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How Biden Can Handle the Age Thing · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party wrestle
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: with concerns about the president's age in the wake of
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the special counsel's report. And later, former Representative Mondaire Jones
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: stops by the studio to talk about the dysfunctional Congress
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: he's trying to get back to, how control of the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: House might hinge on New York races like his, and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: tomorrow's big special election to replace George Santos. But first,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: just as the president was dealing with the fallout from
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Robert Herr's characterization of him as a well-meaning elderly man
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: with a poor memory, Donald Trump popped up at a
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: rally in South Carolina to remind everyone, that he's an
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: elderly man with a poor memory who doesn't mean well
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: at all. And that right now, it looks like the
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: choice in this election is between old versus crazy.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: And I've called for cognitive tests.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: I actually think anybody running for president should have tests.
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: I think, and I pass them every time.
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: Dr.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: Ronny Jackson gave me the first one.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Where's her husband? Oh, he's away.
• 1:19
  Speaker 6: He's away.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: What happened to her husband? What happened to her husband?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Where is he?
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: He's gone. He knew.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: They asked me that question. One of the presidents of
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: a big country stood up, said, well, sir, if we
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: I said, no, I would not protect you. In fact,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: You got to pay. Sir, sir, could you imagine imagine
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the meeting? Where a president of another country said, sir, sir, Mr.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Trump, sir.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely happened.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Definitely happened.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Definitely happened. Just like that.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Trump was, when he was saying she there, he was
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: referring to, of course, to Nikki Haley. Mocking her husband
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: who was deployed. And then he was telling this story
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: about NATO. Tommy, this isn't the first time Trump has
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: threatened to abandon our allies. It sure seems like the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: most alarming comments he's made on this. Can you help
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: people understand the history of his beef with NATO? Can't
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: believe I'm saying that phrase. And why what he said
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: in South Carolina is such a big deal.
• 2:20
  Speaker 7: It's a classic beef, East Coast, West Coast. OK, a
• 2:24
  Speaker 7: little quick and dirty on NATO spending. So there's a small,
• 2:26
  Speaker 7: a common budget for NATO that pays for headquarters and stuff.
• 2:29
  Speaker 7: That's like three billion dollars. That's not what Trump is
• 2:31
  Speaker 7: talking about. Trump has been going on and on for
• 2:33
  Speaker 7: years about an agreement among the allies to spend two
• 2:37
  Speaker 7: percent of GDP on their own defense by 2024. The
• 2:40
  Speaker 7: idea is to make a significant but consistent investment in
• 2:44
  Speaker 7: all these countries into your own defense, but is one
• 2:47
  Speaker 7: that is proportional to your own capacity. But the key
• 2:50
  Speaker 7: part to understand is this is countries, let's say France,
• 2:54
  Speaker 7: agreeing to spend 2% of GDP on its own military,
• 2:57
  Speaker 7: on its own troops, on its own tanks, on its
• 2:59
  Speaker 7: own baguettes.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Whatever they do over there.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: However they defend themselves. That's up to them, right?
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: Just with a sharp and kind of mean comment.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: That's usually the way.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: In a nice uniform.
• 3:09
  Speaker 7: Don't think of this as a big NATO group dinner
• 3:12
  Speaker 7: where the bill comes and then Luxembourg and Belgium are like,
• 3:15
  Speaker 7: I forgot my wallet. Like, here's 20 bucks. Think of
• 3:17
  Speaker 7: it as a NATO potluck. where everyone is bringing.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: 2% of GDP. But there's not NATO dues. There's not
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: like a NATO kitty. Everyone's like putting.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: The money in the NATO kitty.
• 3:26
  Speaker 7: You're each bringing 2% of GDP to the potluck, and
• 3:29
  Speaker 7: then there's more aggregate defense capacity. So the US, we're
• 3:34
  Speaker 7: the largest economy in the world. We spend well over
• 3:36
  Speaker 7: 2% of GDP on defense. That's a political decision. Obviously,
• 3:39
  Speaker 7: it all doesn't go towards defense in Europe, but we
• 3:41
  Speaker 7: are the heart of NATO. So the second beef he's
• 3:44
  Speaker 7: had with NATO is around something called Article 5, which
• 3:47
  Speaker 7: is the collective defense principle. It's the backbone of NATO,
• 3:50
  Speaker 7: which says an attack on one NATO ally is an
• 3:52
  Speaker 7: attack on all. NATO has invoked Article 5 only one time.
• 3:56
  Speaker 7: That was after 9-11 in our defense. So in 2016
• 3:58
  Speaker 7: and 17, Trump was out there calling NATO obsolete. He
• 4:02
  Speaker 7: suggested that Article 5 was conditional, meaning that only countries
• 4:05
  Speaker 7: that had hit their defense spending targets would get help
• 4:08
  Speaker 7: were they to be attacked, right? Since then, a lot
• 4:10
  Speaker 7: has changed. Russia has invaded Ukraine, a debate that kind
• 4:14
  Speaker 7: of felt like esoteric. theoretical conversation got really real. And
• 4:19
  Speaker 7: so in the South Carolina speech, Trump is telling this totally,
• 4:23
  Speaker 7: you know, real story, felt like a transcript at times.
• 4:27
  Speaker 7: But he added that not only would he, you know,
• 4:30
  Speaker 7: not only is he yelling at countries for not spending
• 4:32
  Speaker 7: enough on defense, he said he would encourage Russia to
• 4:35
  Speaker 7: invade countries that don't spend 2% of GDP on defense.
• 4:38
  Speaker 7: So that is what's new from this event in South Carolina.
• 4:42
  Speaker 7: It's not at all funny to countries in Eastern Europe
• 4:44
  Speaker 7: who think that in a couple of years, Russia will
• 4:46
  Speaker 7: probably test a NATO country. And they're also very nervously
• 4:49
  Speaker 7: watching Russia ramp up their own military spending. They're getting
• 4:52
  Speaker 7: weapons from North Korea. They're getting weapons from Iran. So
• 4:55
  Speaker 7: this is very real for a bunch of folks in Europe.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Sir, before I ask my question, I just want to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: say you're the greatest president of the United States that's
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: ever been. You're the best leader the world has ever seen. Now,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I do have a comment about.
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: nato and you don't stand weird there's nothing weird about
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: the way you stand but now to my comment about
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So it is it's it's incredibly dangerous because i think
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: if you're vladimir putin trump wins and you're trying to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: decide whether to invade poland or the baltic states trump's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: statement would make you think it's a lot less likely
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the u.s will jump in.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah it's you know i was trying to think
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: it was like article five so it's a bit like
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: a defibrillator um you know, you're glad it's there on
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: the wall, but if you're using it, something's gone terribly wrong.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: And it does, like, we're going to talk about it, but, like,
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: people trying to play this down, oh, this is just Trump,
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: this is just how Trump talks. How you talk about
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: this is really important. It is really important that the
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: president show resolve in this, in part to avoid a conflict.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: But deterrence.
• 5:54
  Speaker 7: And wars have started over less obvious miscommunications. I mean,
• 5:58
  Speaker 7: I don't know if this is miscommunication. This is Trump
• 6:00
  Speaker 7: saying he doesn't care if you invade Russia.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Well, most Republicans have been typically silent on this. And
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: those who have spoken up have defended Trump. One of
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the people who said it's just the way he talks,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. Let's listen.
• 6:12
  Speaker 8: Donald Trump is not a member of the Council of
• 6:14
  Speaker 8: Foreign Relations. He doesn't talk like a traditional politician. And
• 6:18
  Speaker 8: we've already been through this. Now, you'd think people had
• 6:20
  Speaker 8: figured it out by now. What he's basically saying is,
• 6:23
  Speaker 8: if you see the comments, he said NATO was broke
• 6:25
  Speaker 8: or busted until he took over because people weren't paying
• 6:28
  Speaker 8: their dues. And then he told the story about how
• 6:31
  Speaker 8: he used leverage to get people to step up to
• 6:33
  Speaker 8: the plate and become more active in NATO. He's not
• 6:36
  Speaker 8: the first American president. In fact, virtually every American president
• 6:39
  Speaker 8: at some point in some way has complained about other
• 6:42
  Speaker 8: countries in NATO not doing enough.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's true that other presidents have complained,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: but other presidents haven't said, hey, Russia, do whatever you
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: want to the to the deadbeats, to the NATO deadbeats.
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: I think the fact that Trump doesn't talk like a
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: politician will be a comfort to the people of Vilnius.
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: as the Russians pass by their window on their way
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: to Warsaw?
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Look, he's not a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, in.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Case you were confused. He's got some pointy-headed ivory tower.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: He's not fucking Richard Haass over here.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: Look, and look, there's one thing we all agree, left
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: and right, Donald Trump is no Richard Haass.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: That kind of line worked in 2016. He was president
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: four years.
• 7:20
  Speaker 7: You don't get to play the, oh, he's just kind
• 7:22
  Speaker 7: of green, he's not an expert, he talks like a
• 7:25
  Speaker 7: working man card at this point.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Marco Rubio- got a law passed with Tim Kaine that
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: prevents presidents from pulling out of NATO without Senate approval.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Why do you think they needed to pass that law?
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Why do you think they tried to pass that law?
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Do you think it was because of Barack Obama or
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: George Bush or any other president? No, they were worried
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: about fucking Donald Trump. And then he goes out there
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and says that.
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: I also do feel like sometimes when I see someone
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: like Marco Rubio saying like this, I was like, but
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: was the Trump, were the Trump years some kind of
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: a dream I had? And I had this like, we
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: were talking about it earlier this morning.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: It's like, there's something.
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: I feel like I saw the Rubio comments. And one
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: of the points he makes is it's not like Donald
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: Trump removed troops from Europe. But wait, I think he
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: might have. And then you go back in June and
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: June of 2020. He announces that we are going to
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: withdraw starting 10,000 troops out of Germany, which was universally
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: criticized by the foreign policy by foreign policy expert Richard Haass,
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: Richard Haass, probably and Republicans and Democrats. And it was
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: reversed by Joe Biden when he takes office.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: So morning Joe panel right here. Without the gravitas.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Hey, get him in here.
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: I have a surprise for everybody. Richard Haas is here today.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: This is a big new.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Here's what I want to say to Marco Rubio. Just
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: quit politics, okay?
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: You lost your little bid for the presidency.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: He's doing a Veep tryout. You tried to quit the Senate.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: You clearly hate being there. Just quit.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Veep tryout.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Go do something else. I don't know.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I keep seeing that Marco Rubio is on the short
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: list for VP and they're going to vet him.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: No way.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: He lives in Florida and so does Donald Trump. The Constitution...
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Pretty clear on that point. The president and the VP
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: can't be from the same state.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: Well, no, because he says a lot of things we
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: don't care about anymore.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: So much for the insurrection.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, point, love it.
• 9:03
  Speaker 7: But look, Marco Rubio, he's trying to reinvent himself as
• 9:05
  Speaker 7: a foreign policy guy, but he's like yada, yada, yada-ing
• 9:08
  Speaker 7: the giving up on NATO. He's not fighting for Ukraine funding.
• 9:11
  Speaker 7: He's allowing the Senate to tank the immigration reform bill
• 9:14
  Speaker 7: he's supposedly working on for a decade of his career.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, go do something else. You're a sad coward.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump wanted to pull out of NATO in his
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: first term A bunch of his advisors stopped him from
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: doing that, even though they're terrible. They're not as bad
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: as him. So they stopped him from doing that. On
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the campaign website right now, on Trump's campaign website, it says,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: we have to finish the process we began under my
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO's purpose and NATO's mission. When
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: reporters asked him what that meant, asked the campaign what
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: that meant, they would not say. So Nikki Haley proving
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that she hasn't yet become a Marco Rubio candidate. hit
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Trump pretty hard on both denigrating her husband's military service,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I hope so, and on his NATO comments. Let's listen.
• 9:55
  Speaker 9: He said that NATO, that if any of those countries
• 9:59
  Speaker 9: aren't paying their fair share, that not only would he
• 10:03
  Speaker 9: not defend them, but that he would encourage Putin to
• 10:07
  Speaker 9: take over them. Putin kills his opponents. He just put
• 10:13
  Speaker 9: every military member at risk. and every one of our
• 10:17
  Speaker 9: allies at risk just by saying something at a rally
• 10:20
  Speaker 9: like that. That's the danger. And then he goes and
• 10:24
  Speaker 9: mocks my husband's military service. But when he did that,
• 10:29
  Speaker 9: it was a pattern. It started with the fact that
• 10:32
  Speaker 9: he has continued to call military members suckers and losers.
• 10:36
  Speaker 9: He went to Arlington National Cemetery and said, why did
• 10:39
  Speaker 9: they do this? What was in it for them? You
• 10:43
  Speaker 9: can't have a commander in chief that doesn't understand what
• 10:47
  Speaker 9: made this country great.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: So what do you guys make of Haley's response? Is she,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: she veering towards, uh, 2016 Chris Christie or 2024 Chris Christie?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: How's she going to end up here?
• 10:58
  Speaker 7: I think she's on Ben LeBolt's talkers.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Do you think she's on the talkers list? Do you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: think she's been RTing the Biden Harris HQ account?
• 11:06
  Speaker 7: I mean, the suckers and losers thing is like a
• 11:07
  Speaker 7: verbatim Biden line.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: I like it. Like, good response from Haley.
• 11:10
  Speaker 7: She's appealing to military families who might be offended. You know,
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: the traditional Republicans who want a muscular foreign policy. People
• 11:16
  Speaker 7: who think Trump is not temperamentally fit for the job.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I like it.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I just can't tell.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Is she.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: I definitely think some of the ships are on fire, right?
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: She's definitely burning the boats. But is there one last
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: seaworthy vessel that could take her home to Trump?
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not sure.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I'm really not.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Prediction is hard because, again, Marco Rubio did say, I
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: do not trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Still his position, technically.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Still his position. And yet he's out there now being like,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean it. He's not a he's not a
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: dweeb on the Council on Foreign Relations. He's a real guy.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: So so so who knows? But I would say like
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: real guy. Trump has already she should she should decline
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to endorse him. I don't expect her to endorse Joe Biden.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Here's why she should decline to endorse Donald Trump. He
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: has already said she's banned from the MAGA camp. She's
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: already getting swatted death threats like she doesn't have a
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: future in this Trump Republican Party. And I'm not sure
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: that her endorsing Trump is going to change that. So
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it's like.
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: And there's a podcast at the bulwark with her name
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: on it.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: There is. Come on.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Tim Miller can't record all of them.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Speaking of the Council on Foreign Relations, that's a cushy spot.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 12:27
  Speaker 7: But let's just be clear what Trump's where's her husband
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: comments mean. He's suggesting that there was infidelity in the
• 12:32
  Speaker 7: relationship and that he had to go over to the
• 12:34
  Speaker 7: Horn of Africa to get away from that. That is
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: the not so sub subtext of those comments. So, yeah,
• 12:39
  Speaker 7: I mean, look, I don't think this kind of messaging
• 12:41
  Speaker 7: from Nikki Haley is going to win the nomination, but
• 12:43
  Speaker 7: if she keeps it up, she might be able to
• 12:45
  Speaker 7: convince the small sliver of like Haley supporting Republicans to
• 12:49
  Speaker 7: stay home in the general election.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: And I love that.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: The truth will set you free. Look at Marco Rubio.
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: He's fucking dead inside. He is. You think he's happy?
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: He's a broken, disgusting man, a little urchin running around.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: A wraith. A wraith. He's out there denigrating her husband.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: But then, of course, we remember... what he said about
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz's wife.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: And is that the company you keep, Nikki Haley?
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Just you and Ted Cruz.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is back on board, too. Hey, Nikki Haley,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: don't be Ted Cruz. Don't be Margot Rubio. Just don't
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: You don't have to.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: You don't have to.
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: Come on.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: You don't have to.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: You do a pod called, like, you know, No Boundaries.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: The Duty to Fight.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: No Boundaries.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: The Duty to Fight. I couldn't remember something.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Fighting for duty.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the White House called Trump's comments unhinged. Biden
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: released a statement calling them appalling and dangerous. Though, as
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: of right now, I don't think we've heard the president
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: speak about it directly. How much do you guys think
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that Biden and the campaign should focus on this?
• 13:42
  Speaker 7: I mean, I think they should focus on it a
• 13:43
  Speaker 7: lot in R because it was a bizarre, new and
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: newsworthy comment. It also was big enough to distract attention
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: from the next thing we're going to cover.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about? We'll get there.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I forgot.
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: Which is part of it.
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: I was looking up some polling. There's some Pew polling.
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: 62% of Americans view NATO favorably and 91% of them
• 14:02
  Speaker 7: view Russia unfavorably. So this is Trump's position here is
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: not a popular one saying, hey, Russia, come steamroll, you know, Belgium.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Can I give you a poll that was probably juiced
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: because it's from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Put it in my veins. That's Richard Haass territory.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Because my first thought was, you know, sadly, Americans are
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: not as favorable towards foreign aid as we might hope,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: especially the world is among us.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: But poll from a year and a half ago, September
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: of 22, 81% of Americans say the U.S. should maintain
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: or increase its commitment to NATO. It was the highest
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: level of support recorded from that poll from the Chicago
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Council on Global Affairs. And that includes 75 percent of Republicans,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: 78 percent of independents. By now, I, of course, would
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: expect that number among Republicans to go down. But it
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: was it's good to see that September of 22.
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, my my view on it is I do think
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: that like I think Donald Trump gets applause when he
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: says these kinds of things as rallies. I think he's
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: happier talking about trying to get Europe to pay more
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: for NATO than he is certainly talking about his various
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: and sundry indictments or abortion claims. But I do think
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: it's like a proof point of Trump's chaos and danger
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: and just a reminder that this is the kind of
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: unhinged shit you get from him. Because I do think
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: our big challenge is, especially for people not paying that
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: close attention, is it's very easy to kind of forget
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: the details of what it was like to live under
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: four years of this kind of chaos.
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah, look, I'm concerned about the counter argument, which is,
• 15:25
  Speaker 7: you know... Trump will just say, oh, he was just
• 15:27
  Speaker 7: trying to tell a story about pressuring NATO countries to
• 15:29
  Speaker 7: spend more. And by the way, Trump won't get us
• 15:32
  Speaker 7: into foreign wars.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Biden has.
• 15:34
  Speaker 7: I also am with you that I don't think people
• 15:36
  Speaker 7: love foreign aid. I do think that they probably slot.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: Support for NATO to a different category of deterrence.
• 15:43
  Speaker 7: But I think beyond that kind of meta national narrative,
• 15:47
  Speaker 7: I know the Biden campaign is going to try to
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: drive the story in swing states with big Eastern European
• 15:52
  Speaker 7: populations or people with Eastern European ancestry. The hope is
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: that someone who has, you know, a bunch of family
• 15:57
  Speaker 7: in Poland will care more about this than your average voter.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: So hopefully that works.
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: It also kind of folds into Biden's defense or response,
• 16:04
  Speaker 7: at least to attacks on his age, which are like,
• 16:07
  Speaker 7: I took this, you know, train ride into Ukraine.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: I took this trip to Israel. So I don't know.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: I think they want to fight on this ground.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Also, it's like this isn't just verbal diarrhea from Donald Trump.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: It's verbal diarrhea that has life or death consequences, which
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: is what usually what you get from Donald Trump.
• 16:21
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: He is a crazy narcissist who. says stupid shit that
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: puts everyone else at risk, and he will screw over anyone,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: like his voters, the country, his allies. He doesn't care.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: People who've worked for him, he throws everyone under the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: bus because all he cares about is himself, and he's
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: a crazy narcissist. And Haley nailed the message.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's good.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: She's good.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: We always like Nikki Haley.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Biden should go out there and just pop off on
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: this one.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure.
• 16:51
  Speaker 7: I would also, if I were the Biden campaign, I
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: might cut an ad with her comments and run that.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:55
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: So right now, Biden and the rest of the Democratic
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Party are spending much more time than they'd like dealing
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: with the follow up from special counsel Robert Herr's report
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: on the president's possession of classified documents while he was
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: out of office. Her concluded that, quote, no criminal charges
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: are warranted, but also claimed that Biden couldn't remember details
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: like when he was vice president or when his son
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Beau died, which led to Biden holding a press conference
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: on Thursday night where he became understandably emotional and angry.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: I know there's some attention paid to some language in
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: the report about my recollection of events. There's even reference
• 17:40
  Speaker 6: that I don't remember when my son died. How in
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn't any
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: of their damn business.
• 17:54
  Speaker 10: President Biden, something the special counsel said in his report
• 17:58
  Speaker 10: is that one of the reasons you were not charged
• 18:00
  Speaker 10: is because, in his description, you are a well-meaning elderly
• 18:05
  Speaker 10: man with a poor memory.
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: I'm well-meaning, and I'm an elderly man, and I know
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: what the hell I'm doing. I've been president, and I
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: put this country back on its feet. I don't need
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: his recommendation. How bad is.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Your memory, and can you continue as president?
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: My memory is so bad, I let you speak.
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: Mr.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: President, for months when you were asked about your age,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you would respond with.
• 18:28
  Speaker 9: The words, watch me.
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: Many American people have been watching, and they have expressed
• 18:32
  Speaker 7: concerns about your age.
• 18:34
  Speaker 6: That is your judgment. That is your judgment. That is
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: not the judgment of the press.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: They express concerns about your mental acuity.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: They say that you are too old.
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: Mr.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: President, in December, you told me that you believe there
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: are many.
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: Other Democrats who could defeat Donald Trump. So why does
• 18:50
  Speaker 9: it have to be you now? What is your answer
• 18:52
  Speaker 9: to that question?
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: Because I'm the most qualified person in this country to
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: be president of the United States and finish the job
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: I started.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, so.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Sound like a good time.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Before we get to the press conference, what's your take
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: on the report itself? Dan and I talked about this
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: just very briefly on Thursday right after it was released.
• 19:08
  Speaker 7: I mean, it's one of those annoying times when two
• 19:11
  Speaker 7: things can both be true.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: One.
• 19:13
  Speaker 7: The report was unfair. It screwed Biden in ways that
• 19:16
  Speaker 7: seemed quite partisan and intentional to me, including overemphasizing suggestions
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: that Biden might have willfully retained classified information while burying
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: specifics about the lack of evidence for those allegations or
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: more innocent explanations. There was also all the commentary about
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: the age and Biden's memory, which seemed unfair or ad
• 19:35
  Speaker 7: hominem at worst. And then second, there is a debate
• 19:38
  Speaker 7: about Biden's age and fitness for office that was already
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: happening last This just kicked it up and focused the
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: media's attention on it in a very damaging way via
• 19:47
  Speaker 7: this DOJ report.
• 19:49
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a.
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: Biden cleared by DOJ, huge disaster for Joe Biden. So here,
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: I agree with what Tommy said, but I was struck because,
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: you know, you see the coverage and the coverage is
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: really just about, it's about the documents, which is vaguely
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: mischaracterizing and certainly not covering, I think, the parts of
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: the report that say, like, when he found documents that
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: classified markings, he immediately returned them. It is, like, actually surprising, like,
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: how patronizing the report is, like, on the whole, even
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: the parts that people haven't been talking about. There's one
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: that jumped out at me, which is, it says, Mr.
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: Biden has long seen himself as a historical figure. He
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: considered running for president as early as 1980. He believed
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: his record during decades at the Senate made him worthy
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: of the presidency. He kept records to, quote, cite as
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: evidence that he was a man of presidential timber. And look,
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: it doesn't matter. You know, this report is more personal
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: than what the report should have been. But like, it
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: is a particularly patronizing.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: He is a historic figure. He's the fucking president of
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the United States and he was vice president before that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And does he hold himself in high regard?
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Everyone who fucking served in the Senate does. They're all
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: like this.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: And they're all like this. That's why half of them
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: ran in 2008.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: You find someone who doesn't think, let me tell you
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: about my Senate floor speech in 1975. They all fucking
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: say that.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: That passage was so patronizing.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: It's so patronizing and insulting.
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: And then you sort of get to the reason why,
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: which is, Donald Trump would not have been charged if
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: he had cooperated with investigators and not been sort of
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: a stubborn and lawless freak about it. But also, I
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: don't think this report exists in a world where Donald
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: Trump hasn't been charged because it's a 15 month investigation
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: to come to the conclusion that basically when a vice
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: president or president leaves office, it is very difficult to
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: prevent at least something like that, that in good faith,
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: it should be afforded these people the opportunity to return
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: these kinds of things, which is why Mike Pence wasn't charged,
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: which is why Joe Biden wasn't charged. And so you
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: get to the end of this long document and you
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: end up with a bunch of kind of aspersions about
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: him as a person. So that's my sort of way
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: of describing the whole report, which is incredibly damaging because
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: those aspersions hit the biggest vulnerability he has as a person,
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: not just politically, but like he's a legitimate concern about
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: his age. Yeah.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: So like, let's, so, so Robert Herr, who was a
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Trump appointee, let's say he's not wearing a red MAGA hat, right?
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Let's just give him the benefit of the doubt. Just pretend.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: He was a Rehnquist clerk.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Right, he was a Rehnquist clerk. Let's just pretend. Clearly,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: he's the first special counsel ever to not finish an
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: investigation without bringing charges. So he's the first one to
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: not bring charges ever done. And he realizes, like you said,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: that there's all this pressure, right? Because Trump was charged
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and blah, blah, blah. And so what he ends up
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: doing is he pulls like a reverse Bill Barr. Remember
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Bill Barr takes the Mueller report And even though the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Mueller report is incredibly damning for Donald Trump, he writes
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: this summary at the front that's like fully exonerated. Heard
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: does the opposite. And he does a quote at the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: beginning that's like, you know, and this is the quote
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that most media outlets ran with, in addition to the
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: memory parts, was that evidence that Biden willfully retained and
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: disclosed classified materials. But the report also says that there
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: was not sufficient evidence of that, that there was also
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: evidence Biden did not retain or disclose classified information. willfully
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: or intentionally, and that, quote, in addition to the shortage
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of evidence, there are other innocent explanations for the documents. So, like,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that we cannot refute. And over and over again in
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the report, as you keep going, the evidence does not
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: show that when Mr. Biden shared certain info with his
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: ghostwriter that he knew it was classified. The evidence does
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: not establish that Mr. Biden willfully disclosed national defense information
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to his ghostwriter. Over and over and over it says this. Yeah.
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: So, I mean, my overall takeaway from this thing is
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: that that in part because the report says that no
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: charges should be brought and no charges will be brought.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: And I think Biden saying it's closed is his way
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: of kind of trying to end this conversation. Like the
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: document retention policies, I don't think are nearly as important
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: as what he wrote about memory. That's what we'll end
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: up being stuck with. The report also goes, spends a
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: fair amount of time talking about the ways in which
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: what Donald Trump and Joe Biden did were different, which
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: I also think is really important.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: All right. So document stuff aside, Clearly, the press conference
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: was an attempt to rebut Herr's characterizations of his memory, especially,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and not just his culpability. How do you think it went?
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: I think feisty and fighting is the right tone. I
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: can't even imagine how pissed off and offended and just
• 24:14
  Speaker 7: hurt I would be if someone suggested that I forgot
• 24:17
  Speaker 7: the date of my son's death. So I totally understand
• 24:20
  Speaker 7: wanting to push back on that. That said, I think
• 24:23
  Speaker 7: The overall performance was a mixed bag. It was good
• 24:26
  Speaker 7: to drive the message of exoneration because the initial coverage
• 24:31
  Speaker 7: was very confusing and misleading. It sounded like Biden did
• 24:33
  Speaker 7: something wrong and willfully held onto this classified information. The
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: righteous indignation around Beau's death, I think, was powerful, but
• 24:42
  Speaker 7: some of it was just kind of chippy and angry
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: and not great. Like the response to Peter Doocy's follow-up
• 24:49
  Speaker 7: question that we heard just now when Biden says, my
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: memory is so bad, I let you speak.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Funny line.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: We chuckled, the press corps chuckled, but I don't think most,
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: you know, that's like the most insider of insiders response.
• 24:59
  Speaker 7: I don't think most people understand what he's talking about
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: if you're watching. He gives a lot of kind of clipped,
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: angry sounding answers to fair questions like about his age.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: His answer to the last question there, not Ducey's question,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: but the question I believe was Washington Post reporter is really,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I think was bad.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Like screaming that is your judgment. I don't think that
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: was great.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: It's not her judgment. This is what I, and I
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: don't understand what's going on here because it's like, These
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: are not new polls for now, for the better part
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of two years. The number one concern that people have
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: had about Joe Biden is his age. Those concerns have
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: predated Robert Herr. They have predated anything Trump has said,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Republicans have said. It is not just about people who
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: see like out of context clips or that the Republicans
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: put out or crazy TikToks or whatever else. If you
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: watch Joe Biden speak, oftentimes he sounds frail and he
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: sounds more frail than he used to, even in 2019
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: and 2020. Now that may, and I think doesn't have
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: anything to do with how sharp he is mentally, but
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the voice sounds frail and he shuffles more because of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the arthritis in his back. So for most people in
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the country who are just watching him be president, What
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: do they see when they turn on the television? They
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: see him shuffle and they hear him and he's swallowing
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: a lot more of his words. Now, obviously, he's had
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: a stutter, but it doesn't sound like the stutter did
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: even in 2020. He's just soft-spoken and quiet. Every once
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: in a while, he's feisty like he was in the
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: press conference and he's sharp. He sat down. I remember
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: that interview with John Harwood that he did. He sat
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: down for a long time. He was very sharp in
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: that interview, too. But I don't know if it's when
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: he gets tired or not. He is mumbly. And I
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: think that has an effect on people that is apart
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: from whatever the media says, whatever Republicans say. If the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: New York Times and everyone else stopped covering this issue
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: tomorrow and never mentioned his age again, I guarantee you
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the concerns would still be there among people because they
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: have been for the last several years.
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think angrily dismissing the concern will not make
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: the concern go away. He has to actively be engaging
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: with The concern, my take on the press conference.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Was that it was a win, but not a blowout.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: Why? Because I think he made some good points and
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: important points he had to make. Even people characterizing the
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: joke he made to Ducey was better than how he
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: made the joke himself. You know, he even in that
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: moment seems quite old. And my view on this right
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: now is like, he's got to be out there. He's
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: got to be out there more. But these are not
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: going to be clean wins because he's going to, I think,
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: reassure some people while at the same time his age
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: is showing even on his best days. There was a moment,
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: I don't know if we have the clip, but there
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: was a moment he made a joke about it, I
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: think today. And to me, this is, he's made a
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: joke like this in the past. This to me is
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: the most reassuring and best version of Joe Biden talking
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: about this.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: We have that clip.
• 27:44
  Speaker 6: But I didn't realize, and I've been around, I know
• 27:47
  Speaker 6: I don't look like it, but I've been around a while.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: I do remember that.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: It's great. It's great. It was great.
• 27:58
  Speaker 7: I think a version of a joke. It's like, I
• 27:59
  Speaker 7: know I'm old. I know I look old, but I
• 28:01
  Speaker 7: can do the job. Like acknowledge these are relevant. Like
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: 86% of people in an ABC news poll are concerned
• 28:08
  Speaker 7: that Biden might be too old to serve another term.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: You can't just brush past that.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: In the last NBC poll, more people were concerned about
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Biden's age than Trump's fucking 91 felony counts, which is
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: beyond me. But like, and that's one poll, but every
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: single poll, the numbers are how concerned are you about
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's age? It's up in the 80s, okay? And
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: it's more than half of Democrats. So I really think
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: that it is... The reason that the spin and the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: fury from people that this is like a media concoction
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and it's Hillary's emails all over again, just really... And
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I understand why people think that because it's PTSD. I'm
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: getting the PTSD from 2016 for sure. But it's different.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: When Hillary first ran for office... 80 percent of voters
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: didn't express concerns about her document retention policies.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: When Joe Biden decided he was going to run for
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: president again after saying in the first campaign that he
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: was going to be a bridge to the next generation,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: polls from then on showed that people were concerned about
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: his age. And that was before any coverage about the age. Yeah.
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: And, you know, now in those same polls that show
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: some 80 percent of concerns about Biden age, you still
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: find in those polls 60 percent or so have concerns
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: about Trump's age. Most the majority has concerns about both
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: of their ages. Now, the part that's, I think, a
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: double-edged sword is those polls also show that most people
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: worry that Joe Biden is ineffective as president. I think
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: that that is a stand-in for age. It is also
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: a stand-in for not really knowing how much he's gotten done.
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: So that when Joe Biden says, you know, watch me or,
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: you know, why am I running again? I'm running because
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: I I did a lot of good. My competence is
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: revealed by my presidency and I've earned a second term
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: to finish the job. That argument is easier to make
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: when the country is educated about your achievements.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Well, and also to your point about it, it's conflated
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: with him being an effective president. And when I say frail, course,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Trump is running on strength and he's trying to paint
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Biden as weak. And when did his approval rating start
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: going south? Right. He was even though he was an
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: older president when he took office, his approval ratings were
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: pretty damn good until Afghanistan. And Afghanistan was the first thing.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: And then since Afghanistan, it's been a string of as
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: the world starts spinning out of control, they think, does
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: this guy have what it takes to make sure that
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: we are safe and secure and the economy, like all
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And that and so When world
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: events seem like they are overtaking him and he's not
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: out there enough forcefully, that's what's getting people.
• 30:34
  Speaker 7: You all come crawling back to the world. One thing
• 30:37
  Speaker 7: I just want to make about this with memory descriptions
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: in this report. So we don't have access to the
• 30:41
  Speaker 7: transcript of these five hours worth of interviews that Biden
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: did with DOJ. We have characterizations of them by the prosecutors.
• 30:48
  Speaker 7: It doesn't seem like Biden's team wants to release them yet.
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: I know the news outlets are going to sue for them.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Congress wants them.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Congress wants them. And get ready for the Robert Herr
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: testifying before Congress thing. That's going to happen. Republicans are
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: going to call him in.
• 31:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 31:00
  Speaker 7: So we'll see if these things are released and we'll
• 31:02
  Speaker 7: have a better sense of when and why he said,
• 31:05
  Speaker 7: I do not recall. But the one thing everyone should
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: know about these kinds of interviews, like depositions or law
• 31:09
  Speaker 7: enforcement interviews, and I've had to sit through a couple
• 31:12
  Speaker 7: of them, thanks to getting to work in government. You
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: get questioned by the FBI occasionally.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: What did Tommy forget?
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: You never know.
• 31:18
  Speaker 7: But the number one rule that your lawyer will drill
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: into you is if you don't remember something exactly, you
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: do not speculate, right? There's no like, I think I
• 31:27
  Speaker 7: said this. I think I put the document there.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 31:30
  Speaker 7: No, there, if you don't remember, you say you don't remember.
• 31:32
  Speaker 7: And if you want to have a good time, YouTube,
• 31:34
  Speaker 7: the TMZ video of little Wayne's deposition from 2012, it's
• 31:37
  Speaker 7: a classic, but so it's hard to tell for me
• 31:40
  Speaker 7: to tell not having read the transcripts, whether Biden actually
• 31:43
  Speaker 7: wasn't remembering things or this is a prosecutor or fucking
• 31:47
  Speaker 7: him for saying, I don't recall, I don't recall a bunch.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, I also think it could be a little
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: bit of both. Keep in mind that the memory issues
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: were around what year something happened. Years of vice presidency,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: year that Beau died. And as he did in the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: press conference, he said, because Beau died around Memorial Day.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: And he said, every Memorial Day, we, I remember going
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to the cemetery. So of course he, it's around Memorial Day,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: his son served. He knows the date. The report says
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: that he forgot the year. How many times, like, Do
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: you guys remember exactly when we started Crooked Media? What year?
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: What year, I guess? Like, how long have we been
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: doing it? Like, years are tough. Years are not to, like,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: excuse the whole thing. But again, I don't think, I
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: personally do not think Biden's problems are that he's forgetting things, right? Like,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: everyone around him says he's super sharp, says that, like,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: he's totally with it. I've had that experience in the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: last couple years, the time that I saw him. Like,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I get it. The problem is... We keep hearing this
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: from people who know him and have worked with him.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Even Republicans are saying that he's still sharp, right? There's
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: a quote from Kevin McCarthy saying he was super sharp.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Everyone's saying that. But then when people see him on television,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: they're seeing something different. So it's up to him to
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: close that gap.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: This report is not how we found out that Joe
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: Biden has a memory problem. This report feeds into a perception.
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: That perception could cost us our democracy.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: It absolutely could.
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: But it's a super weaponized perception, right? Like this, Robert
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: Herr is using the imprimatur of the Department of Justice
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: to put his own subjective characterizations of a man's memory
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: and age into this non-charging document.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: It's an outrageous thing to do.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: It's a sort of, I think the way, like, it's
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: a frustrating, it's a frustrating debate in part because I
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: feel like we are all very concerned where we see
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: how this manifests in the polling. It is his biggest liability. And,
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: you know, Two things can be true. One being that
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden is, while his days are not as long
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: and he has not as much energy as he used
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: to have, fit to continue being president by all accounts
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: of people who work with him day in and day out,
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: while seeming too old and frail for the job. And
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump is the opposite. He is more energetic and
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: he is loud and seems....
• 33:56
  Speaker 7: His brain is getting cored by a worm like an apple.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: It's crazier than he's ever been.
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: But like the air at the last second of a balloon,
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: he's found his stride. Meanwhile, he's mentally and emotionally and
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: psychologically unfit.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Because he's literally running to stay out of prison. Absolutely.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Ozempic and Ronny Jackson.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: And a potential going to prison, it sharpens the mind.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I think the other, what else, what's frustrating, so many Democrats, everyone,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: is that the only person who can ultimately do something
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: about this is Joe Biden, right? And there's two choices
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden can make. Joe Biden could decide to step
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: aside at this late stage, which is very late, and
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: have the Democratic Party figure out another nominee, which would
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: involve a convention fight and just a couple months for
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: everyone to figure out a new candidate. And there would be,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: as much as we all think, oh, well, if only
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer or whatever, first of all,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: none of them are polling better than Joe Biden against
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. There hasn't been that many polls. And maybe
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: that's because people don't know them yet. Very possible. But again,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: it is not like the alternative path is without risks
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: right now. So that's going through Joe Biden's mind. So
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: he could either step aside. If he does not, then
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: it is up to him to prove to people day
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: in and day out that he is as sharp as ever.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: And that means doing every interview, That means going out
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: there and speaking more. It's just like the Super Bowl
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: interview thing, I get it. They were going to do
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a short four-minute... Well.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Now we know why they didn't do it.
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: They knew it would be entirely about this report.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: They would, but also, it's like, what an opportunity. They're saying, oh, well,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: at the Super Bowl, people didn't want to listen to politics.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: They just wanted to eat food and watch football. Well,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: what a great opportunity to make a funny joke about
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: his age when they ask him about the special counsel report.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: It is an extremely tough... to communicate in this media
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: environment and get in front of people all the time,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: especially when there are clips of you going around that
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: are just taking the worst parts of you. But that's
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: why it's more incumbent upon him to go out there
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: as much as possible and be in people's face.
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: All the time. And if going out there, look, I'm
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: sure going out there more means more missteps like infusing
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: Mexico and Egypt. I would say that was not a win.
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: You know, more gaffes that start circulating. But if you
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: don't view Biden being out there more as a net positive...
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: then the argument he shouldn't be running is right.
• 36:16
  Speaker 7: Biden should have gone to the game, gone to the club,
• 36:20
  Speaker 7: got drunk with Travis Kelsey.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: Just a line straight from a Grammy onto a Super
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: Bowl trophy.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: How cool would that be? Ice Spice, Taylor, Biden.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: Biden.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: That would have been. Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: No prop bets on that.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I think they're all partying with marshmallow. You can see
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Joe up there.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: So he should be out there more. Any other advice?
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: What he and the campaign should be doing about this?
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, I do think... Look, I'll be honest. I
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: don't know.
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: I think the right recommendation to say he should do
• 36:48
  Speaker 7: more interviews, more events, more speeches and show, not tell
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: that he has like the vigor and vitality to do
• 36:54
  Speaker 7: the job. But, you know, so much of people's impressions
• 36:57
  Speaker 7: are based on little tiny snippets and sound bites and
• 37:00
  Speaker 7: snap takeaways from something they saw on TV or social
• 37:02
  Speaker 7: media that it's hard to tell how much of this
• 37:04
  Speaker 7: is fixable. Like once you've decided that someone is too
• 37:07
  Speaker 7: old for something, does that impression change?
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know. We're all going to find out. But so.
• 37:12
  Speaker 7: That's, you know, there's a question of whether you can
• 37:15
  Speaker 7: kind of assuage people's concerns about it. One thing you
• 37:17
  Speaker 7: probably can do is make another set of issues more
• 37:20
  Speaker 7: salient to them as voters when they go into the
• 37:22
  Speaker 7: voting booth. And I think that's about talking about your record,
• 37:25
  Speaker 7: talking about the economy, talking about what you do in
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: a second term. I don't think a lot of the
• 37:29
  Speaker 7: focus from Democrats right now is on this sort of whataboutism,
• 37:33
  Speaker 7: Trump is old too, Trump forgets shit too. And I
• 37:35
  Speaker 7: do think the Biden folks have done a good job
• 37:38
  Speaker 7: of surfacing Trump's verbal gaffes. he's looked and sounding confused,
• 37:42
  Speaker 7: the South Carolina event that we led the show with.
• 37:44
  Speaker 7: But I think you have to be careful that you're
• 37:46
  Speaker 7: not making the debate feel like two bad choices only.
• 37:50
  Speaker 7: You have to be sure to be pushing sort of
• 37:52
  Speaker 7: the affirmative message for Biden's second term.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I get why they started doing it because everyone was
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: making fun of Joe Biden for gaffes or whatever and
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: forgetting things. And they're like, look, Donald Trump screws up
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: things all the time too. Fine. But like the biggest
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: problem with Donald Trump is not that he's old and forgetful.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: It's that he is crazy and dangerous. And that is
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: what people already believe about him, even the people who
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: voted for him and then decided not to vote for him.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: When you ask why they didn't, it wasn't because, oh,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: he was getting on in years and flubbing things. It was, oh,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: because he said crazy shit like the NATO comment that
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: could really put us all in danger. And so when
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump says something in an event, I'd rather the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: response be like, and this is what this could mean
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: for the American people if he becomes president again, then, oh, see?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: He's old, too. He forgets, too.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I agree with that.
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: I will say, look, I was thinking about this over
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: the weekend, which is, I agree with that right now,
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: but that uninterrupted stream in which he is confusing Nancy
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: Pelosi and Nikki Haley wasn't just a gap. It was probably,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: I think, the most kind of, like, mentally unwell.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I've seen someone... be.
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: Running for president, like, ever. I mean, it's not a mistake.
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: It's an ongoing confusion he does not resolve.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's a deeply deranged narcissist and has been
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: for many years. It's just that's who he is, you know?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: But I also think it's great that he's joking about it.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Biden should continue to joke about his age. They're equating
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: it with wisdom and experience. I think that's good, too.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: I think he has to acknowledge people's concerns. I think
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you have to really, and stop being defensive, like, I
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: think they need to stop making it about like Biden
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: versus the media, Biden versus the people who've underestimated him, Biden,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: even Biden versus Trump. It is about his vision versus
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Trump's vision, what he wants to do for people and
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: what Trump would do to people, right? And if the
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: race just becomes Biden versus Trump and two old men
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: going back and forth to each other and yelling at
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: each other, like it's not only going to hurt biden's
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: cause it's going to like help the cause of a
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: third party it's got every day he's out there he's
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: got to be talking about like people why he's trying
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: to fight for people he's got to be angry on
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: behalf of people and not on behalf of himself and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: i just like the yelling at the media yelling at
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: like people underestimate it's just i don't think it's effective
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: it might be warranted for sure i would do it
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: i'd be frustrated but it's not effective.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: I think i think that to me like It's the
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: it's connecting people's perceptions that he's ineffective with his perception
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: of age. And what that means is you can't be
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: angrily defending yourself because even if you're making a good
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: argument about you're up for the job, you're also making
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: an argument that you've been in some way overtaken by events.
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: And to me, like, that's why what he did today
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: was so excellent. He seems first of all, he looks good.
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: He's confident. He's he's back on his heel. He's not
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: he's not leaning forward, kind of pointing at a reporter.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: And Trump has this problem, too. There was the Trump
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: speech after Iowa. When we were like, uh-oh, we don't
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: like that Trump. He's like gracious and he's saying nice things.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: And then there was Trump after New Hampshire when he
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: was being angry and defensive and yelling about Nikki Haley.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: And it was bad for him. It was bad for him.
• 40:54
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I would bet that Joe Biden himself really wanted
• 40:58
  Speaker 7: to go out the other night and do that press conference.
• 41:01
  Speaker 7: But it's always challenging to look like you have it
• 41:04
  Speaker 7: under control when it's kind of an unruly gaggle of
• 41:07
  Speaker 7: reporters screaming at you, interrupting you, talking over you, shouting
• 41:11
  Speaker 7: back at them. Like, it's got to be a little
• 41:13
  Speaker 7: more methodical and sort of orderly feeling.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: It was wild. I don't know how you, I mean, like,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: they're all screaming. They're all yelling. It was, yeah.
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and look, I'm also, I am also sympathetic. Like,
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: Joe Biden, you know, you can say that there's people
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: having a freak out and they're saying, oh, we need
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: a nominee, people going through another one of these cycles. And,
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: You look at what this report says, and I'm sure
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: there are bad news cycles to come based on this report,
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: for sure. But do I think this report fundamentally changes
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: the dynamic of the race, or do I think it
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: highlights a liability everyone is very concerned about?
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: I think it's the latter.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: And so the logic for Joe Biden to pursue re-election
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: has not changed. You didn't persuade him to not seek
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: re-election two years ago. You're not going to persuade him
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: after this report, in fact. As we're getting closer and
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: he's starting to win votes and delegates, even. And it
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: actually does the opposite because- Joe Biden believes he has
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: been underestimated. That's where the defense of this comes from.
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: I think that he's right that he was underestimated in
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: the past. And so, you know, he is looking at
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: this as a time in which he is being underestimated
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: as part of a story in which he is going
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: to help rebuild the coalition that put him into office
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: once and that will put him into office again. Now,
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: there may be another story that we're currently watching unfold,
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: which is all of that could have been true, but
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: age was just too big of a liability for him
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: to surmount. And we will look back on this moment
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: and say, wow, It sure was obvious. That's what the
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: polls were saying. It's Joe Biden's job to prove those
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: polls wrong, even if he has a legitimate frustration with
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: the way in which he is constantly surrounded by an
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: unhelpful panic.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: And by the way, the idea that like, you know,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and the Democratic Party had rigged the whole thing so
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: that no one else would run like the Democratic Party,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: for example, can barely organize itself. In order for someone
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: else to be the nominee, someone else would have had
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: to step up, and they did not step up. Dean
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Phillips stepped up way too late.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Marianne.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Marianne, sorry. Oh, my gosh. Who dropped out of the race?
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: We didn't cover it. Oh, well, that's a C block.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Marianne Williams.
• 43:04
  Speaker 10: RFK.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they stood up, and it didn't go well
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: for them, right? But the people who would have been
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: real contenders, could have been real contenders, a Josh Shapiro,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Greg Schumer, they didn't run. So I don't know what
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: else was going to happen.
• 43:17
  Speaker 9: Anyway.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: So that's where we are.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: Quit politics, Marco Rubio. That's what I want to take
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: away from this.
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: Does Travis ever get to be Little Spoon?
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Kelsey?
• 43:27
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Or is that just for women and fags?
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Whoa, geez.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about after.
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: The Super Bowl, don't you get to be Little Spoon
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: after you won the Super Bowl?
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Do I get to be offended on behalf of straights?
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Why not?
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Let's try.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Everyone likes to be cuddled every now and again.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: No, that's my question.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: I'm actually, you know, obviously I'm saying it with some
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: negativity in my voice, but I wonder, do you.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Is Travis ever Little Spoon?
• 43:48
  Speaker 10: I'm sure.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: I bet he is. Have you seen how big his
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: brother is? You made this joke on a text chain
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: earlier today, and I was wondering about it.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: I actually don't know your culture. I've never been there.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I was curious.
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: Huh.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I was curious. They look like they were having a
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: good time. Afterwards, they were dancing to Love Story at
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: a club.
• 44:05
  Speaker 11: If you don't have a good time after winning the
• 44:07
  Speaker 11: Super Bowl while your girlfriend Taylor Swift watches from the box,
• 44:12
  Speaker 11: that should be a VR experience.
• 44:15
  Speaker 7: Put that in the Vision Pro. It's one thing to
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: be a celebrity that starts dating a professional athlete. To
• 44:22
  Speaker 7: date a professional athlete who then goes astray. to win
• 44:25
  Speaker 7: the Super Bowl is wild. Do you think it's cool
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: for her to be at a club and have the
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: Chainsmokers throwing on her songs over and over again? Or
• 44:32
  Speaker 7: are you just like, we get it, dude.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Play something else. It's a little weird. I would lean
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: towards weird.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: She has to pretend to be like, I'm singing along.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I think she likes those songs.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I think she's probably tired. She did her show in Tokyo,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: flew to Vegas. When did she sleep?
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Those guys are going to party until Tuesday.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. I hope so.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: She's not in premium economy. I think there's a bet
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: on the plane. I think she's fine. I think she's fine.
• 44:55
  Speaker 10: There's a better one.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: You don't think she's in premium economy? No.
• 44:58
  Speaker 9: No.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: I Googled her.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: You don't think she got the Southwest flight from LA
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to Vegas when she landed in LA?
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I don't think she's doing the Air New Zealand sky bench.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, I got B. Okay.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: No, she pays for that.
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry.
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: I'm B-11. Are you B-10? You're behind me, actually.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: I'm B-11.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, my friend Ice, she's... She's actually B-10.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: So you're behind me.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Miss Spice, we're boarding.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Anyway, are we done? Okay. Before we go to break,
• 45:20
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• 45:54
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• 45:59
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• 46:02
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• 46:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, which is basically just now kind of like a
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: kink format. It's just an SM. It's like light politics,
• 46:11
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• 46:12
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• 46:14
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• 46:25
  Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll be joined by former New
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: York Representative Mondaire Jones. Joining us here in studio to
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: talk about New York politics, the 2024 campaign, and his
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: own race for Congress, former representative and current candidate Mondaire Jones.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Welcome back.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It's great to be in the stew.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good to have you here. So we've been talking
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: about every Democrat's favorite topic right now, Joe Biden's age.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: You're on the campaign trail right now. Are voters asking
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: you about it?
• 47:02
  Speaker 12: They're not asking me about it so much as they're
• 47:04
  Speaker 12: talking about it. It is something that gets discussed a
• 47:08
  Speaker 12: lot on television, gets written about, and obviously people have
• 47:12
  Speaker 12: their own opinions. And so it's also the case that
• 47:16
  Speaker 12: when we have these discussions, it's usually in the context of,
• 47:20
  Speaker 12: I really hope he wins because the threats to our
• 47:22
  Speaker 12: democracy are of an existential nature.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: What's your level of concern?
• 47:28
  Speaker 9: Zero. Okay.
• 47:29
  Speaker 12: With respect to the president's age, I have no concerns
• 47:32
  Speaker 12: because he has been the most accomplished president in modern history,
• 47:37
  Speaker 12: despite his age. And I know that he can continue
• 47:40
  Speaker 12: to do the job because he's already been doing it.
• 47:43
  Speaker 12: I happen to have worked very closely with him on
• 47:44
  Speaker 12: a number of matters. And I got to tell you, man,
• 47:47
  Speaker 12: it's been really frustrating to to see media, which are
• 47:53
  Speaker 12: just wholly unprepared as far as I can tell to
• 47:56
  Speaker 12: meet this moment, focus on his age, which is not
• 48:00
  Speaker 12: very different from that of Donald Trump, by the way,
• 48:03
  Speaker 12: over all of the crazy shit that Donald Trump does
• 48:07
  Speaker 12: and says every single day and to the threats that
• 48:09
  Speaker 12: he and the extreme MAGA Republicans who have taken over
• 48:12
  Speaker 12: this Republican Party pose to this country. in this most
• 48:18
  Speaker 12: important election of our lifetimes that we're approaching.
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so it sometimes feels as though Biden's age seems
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: like a liability, but people that have worked closely with
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: him say he's up to the job. Donald Trump seems
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: more energetic, but by all accounts is emotionally, psychologically, mentally unfit.
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: You say you have no concerns about it, but politically,
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: a lot of voters do, right? We just saw another
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: poll that shows the vast majority of voters believe it
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: is a huge liability.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: It's a really big concern.
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: So how do you think we should be addressing it?
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: How should the Biden campaign be addressing it?
• 48:49
  Speaker 12: Look, I think this election is about Donald Trump, whether
• 48:52
  Speaker 12: folks want to accept that or not. And the more
• 48:56
  Speaker 12: that people see Donald Trump on the stump, whether it
• 49:00
  Speaker 12: is the 91 felony counts, recently his comments about abandoning
• 49:05
  Speaker 12: our allies abroad, his instruction that Republicans not cooperate on
• 49:12
  Speaker 12: a bipartisan solution to secure our border. and so on
• 49:16
  Speaker 12: and so forth, it is clear that by no means
• 49:20
  Speaker 12: all of the people who have not yet grappled with
• 49:24
  Speaker 12: the fact that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee
• 49:27
  Speaker 12: are going to rally behind this president, a decent man
• 49:33
  Speaker 12: with a record of accomplishment, someone who rescued the economy
• 49:38
  Speaker 12: from collapse at the height of COVID-19. Again, I'm proud
• 49:41
  Speaker 12: to have been part of that as part of the
• 49:42
  Speaker 12: most productive Congress in modern history, that being the 117th Congress,
• 49:47
  Speaker 12: whereas these guys can barely keep the lights on these
• 49:49
  Speaker 12: days in the 118th with Mike Johnson and the extreme
• 49:53
  Speaker 12: MAGA Republicans in control.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Is there a reason you want to go back there?
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like a good hang, right?
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: You can tell us.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: No one will hear this.
• 50:04
  Speaker 12: Man, I want to build upon the work that we
• 50:08
  Speaker 12: started last term. And we did remarkable things. The work
• 50:12
  Speaker 12: is unfinished, obviously, and I could tick through a whole
• 50:14
  Speaker 12: list of stuff that we still need to do, chief
• 50:17
  Speaker 12: among them saving democracy itself here in America. But we
• 50:23
  Speaker 12: did make strides economically. We rescued the economy from collapse.
• 50:27
  Speaker 12: We cut child poverty in half for a time. And
• 50:30
  Speaker 12: we just got data a few months ago showing yet
• 50:33
  Speaker 12: again that child poverty is a policy choice.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: We kept our small businesses open. I was a freshman
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: member of Congress.
• 50:39
  Speaker 12: And I was able to bring hundreds of millions of
• 50:41
  Speaker 12: dollars for schools, housing and health care to the 17th
• 50:45
  Speaker 12: Congressional District of New York. And then, again, as a
• 50:48
  Speaker 12: freshman member of Congress, I was able to bring progressives
• 50:52
  Speaker 12: and conservative Democrats together. And we passed the bipartisan infrastructure
• 50:56
  Speaker 12: bill that is now law. And now tens of billions
• 50:58
  Speaker 12: of dollars are coming to my home state of New York.
• 51:01
  Speaker 12: So it was really cool to be able to be
• 51:04
  Speaker 12: part of a functioning majority. of people who actually cared
• 51:08
  Speaker 12: about government working for the people and who, unlike our
• 51:10
  Speaker 12: Republican colleagues, are not there to dismantle the government and
• 51:14
  Speaker 12: maybe have it work only to the extent that they're
• 51:17
  Speaker 12: cutting taxes for very wealthy people.
• 51:19
  Speaker 7: You mentioned how you guys got a lot done and
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: did it with very slim majorities. On the Republican side,
• 51:25
  Speaker 7: whether it's McCarthy or Johnson, it does not seem to
• 51:28
  Speaker 7: be going well. Very quickly, they get themselves into political trouble.
• 51:30
  Speaker 7: People start talking about potentially taking them out. Do you
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: think there's, I mean, you know these guys, you spend time.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: With them, I served with Mike Johnson on the Judiciary Committee.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: He seems like a fun guy.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Good hang.
• 51:43
  Speaker 7: Is there anyone who could put a tent on this circus?
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Is this job unmanageable? What do you make of his challenges?
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Well, look, he is incompetent.
• 51:54
  Speaker 12: But he is not unique among his colleagues in the
• 51:58
  Speaker 12: House Republican Conference. This is what happens when you elect
• 52:02
  Speaker 12: people to Congress who who are not there to make
• 52:06
  Speaker 12: government work. I mean, they view the government as a
• 52:09
  Speaker 12: threat to the American people. And so the dysfunction and
• 52:13
  Speaker 12: the chaos and the extremism.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: Is a feature.
• 52:17
  Speaker 12: I mean, they would rather that than, for example, build
• 52:22
  Speaker 12: upon the work of lowering the cost of prescription drugs,
• 52:25
  Speaker 12: which we did, Democrats did, under the Inflation Reduction Act.
• 52:30
  Speaker 12: It's why, by the way, they don't talk about economics
• 52:33
  Speaker 12: when they're running for office, they use fear tactics. They
• 52:36
  Speaker 12: talk about the border and they talk about crime. They
• 52:40
  Speaker 12: don't want to talk about their deeply unpopular economic policies.
• 52:44
  Speaker 12: I mean, imagine if folks found out that my Republican opponent,
• 52:47
  Speaker 12: Mike Lawler, would rather raise prescription drug prices for people
• 52:51
  Speaker 12: on Medicare, like my grandmother, rather than lower them, which
• 52:54
  Speaker 12: is exactly what his position is as an opponent of
• 52:56
  Speaker 12: the Inflation Reduction Act. These are people who also obviously
• 53:00
  Speaker 12: want to pass a national abortion ban And frankly, to
• 53:04
  Speaker 12: the extent that people are concerned that Joe Biden's not
• 53:06
  Speaker 12: going to hold on to the White House, it's even
• 53:08
  Speaker 12: more important that we take back the House in Congress
• 53:12
  Speaker 12: so that we can be a check on Donald Trump.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: So Trump killed the border deal. And now it looks
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: like the Senate is on the verge of passing a
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: supplemental that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: And humanitarian aid.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: And humanitarian assistance as well for Palestinians and Ukrainians. So
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: it goes over to the House. Mike Turner, who's chair
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: of the Intel Committee, said he thinks that if Mike
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Johnson allows Ukraine funding to get a vote, Democrats will
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: protect him from a motion to vacate. Do you think
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: they will? And do you think they should?
• 53:46
  Speaker 12: Look, I don't think that Democrats should be in the
• 53:52
  Speaker 12: business of doing any political favors for Republicans who are
• 53:57
  Speaker 12: trying to make life harder for the American people and
• 54:00
  Speaker 12: for our allies abroad. You're talking to a guy who
• 54:03
  Speaker 12: cares very deeply about international issues.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: I traveled the world.
• 54:09
  Speaker 12: In the spring of 2022 to rally support among our
• 54:14
  Speaker 12: allies for the free people of Ukraine. And that was
• 54:18
  Speaker 12: a successful trip. And to see Republicans unified nearly in
• 54:26
  Speaker 12: their opposition to helping Ukrainians beat back the ambitions of
• 54:31
  Speaker 12: a madman who would basically restore the Soviet order and
• 54:37
  Speaker 12: who is very hostile to us here in America and
• 54:42
  Speaker 12: whose victory would embolden even more significant threats to America
• 54:46
  Speaker 12: like China. It has been distressing to put it mildly.
• 54:50
  Speaker 12: I mean, this is supposed to have been the party
• 54:52
  Speaker 12: of national security, but it's a cult, right? There's nothing
• 54:58
  Speaker 12: conservative about the shit that they do. It is, you know,
• 55:01
  Speaker 12: if If that were the case, they would be accepting
• 55:06
  Speaker 12: and working in good faith to pass now bipartisan border
• 55:09
  Speaker 12: security legislation that they had been clamoring for for the
• 55:12
  Speaker 12: past year until Donald Trump said, you know, never mind.
• 55:15
  Speaker 12: I want to I want to use the border crisis
• 55:17
  Speaker 12: in the in the fall campaign.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: But if it comes down to, OK, we don't want
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: to do political favors for Republicans unnecessarily, but if this
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: political favor will also help Ukraine get funding. Would we
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: want to do it?
• 55:31
  Speaker 12: I think every Democrat, just like I think every Republican
• 55:35
  Speaker 12: in Congress should be voting for this security supplemental. We
• 55:40
  Speaker 12: have to support our allies. To me, that is non-negotiable.
• 55:43
  Speaker 12: I'm horrified that anyone would not do that. I would
• 55:46
  Speaker 12: defer to Hakeem Jeffries as the minority leader who has
• 55:51
  Speaker 12: a better pulse on things than I do from this
• 55:56
  Speaker 12: vantage point about what will be required in order to
• 56:01
  Speaker 12: get that security package across the finish line.
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: So speaking of Hakeem Jeffries, one of the reasons he's
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: not the speaker right now is not because of what
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: happened in, say, Wisconsin or Michigan. It's actually because we
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: weren't able to win some seats in California and New York.
• 56:17
  Speaker 5: A lot of frustrations with the New York Democratic Party
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: after what happened in 2022. Has anything changed? Are there
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: things you'd like to see changed in New York? Democratic
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: Party got its act together.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: What's happening? Hell yeah. The biggest change for me is
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: I'm running in my own district.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: There we go.
• 56:32
  Speaker 12: I mean, I would never have lost that seat, not
• 56:35
  Speaker 12: to relitigate the past, but just in the nick of time,
• 56:40
  Speaker 12: you've got folks like Tom Suozzi, who I believe is
• 56:42
  Speaker 12: going to win back. I don't want to call the
• 56:45
  Speaker 12: Santos seat because before it was the Santos seat, it
• 56:47
  Speaker 12: was the Suozzi seat for many years. So he's going
• 56:49
  Speaker 12: to win back his seat, I think, in the third
• 56:51
  Speaker 12: congressional district of New York. I'm going to win back
• 56:54
  Speaker 12: my seat in the 17th congressional district with the help
• 56:56
  Speaker 12: of of anyone of good conscience, I think, who wants
• 56:59
  Speaker 12: to see us protect basic freedoms in this country, continue
• 57:02
  Speaker 12: to cut costs, and yes, save democracy itself. And we've
• 57:06
  Speaker 12: got great candidates throughout the Hudson Valley and elsewhere on
• 57:10
  Speaker 12: Long Island and New York State. And look, I expect
• 57:18
  Speaker 12: that whatever polling folks are seeing today, is not going
• 57:22
  Speaker 12: to be predictive of the environment in November. I'm smart
• 57:25
  Speaker 12: enough to know that the next nine months will be
• 57:27
  Speaker 12: like 18 different lifetimes in politics. And so I know
• 57:32
  Speaker 12: that folks are really down on the polling when it
• 57:34
  Speaker 12: comes to the current president versus the former twice-impeached, serially
• 57:38
  Speaker 12: indicted former president. But I just don't think that that's
• 57:42
  Speaker 12: helpful beyond saying, get out there, knock on doors, communicate
• 57:46
  Speaker 12: with people, and explain the stakes in this election.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: A lot of the coverage of the race to replace
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Santos has focused on voter concerns about immigration and crime.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: You were just talking about that. Do you think those
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: are the big issues driving this race?
• 58:03
  Speaker 12: I think today, top of mind for folks are the
• 58:07
  Speaker 12: price of goods. You know, how painful is it when
• 58:10
  Speaker 12: you go to the grocery store? Obviously, public safety. Immigration, yes,
• 58:16
  Speaker 12: and not just among Republicans, but Democrats and independents. I
• 58:19
  Speaker 12: actually think that it has been a strategic error for
• 58:23
  Speaker 12: Democrats who care about border security and who care about, yes,
• 58:27
  Speaker 12: creating a pathway to citizenship for otherwise law-abiding 11 million
• 58:33
  Speaker 12: plus undocumented people here in America. I think that it
• 58:37
  Speaker 12: has been a strategic error for a lot of folks
• 58:39
  Speaker 12: who have appointed themselves spokespersons on this issue to not
• 58:44
  Speaker 12: talk more about the need to secure the border. It
• 58:46
  Speaker 12: is intuitive to the average person that we ought to
• 58:48
  Speaker 12: have a secure border.
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: How much of the increased political interest in New York
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: politics around immigration do you think is the result of
• 58:56
  Speaker 7: concerted efforts to bus migrants to New York from places
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: like Texas by Governor Greg Abbott and others?
• 59:03
  Speaker 12: It's such a cynical move for Republicans like my opponent,
• 59:08
  Speaker 12: Mike Lawler, to talk about the migrant crisis impacting New
• 59:11
  Speaker 12: York State in particular when it was the Republican governors
• 59:14
  Speaker 12: of Texas and in Florida who visited that upon us.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: But the fact is, it.
• 59:22
  Speaker 12: Is now, I think, more proximate to people both literally
• 59:27
  Speaker 12: and mentally and given the constraints that cities and states
• 59:35
  Speaker 12: like New York and New York City have. The federal
• 59:38
  Speaker 12: government has to solve this issue. And part of that,
• 59:42
  Speaker 12: of course, is making sure that my home state of
• 59:45
  Speaker 12: New York has the resources, the financial resources to deal
• 59:48
  Speaker 12: with this migrant crisis.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: But that's a band-aid solution.
• 59:52
  Speaker 12: We have to do comprehensive immigration reform if we're going
• 59:56
  Speaker 12: to stop seeing ultimately the kind of, just the volume,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 12: the volume, frankly, of folks illegally crossing the border who
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 12: are not eligible for asylum.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Your opponent, Mike Lawler, has a lot of vulnerabilities, I'm sure.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: Which is top of mind for you? What's the race about?
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 12: Well, Mike Lawler, I think, has the greatest vulnerability of,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 12: than any House Republican in this environment would have. And
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 12: that is, he is, like everyone else in his party
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 12: in Congress, an enabler of MAGA extremism. I mean, he'll
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 12: get on television, he'll try to present himself as somewhat
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 12: of a reasonable person. But when you look at his
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 12: actual voting record, he is lockstep with the most egregious
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 12: members of his conference. I mean, this is someone who
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 12: has voted against abortion without exception for rape or incest.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 12: He has voted against a gun regulation intended to keep
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 12: us all safer from this uniquely American problem of mass shootings,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 12: even as he complains about public safety, which is so hypocritical.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 12: He opposes an assault weapons ban and, of course, would
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 12: never vote for a Speaker of the House who would
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 12: bring a universal background checks bill to the floor. He
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 12: is a career political operative who has worked to elect
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 12: not just once but twice Donald Trump. And who has
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 12: recently said that he would be supporting him again in
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 12: the general election if he's the nominee.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Well, guess what?
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 12: Donald Trump's going to be the nominee. And folks both
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 12: need to know about that and when they hear about
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 12: it are appalled. And this is a district that Joe
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 12: Biden won by 10 points. I think he'll win by
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 12: an even larger margin because Donald Trump is even more
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 12: unhinged and dangerous than he was the last time he
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 12: ran for the presidency. And I will say just in
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 12: the nick of time, because we are going to need
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 12: to come together as a nation, not just a party,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 12: but as people of good conscience. And I mean, Republicans
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 12: who are recognizing that this is not going to be
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 12: the party that it once was, and that President Biden
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 12: is the safer, more responsible choice in the November election.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: Let's talk about bringing people together. You're running to represent
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: Parts of Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: I grew up.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: And a sliver of duchess. A sliver of duchess. And
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: who doesn't love a sliver of duchess? I'm from Nassau County.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: I'm from Tom Suozzi's district. You think you're better than us?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 6: I cannot.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: The fucking attitude that you get from Westchester and upstate people.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: If someone even deigns to suggest they're from Long Island.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: I'm not from Long Island.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: I would never... intentionally hurt you. But the lower Hudson
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Valley is a special place. Okay. The Hudson. That's nice.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 12: And, you know, we don't have some of the challenges
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 12: that y'all have out there. I mean, this election should
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 12: not even be close in the third congressional district. They
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 12: got a Republican candidate who won't even do interviews with people.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 12: Her record is so bad and her belief so extreme.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 12: By the way, I do think Tom Suarez is going
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 12: to crush it.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Even with the snow.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: We're not worried about the snow?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what about the snow? You know, look, we're not Texas, right?
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, we can deal with the snow in New York.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: LA in the rain.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: Can you assure us that George Santos is rock bottom
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 7: for New York politics.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: For like this decade, at least? At least in the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Republican Party. We'll see, man.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 12: I mean, you know, folks thought that if Donald Trump
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 12: went away, that that would be, you know, the salvaging
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 12: of the Republican Party. But then you got Ron DeSantis,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 12: Nikki Haley, you know, has to be reminded that slavery
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 12: caused the Civil War.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: It's... It's really bad. And that's the argument, by the way.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 12: It's like, to the extent there are a handful of
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 12: people who even pretend to be moderate in the House
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 12: Republican conference, they are clearly unable to rein in the
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 12: extremism of their party. And the most important decision that
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 12: one makes, in this case, multiple times last year in
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 12: a caucus or a conference, as they say on the
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 12: Republican side in the House, is to vote for speaker.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 12: And You have a speaker of the House who is
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 12: the most extreme radical speaker in the history of American
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 12: government who wants to do all of these crazy things.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: And he now seems.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 12: To be like the average sort of median House Republican,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 12: Senate Republican in terms of the extremism of his views.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: They're not getting better than Mike Johnson. That's for sure.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: It's Mike Johnson or worse. They weren't getting better than
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy. It just keeps getting worse.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 9: So.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: Mondaire Jones, thank you so much for stopping by and
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: good luck in the race.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 12: And of course, folks can stop by mondaireforcongress.com to find
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 12: out more and to donate. I don't take money from corporations,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 12: unlike people like Mike Lawler, who is a former oil
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 12: and gas lobbyist.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: So we need grassroots folks to empower this campaign.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: Odd message.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: More like lawless.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: That's not bad. That's not bad. It's like a Long
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: Island style joke. You'd be mad. Listen, listen, listen. Here's
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: the thing.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: You'd be, Long Island, people in Long Island are mad
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: because it's very, it's a long, slender piece of land
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: with the two highways.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: And that sucks.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: Finish him, my dear. Finish him.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: Love Long Island. All right. And have a lot of
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: support out there.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks again. Take care.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 8: Thanks.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Mondaire Jones, for joining us, and we'll have another
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: episode for you on Wednesday. If you want to get
• 1:05:34
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• 1:06:00
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