Latest / Pod Save America / "Weed Is Tight (and so are the midterms)"

Transcript

"Weed Is Tight (and so are the midterms)" · Pod Save America

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm John Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: On today's show, the Republicans' midterm closing argument is as
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Trumpy and racist as ever. Joe Biden takes a big
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: step towards decriminalizing marijuana. And Senator Raphael Warnock stops by
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to talk about his very tight race against Herschel Walker.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: But first, before we get started, Crooked's newest podcast, World Corrupt,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: is finally here. It is outstanding. Thank you, John. I
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: listened this weekend. I'm hooked. I can't wait for more episodes. Tommy,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: tell us all about it.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I got you. It's a gateway drug to soccer. So
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: World Corrupt is a new podcast I'm doing with my
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: friend Roger Bennett. He's the co-host of a show called
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Men in Blazers. It's the best soccer podcast out there
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: by far. In this little mini-series, World Corrupt, we're talking
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: about the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. This tournament is
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: very controversial because FIFA, the governing body for soccer, is
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: hopelessly corrupt. It's like bags of cash in envelopes corrupt.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: It makes no sense to have a soccer tournament in Qatar.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: They literally had to move the tournament from the summer
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: to the winter because it would have been 120 degrees.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: There was no infrastructure. Women and LGBT people are treated horribly.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: And all the stadiums and stuff were built by migrant
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: laborers in these just unbelievably unsafe, horrible conditions. So in
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: the series, we talked to you about the World Cup,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: FIFA history. We talked to people who were part of
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: the U.S. delegation to Switzerland when the games were awarded.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: We talked to Megan Rapinoe about what it's like to
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: be an athlete who speaks up. talk to human rights
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: experts about what fans can do to move the needle
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: and sort of right the wrong that has been done
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: so far, or at least try to. And we also
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: just laugh our asses off because Roger is one of
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: the funniest people I know, and we can't help ourselves,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: and it's better to laugh than to cry. So the
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: series is out now. It's been a ton of work.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: I'm really proud of it. It's on the Pod Save
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: the World and Men in Blazers feeds on Saturdays. please
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: check it out. The world cup is in November. It's
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: mid November. So you got some time, but there will
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: be six of them. So check it out.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: And I thought you guys just do such a great
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: job reconciling like people's love of sports and the joy
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that sports can bring you with the like deep corruption
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: of the world, which I think it's just, it's very
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: entertaining and also like very informative.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: I watched the NFL every Sunday watching, uh, quarterbacks get
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: tossed to the ground and concussed and brutalized, uh, Create
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: some moral quandaries for me, but I still watch anyway.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: And we try to reconcile those, the love and sort
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: of knowing that the institutions and the money that gets
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: washed into pro sports is gross and can distort it all.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: But that's what we talk about.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great. Check it out, everyone. Also, if listening
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: to Crooked Pods is not enough for you, check out
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the Crooked Radio Takeover every weekend in October on SiriusXM
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Progress and on the SiriusXM app. It's a great new
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: way to hear and discover all the great voices and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: shows across the Crooked universe ahead of the midterms. Pod
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Save America episodes will air at 6.30 a.m. and 12 p.m.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: each weekend. For all your friends and family who've got
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: SiriusXM subscriptions, get them hooked on Pod Save America in
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the car when they're listening to SiriusXM. It'll be great.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And Crooked listeners can get up to four months free
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of SiriusXM, so you can check it out at SiriusXM.com
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: slash Crooked. All right. Let's get to the news. Guys,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: we are one month out from Election Day. They're starting
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to mail ballots. There's a chill in the air. The polls.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: 72 in L.A.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: And over the weekend, we got a preview of the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Republican Party's closing argument at a pair of cultish Trump
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: rallies in Nevada and Arizona. The 2024 GOP frontrunner appeared
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: with each state's major candidates and a random assortment of
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: MAGA goons to focus on what voters care about most.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: When will they investigate and prosecute Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton,
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: George Bush, and look into what took place with George
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: Bush's father, a very nice man, and the warehouse of documents?
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: And what about Barack Hussein Obama? Are they under potential prosecution?
• 4:18
  Speaker 6: I don't think so.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, George H.W.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: and a former Chinese restaurant where they combined them. So
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: they're in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant. This is
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: a very important decision that was made. They call it
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: the socks decision because again, it had to do with
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: Bill Clinton and his socks.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: There is no crime.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: You know, there is no crime. It's not a crime.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: And they should give me immediately back everything that they've
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: taken from me because it's mine. They lose documents.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: They plant documents.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: Let's see, is there a book on nuclear destruction or
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: the building of a nuclear weapon cheaply? Let's put that box,
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: let's put that book in with Trump. No, they plant documents.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Wow, I have to say, the part where he advocates
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: investigating a dead president, but then says, he was a
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: nice man.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: He doesn't, I don't think he knows that George H.W.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Bush is dead.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: I think you're right about it. I think you're right.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: And honestly, I think it's about time.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: But wasn't he famously uninvited to the funeral? Oh yeah,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: there was that. He got pretty mad about that.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Biden forgets who's dead. Trump forgets who's dead. These guys
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: forget who's dead.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: So, so it is true. So Jeb Bush later tweeted
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: a clip of this and asked Trump, what the heck
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: is up with you? What do you guys think? What's up?
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: What's up with him?
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Does, is it just me or is he starting to
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: sound like someone doing impersonation?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: He sounds like the, he sounds like the SNL guy.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Now he's doing, he's doing that new SNL impression of himself. Also,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: I'm a little worried that Trump just revealed here a
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: little bit more information about the specifics of the nuclear
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: documents that he was purported to have. Like, is he
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: exaggerating or is he letting us know that it's actually
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: worse than we thought? You know what I mean?
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: It was like, it was a very specific too. Cause
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: he was like, how to build a nuclear bomb cheaply.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Like, did he have, like, a fucking suitcase nuke recipe
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: down there? Like, how bad was it?
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Also, candle pin or big ball bowling?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: No one knows about candle. No one thinks about candle
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: pin outside of you fucking idiots.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Just me and you.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Nobody knows. It's a stupid game. Throwing a baseball at
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: bowling pins.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: You're from Massachusetts. You know what's really fun?
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Throwing a bowling ball as fast as you can at
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: tiny little pins instead of the big dumb ball that spins.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Especially if you've got bumpers, too. You've got bumpers in
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the alley.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I've got to say, also, Chinese restaurant bowling alley combo,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: great idea.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Two great tastes that taste great together.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Should we tell people what he's referring to by the
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant bowling thing? Why bother? Because what else are
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: they listening to us for? These wonderful jokes about what
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: he just said?
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I don't think they were that great.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Let the people know.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Let the people know it's bullshit.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Let's debunk. Let's do some debunking.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: All right, let's put on our fucking debunking helmets and
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: go down into the debunking mines.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Let's go. Let's go. Let's get some fucking, let's get
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: some Pinocchios here.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: He's trying to argue that every president has kept records
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: and done it in the same way as him. And
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: he's describing, what he's doing is describing buildings that used
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: to be used for one purpose that were converted to
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: another purpose and trying to make it sound like they
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: are forever insecure and unsafe. So he's saying like, you know,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: they took the records to a former bowling alley or
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: a restaurant or whatever. Well, sure.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: But you can, you can turn a building into that
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: housed a restaurant into a bank by modifying.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: It and adding a vault.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: That's what happened here.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: If you've ever seen a Chase Bank that's shaped like
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: a pizza hut, it's okay to leave your money there.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 7:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: No, they put a fucking vault in there and then
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: they guarded it with people who had top secret security clearance.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: That's what they did with George H.W. Booker's records before
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: they moved the records into the library, which is the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: permanent home.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, he says in this, but Secret Service is
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: guarding Mar-a-Lago. So he's trying to suggest that's even safer.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: But of course, they weren't. The Secret Service wasn't paying
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: attention to every random office building and room in Mar-a-Lago's basement.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: That's not how it works.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: No, because the Secret Service also didn't know that he
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: had stolen the how-to guide for nukes.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: The whole thing is prepared.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: It's prepared remarks, by the way. I watched it all.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: This is a whole spiel he's doing.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: It's a Stephen Miller thing. And then the Clinton sock
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: thing was Clinton put all of his tapes for his
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Taylor Branch conversations, who's a civil rights historian. He wrote
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a book about Bill Clinton. Clinton had those tapes in
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: his sock drawer in a court. ruled that he could
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: keep them because they were personal and didn't have to
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: do with his presidency. And then there was the Sandy
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Berger piece to this. Yeah, I think Trump was sort
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: of mixing those together. Hey, and the Sandy Berger thing
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: was fucked. Because it was Clinton's sock drawer, not the socks.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: It was Sandy Berger's socks.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Sandy Berger put things in his socks, and that
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: was fucked, and we never really got to the bottom
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he got in some trouble, though.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: So the New York Times has some new reporting about
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: how Trump apparently tried to make a deal with the
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: National Archives over the stolen documents. The deal was he'd
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: give back the government's most highly classified secrets in exchange
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: for documents related to the Russia investigation that Trump believed
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: would exonerate him. Sami, what's your take on that story?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: You think it helps explain why he took the documents
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: in the first place?
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: No.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, he thinks everything is leveraged to this guy, right?
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Whether it's a military aid to Ukraine, these documents, it's
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: all leveraged for him. There has been a lot of
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: weird talk by former aides like hack idiots like Kash Patel,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: who was at the rally, I believe, in Nevada, about
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: the efforts to declassify the Russia investigation documents in the
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: final days of the administration and how mad all these
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: sort of national security MAGA goons were that it didn't happen.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know how that folds in here necessarily. I
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: don't think we can suggest say, though, that it explains
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: kind of what he took, whether he was holding them purposely,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: because we also know that the stockpile in the basement
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: included like information about the president of France and the
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Kim Jong-un letters. So there's clearly some onesies and twosies,
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: you know, some stray docs. Can I.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: So that's all very, that's all. Tommy's making very sophisticated,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: important points. If someone steals your car from in front
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: of your house and then says, I have an offer
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: for you, I'll give you your car back for your
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: other car. That's not a negotiation. None of these documents
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: belong to him. There's nothing to trade. These are all
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: stolen documents. And he's still, he's also continuing to say
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: that they took documents that were his, but that were
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: also planted. They planted documents and they took his documents.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Neither of which is true. He's saying that they're mine.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: They're not yours. These are government records.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: They're government records. And he's also saying, I didn't do this,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: just like all the other ex-presidents did do what I'm
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: saying I didn't do. Like, hey, they all took their documents.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: They all took their nuclear secrets about their how to
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: build a bomb thing. And they didn't get investigated. Why
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: should I get investigated?
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: I got a real Herschel Walker. I didn't pay for
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: an abortion, but if I did, it wouldn't be a problem.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: And I was already given grace by God for doing so.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: But it's good that he's zeroing in on this in
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the final weeks of the campaign. Though, even though Mar-a-Lago
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: is now part of Trump's stump speech, he goes everywhere,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: there's both rallies this weekend, he was talking all about it,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Politico found that out of nearly 6,000 campaign ads that
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: have run since the FBI raid, fewer than 20 have
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: mentioned Mar-a-Lago or the Justice Department. Lovett, why do you
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: think that is?
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Well, a couple points. One, I think it is clearly, like,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: you know, in the immediate aftermath of the raid, there
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: were a lot of Republicans and pundits saying, this is
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: going to energize Republicans. This is going to be their
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: closing issue. That's clearly not the case. They don't view
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: this as like a big galvanizing issue. Uh, and I
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: think the same is true for Democrats in part because
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump isn't on any ballots. What it is is
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: an issue that is being used to raise money. Republicans
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: are using it for, for fundraising and Democrats are using
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: it for fundraising. And there is one exception to the
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: no mention of, uh, of Mar-a-Lago and DOJ investigations, which
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: is that, uh, when you're running against an actual insurrectionist,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: some of the DOJ investigations of the insurrection are coming
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: up in ads. But otherwise, I think it has been
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: more about, you know, small plays to fundraise than actually
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: appeal to any kind of broad, broad group of voters.
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think if you're John Fetterman, you'd probably
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: be better off lighting the money on fire, because at
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: least that would generate light and heat, than putting up
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: TV ads about this issue, because no one gives a fuck.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's just, it's also attacking... Attacking Republicans for defending
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Trump's criminality, it's just like too much of a bank shot, right?
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: People care about abortion rights. They care about economic issues.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It's also not surprising at this point to people. It's
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: sort of baked in. People either think he's a crook
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: or they love him. And like Lovett said, he's not
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: on the ballot either way.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: And Republicans are defending extreme positions that other Republicans have
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: taken on much more relevant and important issues every single day.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: Right, right.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Well, so as always, Republican politicians are also focusing on
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: crime and immigration in the final weeks of the campaign.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And of course, in the Trump era, they're doing it
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: in the most racist way possible. For some reason, Alabama
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Senator Tommy Tuberville was at the Nevada rally. And Georgia
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was at the Arizona rally. It
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: is funny that they're just bringing all these MAGA goons
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: all around the country to states where they have no
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: connection to.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: It's a traveling circus.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: It's like when they send the... It's when the people
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: that don't win American Idol, they tour together.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: It's fine. So here's some of what these two said
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: at the rallies.
• 13:43
  Speaker 7: Some people say, well, they're soft on crime. No, they're
• 13:45
  Speaker 7: not soft on crime. They're pro crime. They want crime.
• 13:49
  Speaker 7: They want crime because they want to take over what
• 13:52
  Speaker 7: you got. They want to control what you have. They
• 13:54
  Speaker 7: want reparation because they think the people that do the
• 13:57
  Speaker 7: crime are.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Owed that bullshit.
• 13:59
  Speaker 8: Joe Biden's five million illegal aliens are on the verge
• 14:03
  Speaker 8: of replacing you. replacing your jobs and replacing your kids
• 14:08
  Speaker 8: in school and coming from all over the world. They're
• 14:11
  Speaker 8: also replacing your culture. And that's not great for America.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Not subtle, not subtle. This is obviously disgusting. But do
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you guys think that like being this blunt is effective
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: outside the MAGA base? And should Democratic candidates be calling
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: it out?
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think I think they should call it out.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know how effective it is. I have a
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: feeling it's surprisingly and sadly effective, or maybe not surprisingly
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: effective with the bass beyond that. I think it's, you know,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: I feel like the phrase they're saying the quiet part
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: out loud has sort of been overused and kind of
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: turned into a cliche. But in this case, it's true.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: And I think it's valuable because it exposes the whole game. Yeah,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: this is not subtle. This is them saying things explicitly.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: But this is the message that of the entire Republican
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Party in the closing of this race. They're not saying
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: it explicitly, but they certainly want people to think this.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: They want this to be the implication. They want this
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: to be the subtext of everything they're talking about on
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: crime and immigration. And I think pointing out when it
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: is this explicit, when it is this directly racist, I
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: think it is valuable to say, look, see, this is
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: what they're trying to do. They don't have answers on inflation.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: They don't have answers on healthcare costs. They don't have
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: answers on housing costs. They don't have answers to any
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: of the problems facing real people. And any of the
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: answers they do offer will make matters worse. They know
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: that they have a problem, that people think they're radical,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: that people think they're extreme. So their goal is to
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: make you more afraid of crime, to make you more
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: afraid of immigrants than you are of their extreme positions,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: of their positions on abortion, to make more salient crime
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: and immigration than, you know, healthcare, education, and abortion.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, MTG, right, she's an idiot who has never
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: met a conspiracy theory she won't repeat. Tommy Tuberville is
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: a racist idiot. who built his career on the backs
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: of black athletes. And it is really despicable and disappointing. And,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: you know, we asked Senator Warnock about these comments and,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: you know, you'll hear it later in the interview, but
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: you could tell he was genuinely hurt.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: You know, like you could, there was like real, like
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: kind of pain in that answer of like someone he'd
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: worked with. They weren't like, look, we were doing research
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: before the interview. Like they worked together on some provision
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: to help peanut farmers literally in Georgia, like your classic
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Senate thing. And he has to go hear his colleagues
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: say something this vile. So I think like, I don't
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: think Democrats should shy away from responding and calling out
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: these comments for what they are, which are overtly racist
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: and disgusting. That said, I do think these, these were
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: the rally. This was Arizona or Nevada, both, both. So like,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know the candidates there. should pivot their message
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: to take on Tommy Tuberville or to take on MTG
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: because they're not running for election. And I think we
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: learned in 2016 that sometimes voters, even voters of color,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: are less motivated by pointing out racism than by talking
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: about what you're going to do for them. And this
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: would also mean you're sort of on the crime and
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: immigration footing for your messaging rather than talking about whatever
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: your game plan is. So I would say if asked,
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: hammer these people for what they are and what they
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: said but don't necessarily switch up your game plan.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that these two examples are just so
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: obviously racist, right? Like it's, you know, Republicans have used
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: dog whistles for decades now. And I think it's one
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: thing to say that crime is a real issue and
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: to start talking about crime. So you bring race into
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: it and you make people think about race or, you know,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: you'd say immigration, you talk about the border and all
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. And it's all these dog whistles
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Now we're so far past that now.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Just like the idea that black people are criminals and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: immigrants are coming here to replace white people are two
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: ideas that are not only vile, but like just still
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: very unpopular. Way too popular for sure with a small
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: percentage of this country, but still not. I mean, like
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that is a it's a crazy thing.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: You just described Fox News's programming at night. for the
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: last 60 days before every election. I'm not even being sarcastic.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: It's not even a joke. It would be great if
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: the media held candidates, especially a United States senator, to
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: a different standard and pressed all of them on Tommy
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: T's comments and why he's such a shitty coach and
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: shitty person. But I don't have a lot of faith
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: that'll happen because Tucker's over there doing a two-hour interview
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: with Kanye where they're not talking about his anti-Semitic comments
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: from over the weekend or They're just letting him sort
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: of spout off about all kinds of other nutty conspiracy theories.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that Masters, Lake, Laxalt, Lombardo should just
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: all be asked if they stand by what was said
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: at their rallies about black Americans and about immigrants.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: And I do think it is valuable to call this out,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: not because you're pivoting to talk about this, but because
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: you're using this as a validation for something Democrats have
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: been saying for a long time and a lot of
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: liberals have been saying for a long time that, look,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: this is a dog whistle. this message on crime, this
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: message on immigration, they are making a coded and sometimes
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: barely coded, now not coded, racist argument. And that is
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: much more difficult to debate after you see a clip
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: like this, because this is just a less subtle version
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: of the thing that Tucker says every single night, every day.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because the problem with the dog whistle remarks is
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: not everyone hears the dog whistle. Right. That's the whole thing.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: This one, everyone can hear it.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: So another horrifying comment at the rallies came from Nevada
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Secretary of State candidate Jim Marchant, who has ties to
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the QAnon cult and has organized an entire slate of
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: MAGA Secretary of State candidates willing to overturn the election.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 19:58
  Speaker 9: President Trump and I lost an election in 2020 because
• 20:01
  Speaker 9: of a rigged election. And when my coalition of Secretary
• 20:05
  Speaker 9: of State candidates around the country get elected, we're going
• 20:09
  Speaker 9: to fix the whole country. And President Trump is going
• 20:12
  Speaker 9: to be president again in 2024.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So Marchant and Mark Fincham, who's the Secretary of State
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: candidate in Arizona, are both leading their Democratic opponents in
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the polls. Tommy, what happens if they win? And what
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: can we do to stop that from happening?
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, these two are very bad news. I mean,
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: just you had some of the highlights, but A QAnon-loving Oathkeeper.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: That seems very bad. Mark Fincham, that is, who wants
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: to decertify the 2020 election. Fincham has also spent almost
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: no money but is winning because of these sort of
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: national headwinds. Jim Marchand is also an election denier who
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: says Trump won Nevada and that he wouldn't have certified
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: the election results in 2020. He also wants to end
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: early voting and vote by mail. So these guys could
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: completely– radically changed the way voting happens in those states
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: and imperiled the ability for us to have fair elections
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: in the future. So it's a big, big deal. And
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: in both cases, the Republicans are winning just because no
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: one is paying attention to the race. They're not focused
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: on down ballot races. So it's very important for us
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: to get in gear here.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's terrifying to think that the top
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: elections official in both Arizona and Nevada, two very competitive states,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: could be people who could either refuse to certify the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: election or could fuck up the vote count in a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: myriad number of ways, not least of which is sort
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of abolishing early voting and mail-in voting and all the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: stuff that you mentioned, but also just that that person
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: is in control of the vote count. and they can
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: make all sorts of mischief that way. It's really scary.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Love it. What do you think about these wackos?
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: I love it. I think it's fantastic that they're really
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: kind of shaking things up. No, look, you know, stepping back,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: it is, I think sometimes, you know, why is a
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: person like this close? How is it close? And the
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: reason it's close is because it's something we complain about
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: all the time. It is why we're all frustrated as
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: news consumers. It's why we started doing this show that like,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: there are just very few, very few media outlets. There's
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: very little local journalism. There's very little national journalism that's
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: clear and reliably and consistently showing people the stakes in
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: this election. If you are in Nevada, there's very little
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: information that is helping you understand just who these people are.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of misinformation from dark money, from propaganda,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: from Fox news, from Facebook that is trying to mislead
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: and distract you from what's at stake. And so what
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: do we do to fill in that gap? Well, the
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: only way people are going to get accurate information or
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: really come to understand the stakes is through politics, through campaigning,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: through people knocking on doors, people calling them on the phone.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: And so the harder it is for people to get
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: information through just basic basic reporting, the more it is
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: incumbent on people to sign up and volunteer and be
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: the person that brings that information directly to voters because
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: we're the only stopgap because this shouldn't be close, this
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be hard. If people had accurate information, if people
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: understood what was at stake, it wouldn't be close.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's some good candidates running against these psychopaths, Adrian Fontes,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Cisco Aguilar. They're both down between sort of like 3%
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: to 8%, but again, no one pays attention to these
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: races till the very end. So they spent way more
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: money than their Republican opponents, but not that much yet.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: If you go to votesaveamerica.com, we actually have a fund
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: for secretaries of state and attorney generals in key states.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: You can donate to it. I said, we just hit
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: our $ 300, 000 goal. So someone very smart jacked it up
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: to 350 while we weren't looking, but hey, stretch goal.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: That's great. No, that's very, very important. I mean, love
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: it to your point. Media Matters wrote a piece about this.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Like Not one local Nevada television station included Marchant's comments
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: in their coverage of the rally. And just about most
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of the outlets, the newspaper outlets, didn't either. So, like,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: we can all complain, like, why would these voters vote
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: for someone like that? What's wrong with them? Don't they
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: read Twitter like we do and see how crazy? Like, no,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: they don't. They watch their local news and read their newspaper,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and it's not fucking in there. So that's why they don't.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: That's why it's important. So go to votesaveamerica.com. All right.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Before we get to our interview with Senator Warnock, let's
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: talk about dank Brandon.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Oh boy. Here we go.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Fulfilling his campaign promise to pardon everyone convicted of possessing
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: marijuana under federal law. Since it became a crime in
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the early seventies, the president also asked the attorney general
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: to review whether marijuana should still be in the same
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: legal category as drugs like heroin and LSD. Uh, love it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: How big of a deal is this and who will
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: it help?
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: It's a huge deal. It's a massive deal. Uh, First
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: and foremost, it helps a lot of people that have
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: this criminal record for possessing marijuana that makes it hard
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: for them to get a job. It makes them hard
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: for them to just live a normal life and get
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: past what's ultimately like an unjust and unfair conviction. And
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: then rescheduling this will transform drug policy in this country.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: I do think that there's been something really ugly and
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: feckless even in the last few years. There's been this
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: way of talking about marijuana as if it's already legal. like, oh,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: you know, we've left it up to the states. It's
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: legal here. It's legal there. No, it has never been legal.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: It has been a serious federal crime. And I think
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: even some, there are some Republicans that have kind of,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: that have been willing to praise Biden for doing this,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: but some others that haven't. And part of the reason
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: they haven't is they're kind of playing a similar game
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: to Tuberville, which is saying it's already legal for you.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: This is just something that's illegal for poor people and
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: black people and people that get caught up in the
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: legal system. So, you know, it is a it's transformative.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Well, what do we know about the politics of marijuana legalization, Tommy?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And would you make this part of your closing message
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: if you were a Democratic candidate right now? I would.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's wildly popular. 61% of voters approve the
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: decision to pardon people convicted of possession and 68% support
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: legislation or legalization, sorry. As Lovett said earlier, 19 states
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: have legalized small quantities of weed. So I think the
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: politics are in our favor. It's worth pointing out that
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Trump at these same rallies we were just talking about
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: is now calling for the death penalty for drug dealers.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know that he's specified what drug, but the
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Republican message is going hardcore the other direction. He's emulating
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: the Philippines and other countries. The interesting thing about this decision,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, you can pardon people convicted of possession
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: under federal law. You can urge states to follow suit,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: but your mostly Democratic governors are the ones who are
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: likely to do so. But ironically, reviewing how marijuana is
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: scheduled under federal law could actually force the industry to
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: be more responsible. Because if they were regulated by the FDA,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: they would have to actually think about and be honest
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: about their advertising. And then also, look, I mean, there
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: is sort of like the marijuana that people smoke casually
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: and there's edibles and stuff. And then there's like the
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: 90% pure stuff that is a whole different ballgame than
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: what we all came up on. You know, and so
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: a little more common sense regulation around the range of
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: products being sold to people like us, but also young kids,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I think would be a very good thing. Yeah.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's a very simple message too, right? Like
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Republicans want to throw you in jail for smoking weed,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Democrats don't. It doesn't get much easier than that. Republicans like,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: You know, they think anyone should be able to get
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: an AK-47, but they want you to go to jail
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: for smoking weed.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: And just remember, the roots of these policies are Richard
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Nixon trying to lock up black people and anti-war activists.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: They said it on the record. So it's all out there.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: That's the history of these idiotic drug policies.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: And John, I don't think LSD should be Schedule 1 either,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: by the way.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I think LSD absolutely should be reviewed the way it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: scheduled because there was tons of research. I mean, we
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: all watch the same Michael Pollan documentary, I'm sure, on Netflix.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: But there was a ton of research before the panic
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: over people's kids becoming hippies in the 60s about the
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: medicinal benefits of some of these drugs. And they were
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: doing studies and tests. And then when you schedule one it,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: you're not allowed to do that anymore.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Half of Silicon Valley is microdosing mushrooms and LSD. And
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: look how great they are for everybody. Look at all
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: the good they're doing. Some of these apps are amazing.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: That's a model. That's a model for everyone. Just as
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Timothy Leary imagined it, right?
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: You microdose and you just code for 24 hours straight.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Most importantly, what were your favorite Biden marijuana jokes?
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: What do you think, Lovett?
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Well, there was this one joke that was making the
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: rounds that people were really loving, which was marijuana win
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the midterms.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Lovett tried so many times in Slack. I think three
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: or four times you put.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: That in there.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I think it's good. People loved it. That's why I
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: did it so many times.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: What did we go with? Someone had a meme of
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Biden with the red eyes and a marijuana leaf behind him,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: and it just said, let's grow, Brandon.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: That's good.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I just really got me. That was a good one.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: That's fun.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: I was scrolling down through the Slack here.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Sarah Lazarus gave us, of course, Yes, We Can. Oh, no,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: we did it, Joe. We did it, Joe.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: We did it, Joe.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: We did it was very that was very good.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Also like i you know uh it's an amazing it's
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: just sort of stepping back from like the last six
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: months like a series of legislative achievements followed by student
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: loan relief followed by this uh it's pretty.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Great yeah look you can have your disappointments with uh
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for not letting us do
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: a bigger fucking reconciliation package and not getting rid of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the filibuster for sure. But Joe Biden has now shepherded
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: through all the legislation he could possibly get through this
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Congress and now used a ton of executive power to
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: get a lot of other things done that he couldn't
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: get through in Congress. So it's a pretty good track record.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: And it does seem like they are clearly weighted to
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: do some of these big executive actions until closer to
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: the election in the hopes that people would notice them,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: learn about them and remember them.
• 30:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: That's cynical.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Memories are about, well, you know what? We can't, we
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: can't remember what we fucking talked about last week on
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: this podcast.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: So, you know, that's the weed. That's the problem. You can't,
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: you gotta legalize weed as close as you can until
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: the election. Cause everybody who cares about is only going
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: to remember it so long.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a good point.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about, here's my thing. I don't, look,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: my record on edibles is well known. I don't understand this,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: that all of a sudden there's going to be like
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Funyun edibles and all these different kinds of flavored edibles.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's a fundamental confusion about like how
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: edibles work.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Totally. You don't want a whole bag.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Like alcohol, you can sip, you experience it in real time.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: That's why it's like, it's like a but with an edible,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: you take it and then you wait a long time
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: and then you feel the effects. So it's not like
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: a noshing food. I don't understand putting marijuana in noshing foods.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: It does not make sense to me.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's not complicate the simple here. Have an edible
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: and then independently buy the Funyuns. There's no need to
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: mix the two.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Right, they don't need to be together. It doesn't make sense.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense, Tommy.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Also, love it.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Do you want to explain why you're on the set
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: of Borat with Rudy Giuliani about to pop up with
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: that bed behind you for our YouTube viewers?
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: First of all, I think we should all take a
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: moment and talk about the fact that it's fucking fascinating
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: that you see a completely anodyne and generic hotel room.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: And your first thought is Rudy taking his pants off.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: This is just a bed, my friend. That's what you
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: think of when you see a fucking bed. So get
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: yourself checked out. Thank you. I'm in North Carolina.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: I'm in Charlotte.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: We did a canvas today with Jeff Jackson, who's running
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: for Congress. He's our age. So he's very young.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: 35. So he's like pretty old.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: But that was fun. We canvassed with him. We talked
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: to Alma Adams, who's a congresswoman from Charlotte, and going
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: to do some Sherry Beasley campaigning tomorrow. So, look, I'm
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: out here with the people.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: I'm out here with the people. At any point, did
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: you say, I'm sorry, Jeff Jackson?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: No, don't. Don't do it.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: But I did call him Josh Jackson at one point.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Which obviously is a reference to... What's up, Pacey?
• 32:47
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Which, you know, that wasn't great.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: That was a mistake.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Uh, we talked to Jill.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: My joke is lame and you're dropping Pacey.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm trying to keep up with you, dad. Unbelievable.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: I hung out with Giselle Fetterman in, uh, in, in Pittsburgh.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: We don't want you. We don't need your whole schedule.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: You guys can eat shit. I haven't been home for
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: two weeks.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: And by the way, just ask what the bed was
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: doing in the background.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you what I'm doing.
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: That's so funny.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: That's the joke. He's on so many people. He lists
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: off his accomplishments for the weekend. How many berries did
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: you go to?
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Honestly, I've made sure the hotels are near the berries.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: I can't do this. I'm not going to be. I'm
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: not going to. Look, I'll see America, but I got
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: to go to an L.A.
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: Gym.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: All right. We do have to throw it to Warnock.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: This isn't the end of the podcast. When we come back,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: we will talk to Senator Raphael Warnock.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Joining us now is the Democratic senator from Georgia. He's
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: running to keep his seat in one of the closest
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: and most important midterm races this election season. Senator Raphael Warnock,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: thank you for joining us on the pod.
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: So let's just sort of jump into the latest news
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: in the race. There have been several reports that your opponent,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: Herschel Walker, paid for an ex-girlfriend's abortion and then urged
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: her to terminate a second pregnancy a couple of years later.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Several news outlets have now seen a check written to
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: this woman by Herschel Walker. There was a get well
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: card in his handwriting. Herschel Walker's own son seemed to
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: confirm this story, yet Herschel Walker is still denying it.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: My question is, do you believe him? And if not,
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: what does it say about his candidacy that he would
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: lie about something like this?
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: Well, I will leave it up to the people of
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: Georgia to decide whether they believe him. Here's what I believe.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: I believe in a woman's right to choose. And I
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: have been consistent on this point. My view has not changed.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: I have often said that I think that a patient's
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: room is too small and too cramped of a space
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: for a woman, her doctor, and the government. That's too
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: many people in the room. The women of this country
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: and the women of Georgia woke up one summer morning
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: and saw that a core constitutional protection that they've been
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: able to count on for half a century had been
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: completely undermined by an activist Supreme Court. And my opponent
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: thinks that apparently that's not far enough. And so he
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: wants a nationwide ban on abortion. No exceptions, no exceptions,
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: he says, which would include rape, incest, the life of
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: the mother, I think that's extreme.
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: It's out of touch with the women of Georgia.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: And I think the people of Georgia deserve someone in
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: the Senate who believes that when it comes to reproductive
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: health care, women and doctors are wiser and far more
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: principled than politicians.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that they want a ban, that Herschel Walker
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: proposes a ban with no exceptions. He seems to think
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: there's an exception for when the situation involves Herschel Walker.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Like, do you.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Think it's fair that Republican politicians seem okay with abortions
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: when they involve Republican politicians but want to ban them
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: for everyone else?
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: I think that my view has been consistent. And I
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: believe in reproductive choice. And, you know, I sometimes get
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: pushed back on this point as a person of faith.
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: But I think the issue when it comes to the
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: public square is whose choice is it? And if you
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: really are someone who reverences life, and I certainly do,
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: it seems to me that you should be deeply offended
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: by the high rates of infant mortality and maternal mortality
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: in this country. We have the dubious distinction in America
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: of far outstripping our Western and wealthy counterparts when it
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: comes to maternal mortality. Too many women in Georgia are
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: dying in a rich country. trying to have babies. And
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: for black women, it's three to four times the rate
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: of white women, even when they have the insurance and
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: the income. And so I think that's something that government
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: can actually do something about. And it's something that I've
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: worked on throughout my career, way before I came to
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: the Senate.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: A little change of speed here. So as you mentioned earlier,
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: you're a pastor. That involves finding grace in challenging moments,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: light in darkness. Is that what prepared you to work
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: with Ted Cruz?
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: Listen, the thing about being a pastor, as you point out,
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: is that we have to receive and we're glad to
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: receive whoever comes through the door. And it's never too
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: late to get religion, if you will. And so Ted
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Cruz and I are on the Commerce Committee. We don't
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: agree on much. In fact, I'll admit that most days
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: I'm sitting there in committee listening to him talk and
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: I'm wondering to myself, man, is that what you came
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: here to do? I got dressed this morning, but did
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: you put on a tie to do that? But one day,
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: one day he had something he wanted to get done
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: that made sense to me. He wanted to have Interstate
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: 14 named a priority corridor. It's a road that he
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: wants to see really built out as an interstate.
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: It's an interstate. So it doesn't stop at the Texas border.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: It would run through Georgia and it would revitalize parts
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: of our state. And so I joined with Ted Cruz
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: and the Warnock Cruz amendment as part of the bipartisan
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: infrastructure bill to get that amendment done. But I'm prepared to,
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: you know, stand where I stand and take on the
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: issues that I take on and By contrast to him
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: the very next day, I'll do, I'll work with whomever I.
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: Can work with while I can work with them. If
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: it'll help me do some good work for Georgia.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: Well, that's a great story. And when this is all
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: over and you win the race, he can probably tell
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: you some spots in Cancun to get some, some R
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: and R, you know, take a quick break, you know,
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: so that's a good thing too.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: You know, you know, he and I both, he doesn't
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: use it much, but his name is also Raphael.
• 39:18
  Speaker 6: So I told him, that's right.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: You know, maybe we can form the Raphael caucus and
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: get some good, Good things done.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Perfect. I wanted to ask about one of your other
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Senate colleagues Tommy Tuberville, who I know you work with
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: as well. He said over the weekend that Democrats want
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: reparations because they think the people that do the crime
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: are owed that. The NAACP called the remarks flat out racist.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: What's your reaction?
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: It's deeply disappointing.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: And I think it's one more example of the ways
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: in which we are in a moment where there are
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: those in office who are trying to appeal to the
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: worst in us for short-term political gain. And not only
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: is this rhetoric inappropriate, quite frankly, it's dangerous. And he
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: really should apologize and make amends for that kind of rhetoric. Look,
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: I have spent my whole career trying to bring people together.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: I'm the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: King Jr.
• 40:36
  Speaker 6: Preached.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: And part of that tradition is that King found ways to,
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: even as he challenged people to try to convert his adversaries,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: if you will, And so Georgia sent a pastor to
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: the Senate and they used to call John Lewis, my parishioner,
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: the conscience of the Senate, the conscience of the Congress. Well,
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: I've been in the Senate now for about 22 months
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: and I can tell you that if the Congress on
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: the House side needs a conscience, the Senate needs a soul.
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: And so I will continue to try to speak to
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: the best in us embodied in that American covenant, e pluribus.
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: Unum, out of many.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: That is refreshing to hear. And, you know, I think
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: we all miss that old playbook of people trying to
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: work together. Unfortunately, there's so many candidates this cycle, including
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Herschel Walker, who's sort of following the Trump playbook in
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: so many ways, including his relationship with the truth and
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: with reality. You know, he's lied about his academic record.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: He lied about his business record, lied about being a cop.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: That was a weird one. Lied about paying for an abortion.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: I could go on. But despite that, the race is
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: still close. And so my question is, there was this
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: annoying narrative in 2016 when Trump lied and lied and
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: lied and then still got elected. And people started to think, oh,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: maybe lying and truth and these scandals don't matter anymore.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Do you think that your election can help us retest
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: that theory? Are you hearing from people that are concerned
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: about these lies?
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: Look, there's no question that my opponent has a problem
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: with the truth. look, these races are close. And many
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: of the folks who are watching us probably feel like
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: it shouldn't be close. But I think it's a reflection
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: of where we are politically in the country. And here
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: is a chance for us to try to speak to
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: the highest and the best in us. And it's the
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: reason why we need all hands on deck right now.
• 42:46
  Speaker 6: Look, Georgia did an amazing thing.
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: It sent its first African-American senator and its first Jewish
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: senator to the Senate in one fell.
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: Swoop, made the difference.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: If me and my brother from another mother, I like
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: to call him John Ossoff, had not gotten elected, we
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have had the majority in the Senate, which means
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: we wouldn't have confirmed Katonji Brown Jackson, the first Black
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: woman to the Supreme Court. We wouldn't have passed such
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: important legislation, this Congress. But what I recall is that
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: it took all hands on deck, and it took a
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: lot of hands. And so I would appeal to the
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: folks who are watching us right now, don't sleep through
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: this election.
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: Don't take it for granted.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: Don't look at the obvious difference between me and my opponents.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: and assume that we have it in the bag. We
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: need you to knock on doors. We need folks to give.
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: Go to my website, warnockforgeorgia.com. And we need the folks
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: who are watching me right now from Georgia to start
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: voting on October 17th. We often talk about Election Day.
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: I've been telling folks there's no such thing as Election Day.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: It's election season. We cannot wait until November the 8th.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Anything can happen on Election Day.
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: It may rain.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: And I can tell you that that does impact turnout.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: And on election day, we know from the past experience
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: that the lines tend to be very long, not in
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: all communities and certain communities. So we need people to
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: turn out on October 17th through November 4th. We need
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: all hands on deck. The soul of our country is
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: on the line.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I sat down with a focus group of young Black
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: voters in Atlanta back in August. And most of them
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: described themselves as moderate. They were not fans of Herschel Walker,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: not friends of Brian Kemp. But I was struck by
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: how disappointed they were in our political system, especially when
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: they were talking about race. And one young man said,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: this might sound a bit radical, but for black people
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: to get what we truly want, I don't think there's
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: altering of the system. We're going to have to tear
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: the system down. And that view was sort of reflected
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: in the group. What do you say to voters today?
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: who might be feeling that level of frustration right now?
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: Look, I feel frustrated sometimes myself. And that's when you
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: know you're doing important work. If it were easy, it
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: would have been done a long time ago. And, you know,
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: when I would get discouraged, I think about somebody like
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: John Lewis, who for me is not just a historic figure.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: I was his pastor. Although I met him decades ago
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: when I was a college student. And I'll tell you
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: what I was thinking the night I was preparing to
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: officiate his funeral the next morning. I was looking at
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: that old classic footage of John Lewis and Hosea Williams
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, wearing those trench coats, each
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: with a backpack on. And I asked myself, what was
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: John Lewis thinking that day as he crossed that bridge
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: with police officers and billy clubs? You talk about brute
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: force and recalcitrance to change and inclusion. I mean, that's
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: the embodiment of it. And yet he kept marching across
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: that bridge. I'll tell you, I don't know what he
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: was thinking, but I'll tell you what he was not thinking.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: He was not thinking that he would one day be
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: remembered as a hero, that three presidents from both parties
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: would show up at his funeral, that he'd be the
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom. He couldn't have
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: predicted that. And quite frankly, the John Lewis that I
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: knew didn't care about any of that. I think he
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: was just trying to stay alive to fight the next day.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: And yet by some stroke of faith and human resilience,
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: he bent the arc a little bit closer towards justice.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: And that's the nature of our historical arc as a country.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: Our democracy, this grand experiment in self-government and inclusion, These ideals,
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: these Jeffersonian ideals that are talked about by forefathers who
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: fell short, who did not live up to the ideals,
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: but put it on paper. That work moves forward and
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: fits and starts. Sometimes the democracy expands, sometimes it contracts.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: But even contractions, painful contractions, open up the possibility to
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: new birth. There is no new birth without contractions. And
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: so I would encourage us to find a way to
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: channel our frustration into what Dr. King called the fierce
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: urgency of now and keep fighting.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: That's a beautiful place to close, but I'm going to
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: ruin it with a quick follow-up, which is just to say,
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: what is it like to have to preach in front
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: of John Lewis, one of the greatest Americans maybe who
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: has ever lived, and you're supposed to tell him what
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: to do, think, or preach to him?
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: How does that work?
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, John Lewis himself thought at one point
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: that he would be a preacher. He often would tell
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: the story how as a farm boy, he started preaching
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: to the chickens. And one day he gave what we
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: call in my Baptist tradition, a trial sermon, which means
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: you believe you've been called, but the community needs to
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: affirm it. But instead of preaching sermons, he became one.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: And all of us are better because of it. And so, yeah,
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: it was quite an experience to preach with the likes
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: of John Lewis sitting in my congregation. And Christine King Ferris,
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: the only living sibling of Martin Luther King Jr., who
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: is still at my church. She's 95 years old. And
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: what I've tried to do is embody the sermon, even
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: when the sermon falls short. And I hope all of
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: us will do that in this moment. There is a
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: way in which what we do, what each of us
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: does right now is the message and a message to
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: the future. And I hope we'll think about what we
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: want that message to say.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Senator Warnock, thank you for your inspiring words and thank
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: you for spending some time with us. Good luck out
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: there in the campaign trail. Go win this thing.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Everyone sign up, knock doors, volunteer, donate.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Senator Warnock for joining us today.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Love it.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Good luck on the road. Thanks. We hope to see
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: you soon.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: I'm never coming back. I'm never allowed to come back.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: It's partly your fault I can't come back sooner.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: We're getting a lot done here. We're getting a lot done.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Our producers are Haley Muse and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: sound engineered the show. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Sandy Gerard, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: and Amelia Montu. Our episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: slash podsaveamerica.