a parent,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 6: that they've got the space to know that they're forming
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 6: their own opinions. But they're concerned too. Now, my pledge
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 6: is that we cannot leave a broken country to our
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 6: kids and ultimately their kids. If this happens on our watch,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 6: which it has, our job is to not only fight
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 6: to prevent as much harm as we can, but to
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 6: also repair what is broken or what will be broken.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: There seems to be broad agreement from across the political
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: spectrum that Democrats need to do a better job of
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: fighting back right now. There's less agreement as to how.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this?
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 6: Well, first, I don't think disagreement in and of itself
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 6: within a party is a bad thing. Yes, we need
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 6: a united front, but we're not following just one voice
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 6: like you hear with Donald Trump. And that's, I think,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 6: a more healthy party and a more healthy democracy. What
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 6: I think we've got to do is focus. I think
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 6: we earn back the trust of the American people by, yes,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: standing up for important issues, but showing the American people
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: that we're going to spend 80% of our time on
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 6: what they're worried about the most, right? They wake up
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 6: in the morning worried about their job and whether they
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 6: can support their family. They're worried about their next doctor's
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 6: appointment or their kid's doctor's appointment, the roads and bridges
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 6: they drive, the school they drop their kids off at,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 6: and whether they feel safe in their communities. And so
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 6: while the president claimed He was going to focus on
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 6: those things. He's done anything but it. He has been
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 6: obsessed with culture war issues, which means the lane is
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: there for the Democrats to re-earn that trust. But I
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 6: think that we've got to be, again, laser focused so
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 6: that people see what we talk about and what we
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 6: work on truly betters their lives. As a Democratic governor,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: maybe that's a little bit easier for me because Democratic governors,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 6: our job is to get it done. And we get
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 6: dirt on our boots, right? We get out in our state.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 6: People want to see and feel and touch progress to
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 6: believe it's happening. So in Kentucky, we're building the two
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 6: biggest battery plants on planet Earth. You can bet I'm
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 6: going there and I'm showing people what's happening. When we
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 6: opened the first new hospital in our largest African-American community
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 6: in 150 years, I wanted to be there. You know,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 6: it's an important moment, but it also ties into the
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 6: work that you do and the progress that's occurring out
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 6: there in a much more real way than say a
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: signing in the Rose Garden.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Do you think that a problem for the Biden administration
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: was that they didn't do enough to sell the accomplishments
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: of Biden's presidency? Or do you think that, you know,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: we've had an affordability crisis for some time and they
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: just didn't do enough to fix the affordability crisis?
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 6: I think President Biden himself would say they should have
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 6: sold it more, but also that they should have done
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 6: it faster. Sometimes Democrats can write in too many regulations,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 6: too many complications, and it's okay for both Democrats and
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 6: Republicans to think that government should work better. Government should
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 6: work faster. Government should work more efficiently. And we may
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 6: come at it from different directions, but the goal should
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 6: be to fix it, not to break it. You know,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 6: what Elon Musk is doing is breaking it. You can't
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 6: fire half the federal workforce and it still operate. You
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 6: can't close the social security office in an Eastern Kentucky
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 6: community and shut down the call in line and expect
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 6: someone who lives on that amount alone to travel several
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: hours to see somebody in person. But I think when
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 6: you hear criticisms of the BEAD program, It's been two
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 6: plus years and there's not an inch of fiber in
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 6: the ground. I know that frustrated President Biden and it should.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 6: And so I think as we move forward, Democrats need
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 6: to be the party of getting things done, not just
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: focused on that 80 percent of jobs and health care, infrastructure,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: public safety and education, but actually getting the things that
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 6: need to be done and done and done quickly.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, as a governor, you've obviously had a lot
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: of experience with this. Is it mostly a story of
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: regulations getting in the way? Is it special interests? What
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: is preventing when we pass something like the IRA and
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: we want to deploy all of this rural broadband or
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: clean energy, can't get it done fast enough? Same thing
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: with housing, right? I'm sure you've had housing issues as well.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: What do you think Democrats need to do there?
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 6: Well, the first thing we can't do is require a
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 6: state to write a thousand page plan And then it'd
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 6: be reviewed eight different times by different folks that maybe
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 6: have never done this before, and then turn it around
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: three or four more times. We've got to trust our
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 6: states and our localities that have a general plan that
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 6: can then be monitored, but that you get it moving
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 6: as fast as you can. I mean, people need to
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 6: feel that impact. And I've always thought that if you
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 6: can do a project 95% of where you want it
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 6: to be, but you can do it three times faster
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 6: than if you did it 100% that more people are
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 6: helped and impacted during that process.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How do you think Chuck Schumer handled the fight
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: over funding the government?
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 6: I think it was a big challenge, but I think
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 6: we lost the messaging war before it ever got to
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 6: Chuck Schumer's desk. I mean, we were talking about a CR.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 6: And if we're ever talking, I mean, I can't imagine
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 6: President Obama ever giving up to the elector and looking
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 6: down at his notes, and it says he's going to
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 6: talk about subsection three of the CR and what it means.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 6: This wasn't about Democrats voting or not voting to keep
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 6: the federal government open. And that's what the message ended
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 6: up coming out as. It was the Republicans holding the
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 6: country hostage, that they were going to let it shut
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 6: down if they didn't get enough votes for Elon Musk
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 6: to fire more people. And making sure that we're winning
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 6: that messaging war simply by telling the truth. But by
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: doing it in a way where we use common, everyday language,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 6: we get rid of a lot of the advocacy speak
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 6: that's been out there, and we communicate like normal human
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 6: beings to normal human beings. I mean, I keep thinking
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 6: about words like substance use disorder.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: I haven't even heard that one.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 6: Everyone I know that's battled addiction calls it addiction because
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 6: it's difficult and it's deadly. And that word has that meaning.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 6: Food insecurity. I've never known a family that's hungry to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 6: call it food insecurity. Right now we use the term
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 6: justice involved population. Those are inmates or folks that are
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 6: in jail. They certainly don't use those terms. So making
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 6: sure that we're communicating what's happening in a real, authentic
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 6: way to the American people is really important.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: Look, former speechwriter, no argument from me there. Banging this
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: drum for a while. Language aside, would you have supported
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: keeping the government open like Schumer did, or would you
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: have voted against it?
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: Well, I think what we had to do in the
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 6: very beginning was show the American people that this was
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 6: the Republicans holding the country hostage, and they were going
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 6: to shut it down. if Democrats did not meet their demands.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 6: And those demands harm people.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: In my life, the Democratic Party has never been viewed
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: as less favorably by Americans as it is right now.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that is? And what do you
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: think the party should do going forward to change the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: brand of the party?
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 6: I think that the National Party lost the faith of
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 6: the American people, that they were focused on them. I'll
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 6: take the last ad run by President Trump in the campaign.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 6: I don't think that the folks that moved after watching
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 6: that ad were moving because they're anti-trans. I think folks
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 6: that are were already going to vote for Donald Trump.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 6: I think what it did is it convinced some people
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 6: that he was going to focus on prices and the
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: economy and that she was focused on other things. I
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 6: think what we've got to do in the Democratic Party
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 6: is both stand up for our beliefs. Listen, I vetoed
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 6: the nastiest anti-trans bill in Kentucky history, and I did
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 6: it in my election year because I don't like bullies
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 6: and I didn't want people picking on those kids. But
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 6: at the same time, I was opening a new factory
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 6: the next day. I was working to create that new
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 6: clinic in a county that doesn't have one so you
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 6: didn't have to drive an hour to see a doctor.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 6: We opened a road called the Herald to Many, which
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 6: saves people 40 minutes to on their commute every day
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 6: that they can spend with their families. So making sure
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 6: that it's not an either or, that we can do
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 6: both of these things and we can do them if
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 6: we explain our why, our authentic why. When I vetoed
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 6: that nasty anti-LGBTQ plus bill, I told people why. And
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 6: for me, it's my faith. That's my driving why. I
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 6: believe all children are children of God. That meant that
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 6: somebody needed to stand up for those children. And I'll
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 6: never forget the next day, somebody started walking up to
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 6: me and I thought, oh no, I know what's coming.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 6: And they started in a different way. They said, I'm
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 6: not sure I agree with you. But then the next
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 6: thing he said was, but I know you're doing what
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 6: you think is right. And when we talk about our why,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 6: we can give people some grace and some space to
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 6: maybe think about things a little bit differently or to
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 6: not always have to agree with us but know that
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 6: we're still spending 80% of our time doing things that
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 6: help Democrats, Republicans, and independents to live a safer and
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 6: more secure life.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: One big challenge here is communicating and communicating in a
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: way that's on our terms, right? And so you just
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: mentioned that last.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 6: What you're for and not who you're against.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned that last ad and Kamala Harris, probably
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: most of the money in that campaign was spent on
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: economic ads. And this happens most Democratic campaigns. And then
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: you don't always get to choose what the media focuses on.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: I was just prepping for this interview and reading up
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: about you. And most of the stories are that you
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: issued the executive order to ban conversion therapy, which is great.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: It's the right thing to do. The fact that you
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: vetoed that bill that you were just mentioning, the anti-LGBTQ bill.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: And a lot of your, and I know you have
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: this whole economic record because I looked it up and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, but that doesn't make headlines. And so
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: most of the stories about you, you would think that
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: that's the only thing that you were focused on when
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: clearly it's not, right? And I wonder if you thought
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: about as the party, you know, When you're governor of
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: a state, you probably have like a little bit more
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: leeway to sort of shape the narrative. And people know
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: you in Kentucky, right? Because you've been everywhere. You've been
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: all over the state. And you've, as you've said, you've.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 6: Had a lot of- They call me Andy, which I love. Right.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: And you've had these natural disasters in the state. And
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: so you've gotten to go see people. But nationally, it
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: becomes really tricky to build a brand for a party,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: to stand up where you have to stand up, even
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: if it's unpopular, but to also like focus like to
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: make sure people understand that you're focusing on cost of living,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: inflation issues when those don't break through as much. Have
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: you thought about that?
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 6: It takes work. So when I started my last, my
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 6: reelection campaign, we had had the best three years, two
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 6: years of economic development in history by far. I mean,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 6: we'd already broken in a three and a half year period,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 6: every record for a governor for private sector investment, for
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 6: new jobs. And remember, my dad had been governor, and
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 6: he was number two, so I had to call and
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 6: tell him about it. But when we started and we
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 6: saw the polling, I was only winning on the economy
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 6: by four points. Again, more new jobs and more new
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 6: investment than ever before. And we did some focus groups,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 6: and what we saw is people just needed to be reminded.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 6: You'd say, well, what about those two giant battery plants?
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 6: They'd say, I read something about that. And then you'd say,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 6: what about the 5,000 jobs? And they said, oh, yes,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 6: and the 5.8 billion. And so we can't just assume
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 6: that people have seen the work. We've got to prove it.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 6: We've got to show it. Again, we've got to get
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 6: that dirt on our boots. By the end of that campaign,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 6: our exit polling had us winning on the economy by
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 6: 30 to 40 points. So it's important to have the record.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 6: But you can't have an ego about this thing. You've
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 6: got to go in and prove what you've done over
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 6: and over and over. And that discipline, you've seen it
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 6: in politics, means you might give the same speech every
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 6: night because somebody needs to hear that message. But it's
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 6: got to be about more than you. It's got to
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 6: be about the work and the results. And that's how
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 6: you get it out there.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: You mentioned we need to be talking about what we're for,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: not just who we're against. I'm not asking for a
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: laundry list of policies, which I think sometimes is a
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: challenge for Democrats as we start just talking about policies.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: What's your best sense of an overall vision for the
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: party that you think would be compelling to folks?
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's those core areas. I think we'd
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 6: say we as a Democratic Party are going to be
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 6: the party of jobs, of accessible health care, of safe infrastructure,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 6: of good public schools, and of public safety where it's
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 6: not just the numbers say you're safe, but you feel safe.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 6: And we have to, on that last point, we get
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 6: caught up in the numbers and in the statistics, but
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 6: we've got to recognize how people feel. I mean, we're
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 6: the party that believes that mental health is just as
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 6: important as physical health. But when somebody said, I don't
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 6: feel safe, we had a lot of members of our
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 6: party that said, oh, no, you are. Look at all
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 6: these statistics. And so understanding that we've got to meet
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 6: Americans where they are. And if the statistics say one thing,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 6: but people don't feel it, Then we've got to work
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 6: twice as hard. We've got to increase public safety that
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 6: much more.
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: You made some news recently when you said that Governor
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Newsom shouldn't have had Steve Bannon on his podcast. You said,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: you know, we shouldn't be afraid to talk to and
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: debate just about anyone, but Bannon espouses hatred and anger
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: and even at some points violence. And I don't think
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: we should give him oxygen on any platform ever anywhere.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: There are quite a few Republicans who espouse the exact
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: same views as Steve Bannon. They appear in his podcast.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: You probably have a lot of people you represent who
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: listen to Bannon, even like him. Why is it a
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: bad idea to challenge and debate Bannon's views for the
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: benefit of the people who may find them persuasive but
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: are not sure?
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 6: So I don't think there's anything wrong with Gavin, who
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 6: I know, consider us friends, having different voices on. And
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 6: having this discussion back and forth, I think that's important.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 6: And he's doing a good thing there. But when somebody
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 6: stands for hate and intolerance and violence, lifting their voice
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 6: up or putting it out there in a way to
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 6: where even more people hear it, I just think is wrong.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 6: I don't disagree on Gavin's overall approach on the podcast,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 6: but I strenuously disagree with this question. guest. Because of
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 6: his words, people have been hurt. People have been harmed.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 6: Our country is a less safe place. People feel less
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 6: welcome in different areas. And I'll always believe that love
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 6: is right and hate is wrong. And I just don't
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 6: want to lift up a voice of hate.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of speculation that you'd be a
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: top presidential contender in 2028. Obviously, we're far from candidates
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: making announcements of any kind, unless you'd like to make
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: one here. But But I'm curious to get your thoughts
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: on what kind of a leader you think the party
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: needs next time. And also, you're going to be the
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: head of the DGA, the Democratic Governors Association in 2026.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: What kind of candidates are you hoping for that the
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: party runs?
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 6: So my goal right now is to be the best
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 6: governor of Kentucky I can be. I love where I'm from.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 6: And we've made some really great strides for our people.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 6: And there's more opportunity in Kentucky right now than ever before.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 6: And I'm really proud of that. And I want to
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 6: finish this job for the people that I love. When
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 6: I look at the DGA in 2026, my job is
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 6: to win as many of these races as I can.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 6: We've got 36 across the country. And the more of
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 6: those races that we win, the bigger the list for
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 6: 2028 gets. And that's a good thing to have a
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 6: lot of different leaders who would be out there making
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 6: their voices heard. But I think we've got to have
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 6: people that are seeking common ground for the common good
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 6: and can hopefully lead this country in a direction that
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 6: brings some healing and brings people back together. I think
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 6: we're going to desperately need that after this presidency. So someone, again,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 6: who's focused on issues that lift everyone up, that make
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 6: lives better, whether you're a Democrat or Republican or an independent,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 6: I mean, a president that can do that for four
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 6: or for eight years, I think can help us heal
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 6: because people can see that. And I also think that
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 6: people feel whiplash right now. They feel rightfully or wrongfully
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 6: like the pendulum swung far to the left and now
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 6: swung really far to the right. I think they want
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 6: it to stop swinging. And so I think what we're
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 6: going to need are candidates that can check their ego
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 6: and recognize what's necessary for the country and for our
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 6: state's is to have people who are doing this for
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 6: the right reason, that don't want to leave a broken
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 6: country to their kids, and that will do the right
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 6: thing for all Americans and get us beyond this partisanship
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 6: that we're seeing.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: How do you think about the very difficult challenge of
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: finding common ground in a political environment where, you said
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: it yourself earlier, you know, Republicans swore an oath to
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: this country and some of them right now, including the
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: president of the United States, are either breaking the laws
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: or testing the limits or throwing out norms or trampling
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: on basic freedoms and also have an attitude that they
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: don't ever want to work with Democrats. They think Democrats
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: are the enemies. They're talking about putting Democrats in jail.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: And look, I'm a common ground guy. I worked for
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama, so I'll always feel like that. But, you know,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: I have to say the last couple of years have
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: got me in a spot where it's like, I know
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: that that's what voters say, that they don't like the division.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: They want us to come together. I believe that that's
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: what people want in this country. It's really hard to
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: do that when one political party now has been taken
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: over by people who most of them just don't want
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: to do that.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 6: Well, we got to push through. And we can't give
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 6: up on where this country has to get. I don't
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 6: want a country where one party is in charge every
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 6: X number of years and then does everything they can
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 6: to punch down at the other. We've just got to
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 6: get to a better place and maybe we have to
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 6: go through what we're going through right now to see
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 6: how important that is. You know, I wasn't alive during McCarthyism,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 6: but there was a point where it broke. And I
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 6: think people recognized what had happened and that that's not
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 6: who we are as Americans. And so I Listen, I
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 6: live in a state where I've got a very positive
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 6: approval rating and Rand Paul does too. And so that
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 6: says that the people of Kentucky expect us to get along.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 6: And I will tell you, even during the election year,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 6: the temperature was turned down in Kentucky. People weren't arguing
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 6: with each other over the election. So yes, they were
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 6: going to vote a certain way, but hopefully we'd moved
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 6: beyond some of the toxicity that we'd seen between neighbors.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: How far do you have Kentucky going in your bracket?
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 6: Oh, in my bracket? Oh, all the way.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: All the way?
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 6: Oh, I'm the governor of Kentucky.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, it's three seats, so it's plausible.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: Are you going to be able to watch the game tonight?
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 6: When you're governor of Kentucky, you have two jobs, to
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 6: root for your in-state schools and to root against Duke.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: That's something we can all agree on.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 6: Some things bring everybody together.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: Governor Andy Beshear, thanks for stopping by and joining Pod
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: Save America.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Governor Beshear for
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: coming on. Everyone check out VSA to see how you
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: can get involved in events near you. Dan and I
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: will be back with a new show in your feed
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: on Friday. Bye, everyone. If you want to listen to
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