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"Keep My Wife's Name Out Your Evidence." · Pod Save America

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Isn't he kind of a staid tone?
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Jon? I can tell he's feeling the gravity of the moment. Yeah.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Joe Biden says Vladimir Putin cannot remain
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: in power. Donald Trump is back to saying Vladimir Putin
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: is smart. Clarence Thomas' wife was part of the plot
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to overturn the last election. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: joins to talk about the latest attempt by Amazon workers
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: to unionize. And it's time again to find out which
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Republican will take the top prize in our second annual
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: March Badness Tournament.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: Second annual. Wow. It's been a year.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: But before we start, check out Hysteria's new 90s-themed choice
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: merch collection at crooked.com. We'll be donating a portion of
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: every order to the Lilith Fund, which is an organization
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: working to support reproductive rights in Texas. Shop the choice tees, sweatshirts,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and more at crooked.com.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: Did you say 90s-themed? It is 90s-themed. That speaks to me.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: There you go. Child of the 90s.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Cool. A little Pearl Jam, maybe?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: You know, there's all kinds of great stuff in that
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: store right now.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the news. We have quite
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a bit to cover, so let's start with what everyone's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: talking about. Joe Biden's speech in Warsaw. The president denounced
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and cast the war as
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: part of a global struggle between democracy and autocracy after
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a three-day European trip where he met with NATO allies,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Ukrainian officials, and Ukrainian refugees shortly after announcing that the U.S.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: would welcome 100,000 and donate $ 1 billion to help Europe
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: grapple with this humanitarian crisis. But it was Biden's nine
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: ad-libbed words at the very end of an otherwise powerful
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: address that got the most attention. Here they are. For
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: God's sake, this man cannot remain in power. The White
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: House immediately walked back the comment, saying the president wasn't
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: calling for regime change in Russia. And Biden himself addressed
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the issue at a briefing on Monday afternoon.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I want to make it.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: Clear, I wasn't then, nor am I now, articulating a
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: policy change. I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel,
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: and I make no apologies for it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: Personal feelings, sir.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Your personal feelings?
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: My personal feelings. Tommy, what was your reaction to this
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: speech and specifically to the ad lib at the end?
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: I'm going to divide this in half. Okay. Let's start
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: with the speech. I watched the speech live. I thought
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: it was one of the best speeches I've seen Biden
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: give as president. You can tell he really cares about
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: these issues. He's been thinking about these issues for a
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: very long time. He, you know, the fact that he
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: was in Warsaw, I think, sent a good message of
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: solidarity and unity with NATO. You know, but you can
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: also feel the gravity, I think, in a moment like that.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, he was at Yalta.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Well, there was literally a split screen on CNN of
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Lviv getting bombed, you know, an hour before. So the
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: magnitude was clear. I thought he did a good job
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: telling this bigger story about the struggle between autocracy and democracy.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: He talked about universal rights, like freedom of speech and
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: rule of law. He talked about meeting these kids, little kids,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: little children who'd recently become refugees because of the invasion.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: It was very moving. It was powerful. I also liked
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: the little dig at Putin when he called him not
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: a student of history. You know, the best insults are
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: just really like sly and cutting like that. Sick burn. Yeah,
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Putin sort of fancies himself. A student of history? Well,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: a historian. He likes to contort history to fit his
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: own means, so it was nicely undercutting. It's worth noting
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: the Ukrainians weren't thrilled with the speech. They don't want words.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: They want a no-fly zone. They want more weapons, et cetera.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: The ad-lib. I think we have to be honest that
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: in the pantheon of ad-libs or gaffes or whatever you
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: want to call it, riffing about regime change, it's up there.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: It's not ideal.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I prefer his gaffes when he becomes in favor of
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: gay marriage. That was a really good gaffe. You know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I like that. When he speaks from the heart and
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: then has to kind of deal with the consequence.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: That was a great gap. Well, I think this is
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: kind of the same thing. I think morally he's thinking
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: to himself, this man is a tyrant. He's bombing civilians.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: He can't stay in power. But you can't just riff
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: on that stuff. They clarified the comments immediately. The actions
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: to date, I think, have shown that Biden has actually
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: been incredibly cautious about not escalating the conflict. Putin has
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: been accusing the U.S. and Obama and Biden and the
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: West of trying to overthrow him for decades. We shouldn't
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: let him manipulate these nine words to justify his actions.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: But this is some high-stakes stuff. To say the least.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, it sucks that this is what we're talking about.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: This has been the press focus like 72 hours later.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: They're still kind of having to clean it up.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: What did you think of it?
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I think all that's true. I think obviously he can
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: say that he was expressing his moral outrage. The words
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: were very clear. That is not how you would signal
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: a policy change of that magnitude. So obviously he wasn't.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Slip it in as an ad lib at the end
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: of a speech.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Of course not. And I think what was frustrating to
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: me just in watching the coverage even carrying over all
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: the way to today is should he have winged it
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: after a very kind of well thought out and well
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: received speech? Obviously not. It was corrected immediately because this
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: team has been just so excellent on the messaging around
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: this issue. Everyone knew why they walked it back. Everyone
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: knew why he said it. Everyone knew what was going
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: on here. And then there's this effort for kind of
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: two or three days to kind of keep it going.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: The questions being like, well, what if Putin uses this
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: as an excuse for escalation? Well, that question kind of
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: answers itself. He'd be using it as an excuse for escalation.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: And there's this little aspect of it where it's like
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: kind of this urge, I think, on the mainstream press
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: to kind of have a normal gaffe and have a
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: normal ability to deal with it. It's like almost like
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: a sexual desperation to like, to like get back to like, well,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: just sort of like this urge to like, you said
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: the wrong words and now we're going to correct you.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: They do pretend you never cleaned up the initial statement
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: in their analysis and that's annoying.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Because it's just the only way to make it have
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: any real significance this many days later.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: What do you think, John? Do you riff on these
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: things in most speeches?
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I was thinking a lot about the speechwriters, of course,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: as I said that. No, I, you told me it
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: was one of the best speeches of his presidency. You thought,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And so the bar was high for me when I
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: finally watched it. And then I watched it, and I agree. Like,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: he was strong, powerful, energetic. Like, it was a really
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: well-written speech. He delivered it really well, obviously, until the end. Look,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you can tell, like, he made that comment. He had
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: just visited those Ukrainian refugees. He was pissed.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: He was outraged.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: It's all understandable. I also think he gets credit for
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: walking an incredibly difficult tightrope during this war so far,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: where he's had to condemn Putin... uh, Putin's invasion and
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: support Ukraine without saying or doing anything that would escalate
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the conflict and potentially lead to nuclear war. Like that's,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: that's what you're playing with here.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: That's as hard as it gets.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: That's as hard as it gets. So obviously, you know,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he wishes he hadn't done that. Um, but like,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I also noticed, like I saw an argument from some
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of the more hawkish types right after the speech that
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Biden's comment was good and that the white house shouldn't
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: have walked it back. They should have just let it stand.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, like what, The United States does not have
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: the capacity to push Putin out. We're not going to
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: invade militarily. We can't force the Russian people or some
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: political rival to the extent they even exist to topple him,
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: nor should we if we had that capacity. We tried
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: that in the past. It doesn't end very well. The
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: sanctions that Biden has in place are devastating. And you
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: could argue that they're sort of regime change-like sanctions. But
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: the deal there is, if you pull your troops out,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Vladimir Putin, the sanctions come off. Otherwise, what's the incentive
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: to ever leave? So my response to those hawks is, no,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: we shouldn't say things that Joe Biden doesn't believe, or
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: that is not the policy of the United States. But
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: also that the lesson of the Obama administration was give
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: yourself some flexibility. Saying Assad must go did not make
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: him leave. It just kind of boxed us in for
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: a long time. And now a decade later, you got
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: like the Jordanians and the UAE kind of welcoming them
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: back into the fold and having these conversations like, It's
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: righteous sounding. It feels good to say Putin must leave.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: He cannot be the leader. But we don't want to
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: make this about America. We want, you know, the Russians
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: to be worried about their brothers and sisters in Ukraine
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: and the impact on them and not on a kind
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: of Cold War redux Putin, you know, nationalistic fervor. framework.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: I think that benefits him if it's the US versus
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Russia versus Russia versus Ukraine.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: You don't want him being able to use that statement
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: as propaganda for the Russian people and saying, see, I
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: was right. West is trying to destroy Russia. It's not
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: about Ukraine.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: It's also just a moral clarity feels good. And I
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: understand that. And I've saw people making arguments that, oh,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: people criticize Reagan for what he said during the Cold War,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: calling them an evil empire. Well, one thing that we
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: know about the Cold War is that it ended without
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: a nuclear holocaust. And That makes some of the moral
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: clarity less worrisome in hindsight, right? Like saying things that escalate,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: that raise tensions when those tensions didn't result in calamity
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: are easier in the past than in the future.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: A thing that Obama tried to do in speeches like
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: this would be to kind of reflect the reality that
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: in the Cold War, yes, it was a struggle versus
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: democracy versus these autocrats. But at the same time, that
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: didn't mean that every action we took was righteous. the U.S.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: did a lot of shitty things in an effort to
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: fight back communism, including toppling governments, supporting right-wing death squads,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: all kinds of like really truly heinous things. And I
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: think nodding to those mistakes in that history gives you
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: more credibility to proceed. But our politics doesn't let you
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: do that.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, they're just, just sometimes moments where someone
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: is speaking, someone is speaking, and even though it may
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: be wrong, you have to take action. You have to
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: come up on stage and kind of make that person
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: stop speaking, right? Even if people will tell you that
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: violence is not justified.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I didn't see it coming. I didn't see it coming.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: Well, neither did Chris Rodd.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Um, it is one of those, it's like everyone knew
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: what he meant.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Which is like, that's it. He's like, Vladimir Putin is
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: a murderous dictator with nuclear weapons who can't remain in power.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: But because he's a murderous dictator with nuclear weapons, it's
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: too risky to try to remove him from part from power.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: That's what he meant.
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: You know, but it's not, you can't just, you can't
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: just add.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can't get Lindsey Graham sent those tweets
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: off and it's like, yeah, I mean, sure.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: The last time we were doing like a word count
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: controversy was the 16 words in Bush's State of the
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: Union where he beat the drums to go to war
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: in Iraq.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Look how that turned out.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: So that's another alternative path that some of these hawks
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: want that I would recommend we avoid.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So Joe Biden's opponent in the 2020 and potentially 2024
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: elections had his own astute take on Putin's invasion of
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Ukraine during a relatively poorly attended rally in Georgia on Saturday.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: This is Georgia, the state. Here are some speech highlights
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: from the most popular Republican in the country, Donald Trump.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: Saakashvili.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: But they asked me, is Putin smart?
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: Yes, Putin was smart. And I actually thought he was
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: going to be negotiating. I said, that's a hell of
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: a way to negotiate. Put 200,000 soldiers on the border.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: It should have never happened. The ocean will rise one
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: hundredth of one percent over the next 300 fucking years.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: I remember sleepy eyes Chuck Todd.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Did you ever hear of him?
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: He's a sleepy son of a bitch. Joe Biden should
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: recuse himself from anything having to do with Ukraine because
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: they've gotten so much money from Ukraine. Because energy is
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: so expensive today. Gallons, you take a look at your,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: forget about it, the pump. You take a look at
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: a barrel now. It'll be $ 2. It could be, people
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: are saying it's going to go up to, think of this.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: People are saying.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Take a look at a gallon.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Forget about it.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: A pump. A barrel, a pump, a gallon, two dollars.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: More.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: A lot more.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Have that guy fucking draw a clock. I mean, what?
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: We surprised you, Lovett, with the fucking ocean. What is
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: going on? Look, that made no news.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Here's my take. There's no way Hillary can lose this thing.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: It's a lock. I feel like I'm in a time
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: warp listening to that. He is.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: He sounds, he now sounds more like the impression of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: him on SNL. Who's the, who's the SNL actor?
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have a name yet, but they haven't given
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: him a name yet.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Once they give him a name, it's really good.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: Sleepy son of a bitch. What a weird insult.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Hey man, listen, I don't know if you're paying much attention, but,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: but like, broadcast news isn't what it once was. People
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: aren't watching the Sunday shows. They're not keeping up like
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: you are.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: It's just you and Matt Negrin. I hope Matt's listening.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: A few of the Georgia reporters who covered the rally
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: said it was the smallest crowd they've ever seen for
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Trump and that the people were walking out halfway through
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: his remarks. You guys think he needs to punch up
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: his material? What's going on there? I think he's a
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: little off his game. I think he's a little off
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: his game.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: He's out of practice. Stakes are kind of low right now.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: He's looking at this Because, you know, part of it
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: though is he's not really fighting for himself right now.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: He's doing this for other people. And that doesn't move him.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: His heart is not in that.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Doesn't move him. Doesn't move him.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: His heart is not in that.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: I don't want to do wish casting because obviously the
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: guy still polls really well. But I've watched a couple
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: of these rallies lately and they have felt low energy.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: And maybe it's just a time when we're not focused
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: on these things. But this is a county, I think
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I read that Trump won 89% of this county. So
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: this is like blood red MAGA country. And it just
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: felt tired. It just felt redundant. I mean, The punch-ups
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: were there, right? It was the F-bomb, talking about climate change.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: That got their attention. Is that how you reach a
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: bunch of right-wing conservatives? I don't know. Swearing in front
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: of their families and children? Probably not.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: They don't care.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: The other joke he was making that's new is he
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: keeps talking about Russia's nuclear weapons by saying, Putin is
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: saying the N-word, which is really weird because the joke
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: is that he just lets it hang. And sort of
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: gets the crowd to think that he's going to– and
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: it's just really.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Which is very possible.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Very uncomfortable.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Very possible for him.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: And very bad. The local press, though, was saying what
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: you were saying, Lovett. They were speculating that this slate
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: of people he's endorsed in Georgia is just a bunch
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: of duds. And that makes the kind of like grievance
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: royal rumble a bit of a harder sell.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, David Perdue, who's running against Brian Kemp in the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: primary for governor– is down by 10 points, got Trump's endorsement.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: David Prude decided to suddenly go from being like a
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: regular Republican conservative to like an extreme right-wing MAGA guy
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: who's like campaigning with Marjorie Taylor Greene. And now he's
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: got Trump's endorsement. He's got a bunch of ads out there,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: but he's 10 points behind Brian Kemp. So Trump's endorsements
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: aren't going well either. Look, I feel the same way
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: as you tell me. Like, I don't want to wish
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: cast here because My prediction, even though we're out of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the prediction business, is that Donald Trump, you've heard it before,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: is that I think Donald Trump is like a lock
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: for the nomination if he wants it. I will say
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in the last couple weeks, it's felt like he's losing
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a little steam.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Tim Kaine's going to lock this thing up. Yeah, look,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: they're all a little bit... I do think part of it, too,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: is like there's... It was true in the Ketanji Brown-Jackson hearings.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: It has been true since... the Ukraine crisis started. They're
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: not like organized around us, even like a narrow set
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: of grievance issues right now. Like they had schools going
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: into the Virginia election. Marjorie Taylor Greene's getting up there
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: and being like, we got to keep Chastin Buttigieg out
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: of the ladies room. Like, dude, you understand how gay works?
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: You dumb fuck.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: We don't want to, that's the least, what are you
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: talking about? Uh, they're all, and he's going to, you're
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: a bicycle, CR, CTR, CTR.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Critical race theory is calling it CTR.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: I got it. Look, I know that that's fundamental. I,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Herschel Walker scares me to death as a candidate. He's famous.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: He speaks super religious language.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: He's not a good candidate.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: He's, he's like a bad-ass. I, that guy worries me.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: One other dude, do you see the guy who took
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: his jacket off and he said he had Donald Trump
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: armor on his back and he showed Trump some like
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: weird patches. She put him on the back of his shirt.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: What is going on?
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know. The endorsements are not going well. You
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: guys talked about Mo Brooks. I think you and Dan
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: in Alabama, how he got unendorsed for being a loser.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I still think we got to see Trump in a
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Republican primary, you know, and watch all these people who
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: want to run against him to see if they actually
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: can throw a punch, if they can take a punch.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: We're not going to know anything. We're not going to know.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Brian Kemp isn't the villain Donald Trump needs.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Trump just put out a statement today, by the way. Uh,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: not about the Oscars, not about Ukraine, not about any
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: of the issues we've discussed. He's confirming that he did
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: in fact get a hole in one while golfing with
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Ernie Els the other day.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: That's cool though.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I think that's cool. I think that's a good statement.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: I was in the seventh hole at West Palm.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I can't believe we didn't get a comment on the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Oscars from him.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Shout out. Look, obviously, we've given Vice President Kamala Harris
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: shit for kind of hurting our chances of keeping the
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: White House because she helped get Donald Trump off of Twitter.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: However, however.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: It was a five iron into a slight win.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Thank goodness. Thank goodness we didn't take any fucking slap
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: takes on Twitter from this guy.
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: That's just something we got to skip.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: He might have united everyone, though. He was the one
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: thing uniting so many people in the country. Now, look
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: at us. Now, everyone's a Frenchman.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Close your eyes.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Close your eyes.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Imagine it was Elon Musk slapping Jeff Bezos.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Now what do you think?
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: We woke up this morning and we said we wouldn't
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: do this.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: I'm not doing anything.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I'm introducing nonsense. I'm providing no content here.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Trump and his band of goons are still under investigation
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: for their attempt to overturn the last election. On Monday,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a federal judge ruled in favor of the January 6th
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: committee by ordering the release of more than 100 emails
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: from Trump advisor John Eastman saying that, quote, this was
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: the judge, In his ruling, he said, quote, based on
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the evidence, the court finds it is more likely than
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: not that the former president committed crimes by trying to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: obstruct Congress from certifying the election. The committee is also
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: looking to interview right wing activist Ginny Thomas, wife of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, after a report last week
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: that they have 29 text messages that show her urging
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: in the most annoying ways possible former White House chief
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: of staff Mark Meadows to overturn the election while floating
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: insane conspiracy theories that had been spread by QAnon. including
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: her belief that Joe Biden and his family will, quote,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: be living in barges off Gitmo to face military tribunals
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: for sedition.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: That was my favorite text. Let's take these one by one, though.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Can we start with Eastman? Yeah, that's what I'm going
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: to start with. So did this judge in California, did
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: he get to review the 100 emails that will now
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: be turned over to the committee?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I think it's 110 or 111.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Something like 100 plus, yeah.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: I think this has been the headline is that the
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: president has likely committed crimes, but I think it's just
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: as important that, I think he said 100, he said
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: that only 10 of the 110 or 111 were protected
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: by privilege and the rest are admissible.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Because you cannot protect under attorney-client privilege communications that are
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: part of an effort to commit a crime or cover
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: up a crime.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't do crimes. You and your lawyer can't
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: do crimes together and then try to hide it.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: In the same way that executive privilege doesn't protect you
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: from doing crimes. There's no crime secret rule.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I'm a naughty, gonna-fly lawyer. It didn't really work.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a big deal because I think, so
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: there was a question of whether the criminal charge of
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: obstructing Congress would be too difficult for the committee to prove.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: It is a very, like who's tried to, what cases
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: have been about obstruction? Congress, right? But now we got
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: at least one federal judge saying Trump is probably guilty
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: of it. So who knows what will happen. But again,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: this is going to fall, ultimately fall in Merrick Garland's lap.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Because the 1-6 committee can.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Make a referral, a criminal referral to the Justice Department
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that Donald Trump is guilty of obstructing Congress or that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump obstructed Congress, but only DOJ can decide whether
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: to bring the charges.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Merrick Garland is a measure-twice-cut-once sort of fellow. He is
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: a patient, patient, patient man.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: This is what you told us about Bob Mueller.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your fucking bobblehead dolls. He's got his bobblehead doll
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: with Mueller and then he's got his Fauci bobblehead doll.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, running out of counter space for all these fucking
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: bobblehead guys that haven't saved us. It's like, you know
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: that scene in Dark Knight where they're on the ship,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: and one of them, they're like, to save our ship,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: we gotta blow up the other ship, and nobody wants
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: to be the one to press the button?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: No.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I guess in that movie, you're not supposed to press
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: the button? No. So it's not a good analogy.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: It's like a trolley?
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit. It's like, hey, I don't know
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: what happened with Bragg in New York, I don't know
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: what's happening with Garland in D.C., but like... There's a
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: red crime button that everyone seems to be a little
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: bit afraid to push.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I hear that.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: How big of a deal are Ginny Thomas' texts?
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: I mean... It's so funny.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: She's a chill lady.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Everyone kind of like smooths it over for her in Washington.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: They call her a conservative activist. She is a wacky,
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: far-right conspiracy theorist. QAnon.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: She's a QAnon person.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: She is willing to use her access to lobby on
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: behalf of these fringe views to the highest possible levels.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Government do you know how fucked up and shitty you
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: have to be to make mark meadows sympathetic in a
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: text chain about overturning our democracy because mark meadows who
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: goes full bananas in the text as well and says
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: though the king of kings jesus will fix everything he's
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: capitalizing things like he's telling stories in the bible it's
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: like a whole yeah it's the it's the it's the
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: it's the it's the god it's mark it's gospel of
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: mark but the the the moments where genie thomas is
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: clearly just haranguing mark meadows who has to reply and
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: keep Ginny Thomas happy because her husband is a Supreme
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Court justice.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: We've all been there. We've all been there where you can't,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you want to ignore the crazy outside advisor, but you
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: can't because they're important and they're friends of the candidate.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And so you have to talk to them. Only this
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: one is saying, hey, also overthrow democracy.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: You know why he screwed up though? Listen, I used
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: to be very opposed to reaction emojis and text. You were.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: But then I recently learned that they're just a great
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: way to react without saying anything and really end a conversation.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: He could have used a few ha-has.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe an exclamation point here and there.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: It would have been over.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Whoa, the exclamation point. I love the one where at
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: one point she texted him and she's like, hey, sorry
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to wake you. I'm like, what time did that text
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: get sent to Mark Meadows? Sorry to wake you, but
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: we really need to overthrow the government.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Also, just so disconnected from reality, one of my favorite messages,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: and not even the most damning, is she said, I
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: just saw Rudy's press conference. This is the press conference
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: where he leaked from the head and basically lost the
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: country forever. Lost his credibility. Probably the moment he put
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: himself on track to lose his ability to practice law.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Became a pariah. And she's like, A fucking plus. Fucking finally.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: I have been waiting to see that moment my whole life.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: The tears are flowing.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: It's the equivalent of, she is like the one person
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: who liked the finale of Game of Thrones. She's like,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: that worked for me. She liked the, It doesn't make
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: any sense. Release the Kraken.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Listen to Rush, Mark Stein, Bongino, Cleta. I mean, she's
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: name checking the craziest people. She's doing her research on YouTube.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Never a good idea. And like, again, she and Clarence
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: pretend they don't talk about politics, but she refers to
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: having a conversation with my best friend who they, in
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: other interviews, refer to each other as their best friend.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: So we got to figure it out.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about him. What to do about Clarence Thomas.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Democrats in Congress have called on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: from any cases related to the 2020 election. Of course,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: he has already ruled on some, including one where at
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: stake was releasing White House communications related to overturning the election.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It was eight to one. He was the only one
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: who voted to keep their... Now, a lot of legal
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: scholars and reporters believe that Ginny's texts were not in
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: that tranche, but he didn't know whether they were or not.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: We still don't know for sure if they weren't or not.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Don't we think that... Aren't we.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Well, because they're private techs with Mark Meadows, what they
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: ruled on was communications between, was like official Trump communication,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: privilege communication.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: But we don't know what else is a part of it.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: But don't we know that these were part of the
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: tranche Mark Meadows voluntarily gave over?
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: So we don't know that.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: The Ginny Thomas.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: The Ginny Thomas.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Mark Meadows. Boy, did he cause himself some problems by
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: handing over those texts. Wow.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: So dumb.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: What have you learned over the last five years to
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: teach you to respect the rule a lot, you fucker?
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: You can't hand over first and then instruct second.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, so back to Clarence Thomas. Back to Clarence Thomas.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: So first of all, okay, let's get to the recusal
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: in a second. First, there's a lot of like, just
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: let's go right to impeaching Clarence Thomas. Which I'm just like,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I don't... Sure. I mean, you and whose army.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: Is going to impeach Clarence Thomas? The dumbest take on
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: the internet is Democrats need to demand that they impeach
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Clarence Thomas and that he resign because absolutely nothing will
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: happen if they all do that.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: It's just a performative step and make all your other
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Twitter followers very happy.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: For the crime of having a fucking shitty spouse. I
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: don't even know what that voice is.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: It's sort of German.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: I can't do it. I can't do the French.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: But again, it's like, all right, so let's let's go
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: through this process. I still don't know exactly precisely precisely
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: what we're impeaching him for. But he was you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: he knew all about it, knew the effort to overthrow
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the election, whatever. Let's say that happened. The House impeaches him.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Then it goes to the Senate that what? Decline twice
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: to convict Donald Trump himself. But they're gonna be like, oh, yeah,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: He's out.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: I just like I feel like impeachment is now like.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: the no-fly zone of American politics. It's like a bunch
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: of people advocating for it and not really fully wrapping
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: their heads around the consequences. American people hated it the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: last couple of times. We don't like Clarence Thomas. Clarence
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Thomas should recuse himself. There should be an investigation into
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas, either whether it's part of January 6th or
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: part of a separate investigation. We should look at conflicts
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: of interest between Ginny Thomas and Clarence Thomas that go
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: beyond just her advocacy for the end of democracy, but
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: all of her nefarious dealings. Why not do that? and
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: set the expectation around the truth as opposed to an impeachment,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: which we will not succeed in and we'll get the
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: same amount of information, but just leads us down a
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: path in which we've kind of blown this up and
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: set an unrealizable goal. That's how I feel about it
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: right now. I can be persuaded. That's how I feel
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: He should recuse. I mean, the recusal is clear at
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: this point. Jane Mayer wrote about this in the New Yorker.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And she noted that, you know, Supreme Court justices aren't
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: bound by the judicial code of conduct that applies to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: all other federal judges, which mandates that they recuse themselves
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: from participating in any cases in which personal entanglements could
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: cause a fair-minded member of the public to doubt their impartiality.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: But Supreme Court justices are subject to a federal law
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that prohibits them from hearing cases in which their spouses have, quote,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: of the proceeding. Yeah, that's it. That's Ginny Thomas.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: We are also constantly told about how much John Roberts
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: cares about the integrity of the court. So to me,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: this is a bit of an inside game. You create
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: a drumbeat of pressure and coverage and concern in Roberts'
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: head and among other conservatives on the court that they
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: go to Clarence Thomas and they say, hey, buddy, this
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: is bad. It's bad that the best friend here, if
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: that's you, that's bad. Ginny is talking about threats to
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Justice Amy Coney Barrett. What information is that based off?
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Who gave that to her? What is with the gap
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: in correspondence? What is with the reporting that your wife
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: was talking with Caroline Wren and playing peacemaker for the
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Stop the Steal rally people? What happened there? What is
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: with her use of title case in text messages?
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: That's something to look into.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: What about her claim that she left the rally early
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: because she got chilly? You know?
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: That's not a good reason to leave an insurrection.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: No.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: The other thing too, Clarence, baby, don't worry. You can
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: recuse yourself another judge can recuse himself, you're still going
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: to fucking win. So don't worry. Don't worry. The court
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: is corrupt down to its fucking foundations. You being there
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't even matter.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: John Roberts should force him to recuse himself. You're right, Tommy.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: And the pressure from the outside has to come from
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: the impeachment eagle.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Although I think Biden was asked about this today and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: was like, this is up to both the Supreme Court
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and the Justice Department. And I was like, okay, well that's...
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: But I do think that... The recusal is obvious here.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of avenues to force him to do that.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: You're right.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: It's got to be John Roberts and his colleagues because
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: these Supreme Court justices are just like, you know.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Merrick Garland removing a quill from ink, delicately calligraphy each
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: letter of an indictment, slowly figuring out each perfect little
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: word until he's ready to uphold the law.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Send the impeachment eagle.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: And then soaring over Washington, the impeachment eagle. Clarence Thomas
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: has been impeached.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Lands on the shoulder of the Marshal of the Supreme Court.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: It's full circle.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And together, they go get him. All right, when we
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: come back, I will talk to.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Brings us no pleasure to report.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: When we come back, I will talk to the President
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: of the Service Employees International Union, Mary Kay Henry. This week,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: thousands of workers at Amazon warehouses in Bessemer, Alabama and
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Staten Island, New York are holding a vote on whether
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: to form a union for better pay and working conditions.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: A win would mark the first ever successful organizing effort
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: at Amazon. and comes at a time when Starbucks baristas, teachers,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: grocery workers, professors, and even Capitol Hill staffers are organizing
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: across the country. Here to talk about this new momentum
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: for the labor movement, the president of the Service Employees
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: International Union, Mary Kay Henry. Thanks for joining.
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: Glad to be with you.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: So the National Labor Relations Board ordered the second election
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: at Bessemer after Amazon was found to have violated the
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: law in the first election, where two-thirds of the employees
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: voted against the union. What lessons do you think organizers
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: have learned since that first loss, and how has the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: strategy changed since then?
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: I think the workers that were the initial organizers inside
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: that warehouse were understood that when Amazon added a thousand
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: workers just before the first election, that they didn't have
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: the time to form the relationships that are required for
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: people to trust each other enough to take the leap
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: to join together in the union in the face of
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: the barrage of anti-union information that they were getting from
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: their supervisors. And so I think the biggest lesson is
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: kind of the art of organizing, which is Connecting with workers,
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: whether they're new or veteran, on the issues that they
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: care about addressing and helping paint a picture of how
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: joining together will improve the job and change people's lives.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I'd love to drill down a little more on that
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: because I've always been curious. What are some of the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: most common anti-union tactics and messaging that companies like Amazon use?
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: And then what are some messages and strategies that organizers
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: use to get around those?
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: Changing people's shifts, making it clear that the supervisor's relationship
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: to the individual worker is going to change or threatening Amazon.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: They actually took it to a new level and helped
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: change people's assignments. So they broke up work teams, which
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: makes it harder on workers to think together about how
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: to confront the anti-campaign situation. The workers were marched into
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: captive audience meetings where the administrator of the warehouse and
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: an outside consultant come in and talk about all the
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: ways in which unions are bad. And so there's lots
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: of information that you have to get into for the
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: leaders of the union to understand so they can quiet
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: their co-workers' fears.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: You've said that no matter what the results are, this
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: will be a victory of sorts for the labor movement.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that?
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: I think the Bessemer workers and Staten Island workers have
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: totally changed the conversation about who gets to join a
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: union and that anybody in any zip code of any
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: race should have the right to join together and bargain
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: a better life. And I think we're seeing public support
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: that we haven't seen since the 1960s for workers being
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: able to join unions. And those two warehouses are just
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: the beginning of an uprising that's happening with Starbucks workers,
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: airport workers, home care workers, nursing home workers, and hospital
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: workers who understand enough is enough. We just sacrificed our
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: lives and the lives of our families throughout this pandemic.
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: We aren't paid living wages. A lot of those workers
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: don't get paid sick days, for God's sake. And so
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: that's what I think the Amazon workers have contributed.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: To all of us.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just going to say, like zooming out
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: from from these specific unionization efforts, you know, polls show
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: that support for unions are higher than it's been in decades.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: And yet the percentage of Americans who belong to a
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: union is at an all time low. What do you
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: think that's all about?
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: That there's been a concerted attack by government and management
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: to destroy unions over the last 40 years. Scott Walker
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: kicked a half a million people out of unions in Wisconsin.
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: through two legislative acts that he led in Wisconsin 10
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: years ago. That's just the tip of the spear. And
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: then there's been these very creative anti-campaigns by companies like
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: Amazon and Starbucks that are having less and less effect
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: because workers have decided, I'm not going to believe a
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: company that calls me a partner, but then treats me
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: like I'm an enemy when I decide to join together
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: with my coworkers. They know something's wrong with that picture,
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: and that's why we need unions all across the economy.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I'm always interested in sort of like persuasive arguments. And
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I wonder, obviously, there's union activists, there's management trying to
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: crush unions. What is sort of the most persuasive argument
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to a worker who may be on the fence, who
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: may think, you know, I want better wages and better
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: living conditions? but I'm a little worried about what this
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: union is going to mean for me. What are sort
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: of some of the arguments that tend to push workers
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: over the edge? Well, I have to.
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: Tell you, that was a concern pre-pandemic. But post-pandemic, if
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: you think about the great resignation where workers have been
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: quitting their jobs, I believe that has shifted to a
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: great reckoning where workers are deciding to stay on their
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: job and join together and make it a better job.
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: And so the biggest argument is, what are you and
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: I going to do together that's going to deal with
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: this sinking feeling we have in our gut every day
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: as we leave about why am I having to return
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: to this job tomorrow? And too many workers all across
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: the economy have that feeling. And I think that's why
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: this uprising is impacting workers from home care to nursing
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: homes to hospitals to teachers, as you said at the
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: very beginning.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: What else do you think President Biden and the Democratic
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Congress can realistically do to support workers' rights between now
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: and the midterms?
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: Well, I think President Biden has made crystal clear that
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: if he had the choice to join a union, he would.
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: And that is a huge boost of support and confidence
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: for workers who have the guts and courage to walk
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: through an anti-campaign, be fired. have their shift change be
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: reassigned to a different store or location in the warehouse,
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: all the ways in which workers are being harassed and
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: intimidated by management to discourage them for voting for the union.
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: So continuing to publicly support unions is a key thing
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: that President Biden and all elected officials should be doing.
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: The second thing is they can allow for the rules
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: to get rewritten so that workers don't have to walk
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: through fire in order to join a union. So there
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: needs to be consequences for employers who are running these anti-campaigns,
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: especially if they're getting federal dollars. We could tie federal
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: dollars and investment to letting workers decide for themselves whether
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: or not they want to join a union. And then
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: the third thing is we could allow for innovation in
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: the states. We have fast food workers in California that
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: are trying to legislate a table that gets set between
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: the franchise owners, the workers, and the state government to
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: deal with heat stroke that's happening in the stores and
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: because they get burns on their arms from the grease
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: in the fryers. And so there's so many ways in
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: which government can back workers being able to join together
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: in unions as we see more and more strikes and
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: militant action happening by workers who want to change their lives.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Last question for you. Poll after poll shows that a
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: majority of Americans rank the economy, inflation, living standards, wages
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: as their top issues. Polls also show majority support for
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: higher minimum wage, more affordable health care and child care
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and elder care. But it's still rare to see kitchen
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: table economic issues really break through the media coverage or
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the national political debate, even among some Democratic activists and politicians.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that is and how do we
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: change that?
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: I think the workers that are uprising are changing it.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: I think the minimum wage debate changed in this country
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: because of the fearlessness and courage of fast food workers
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: who had the audacious demand of 15 10 years ago.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: And now we're talking about 15 being too low and
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: that there needs to be a higher standard. And I
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: think likewise on workers being able to join unions and
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: deal with those kitchen table issues, worker organizing is going
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: to inject that into the political debate like no other
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: time in history.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Excellent.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Mary Kay Henry, thank you so much for joining us.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Take care and thanks for all your good work. Thank you.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: All right, before we go, if your NCAA bracket is
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: already busted, rest assured, we have a new bracket for you. Tommy,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: take it away.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to our second annual March Badness bracket. Guys,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: this is a totally original, wildly innovative concept where we
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: take an NCAA tournament bracket, we insert Republicans instead of
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: basketball teams, and we have them compete. How do we
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: come up with this stuff?
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: How do we come up with it?
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Okay, a couple notes. This is just
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: a joke. Don't take it seriously or yell at us
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: on Twitter, but... When we're done, go to the Pod
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Save America Twitter feed if you want to vote yourself
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: and show us why we're wrong.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Can we take it seriously with each other and yell
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: at each other?
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, please. Here's how March Badness works. I've selected eight
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: teams for you guys to choose from. The awful eight.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: You'll debate amongst yourselves and choose the winner of a
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: matchup between two teams in each of the four regions. West, East, South,
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: and Midwest. In some cases, I'll tell you the results
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: of a play-in game and how we got to the
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: awful eight because, again, we're just having fun here. But
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: last year, I forgot.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: I'm so worried that some people are going to take
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: this out of context. Do you affect your congressional bid?
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Have you ever?
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: What are you worried about? What do you think is
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: going to happen?
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: Have you been on the internet?
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sucks.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Last year, I forgot to come up with the tie-breaking mechanism.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: This year, I'm just going to cast a vote if
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: you guys are split.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, great. I like that.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Or we could do rock, scissors, paper.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: We can do that, too. We're going to start out
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: in the Wests. Okay, so with our sixth seed, we
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: have a man who has ties to every kind of
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: extremist group. A man who is so toxic, so extreme,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: that six of his siblings cut a campaign ad against him.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about America's creepiest fascist dentist, Paul Gosar.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, good one.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Real like little shop of horrors.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's out there. He's out there.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: He's one of the worst for sure.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: Timely reference.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Terrible personality.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Five seed has been described by a local newspaper as,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: as the Flat Earth Society of Local Politics. They were
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: trying to get early voting declared unconstitutional in a state
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: where 90% of voters use it. I am talking about
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: the Arizona Republican Party. Oh, man.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: One of the worst ones of all the states.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: So, guys, what do you think? Some people think that
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Paul Gosar is an asset on the court because he'll
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: do anything to stop this deal.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: John.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: Or will you advance the Arizona GOP, who are best
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: known for paying the cyber ninjas... $ 6 million to tweak
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: the over-under in the vote total.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I have a strong feeling about this.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. Let me think. I want to hear your
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: strong feeling, but here's what I'm thinking. First of all,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: the Arizona Republican Party actually helped prove that Joe Biden
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: won by a few more votes than they had originally intended.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: So they've done some good work. The question I think
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: here is, do you hate the player or do you
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: hate the game?
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Is that the question?
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: It is. Paul Gosar just recently spoke about it right
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: here on this program. Was it a Thursday episode? Spoke at, no,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: I think, I don't believe so. I think you were here.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Cool.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I think you were here. Spoke at a white nationalist
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: rally with Nick Fuentes. Marjorie Taylor Greene was the focus
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: because she was there physically, but he zoomed in. He
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: zoomed into the rally. It's a White House rally. They
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: were cheering Putin, cheering the invasion, cheering Russia.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Who do you think was in that crowd? You don't
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: think members of the Arizona Republican Party were in that crowd?
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but as you said, they actually did help make
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: it clear that Joe Biden won the election.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: It's time to vote.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: I'll go with Paul Glasser. I'm good with that.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Gosar. Double Gosar, okay. We got Gosar. Our matchup in
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: the East pits old versus new. So our three seed
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: is a dual threat to democracy. She storms the Capitol,
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: he shreds the Constitution, and they both pretend that they
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: don't talk about it. I'm, of course, talking about Justin's
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Clarence Thomas and his wife, Stop the Steel Ginny.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: I know a fun fact about Ginny Thomas.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Her maiden name is Lamp.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: What? We got an old school power couple. Traditional style
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: offense with lots of backdoor cuts right into the Capitol.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Tremendous backcourt. You know, they distribute the conspiracy theories. He
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: finishes them. You get it. So there was a play-in
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: game to get us to the eighth seed. So out
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: of the Far East, we had Vladimir Putin. Nice. You
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: guys know his pedigree, story program, blue blood. But Putin
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: got beat up by an undersized opponent in the conference
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: tournament and ended up losing to Dr. Mehmet Oz.
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: What?
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: I know this is surprising, but step back and think
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: about it, guys. In America, Putin is basically a moderate Republican.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: A miracle on the ice.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: He's kind of a rhino. Meanwhile, Dr. Oz is peddling
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: shady supplements, and he embraced the anti-vax community while Putin
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: tried to make his own vaccine. Big time no-no.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Wait, I thought we were picking, what happened to Ginny Thomas?
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: That's a play-in game, motherfucker.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: So who do we choose out of the East?
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: The Thomases, a power couple, a political dynasty, or a
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: media darling named Dr. Oz, who's been profiting off of
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: his name, image, and likeness for decades.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: I don't think this is hard.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's hard either.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Ginny Thomas.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: They're so hot right now. They're so hot right now.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: This is a content. This is a game of content.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: We're more content out of the Thomases than we get
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: out of the squeeze out of Oz.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: No upsets yet. He's about to quit.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Jeannie and Clarence are our, what are the ones with
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Bonnie and Clyde? They're Bonnie and Clyde.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: I love it. Coming out of the South. Coming out
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: of the South. We got a creepy old guy who
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: just won't go away. Weird hair dye. Authoritarian vibes. He's
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: demanding one last ride, even though everyone wishes he would
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: just retire. I am not talking about Coach K. I'm
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: talking about Donald Trump. He's our one seed. You'll get
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: these jokes eventually. We got a tough matchup.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: No, no Coach K.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: You didn't get it? No, thank you. Wow, that's tough. Okay,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: with the four seed out of the South, we have
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: got the rest of Florida. Dead-eyed Ron DeSantis, gutless Marco Rubio,
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: human spray tan Matt Gaetz, Rick Scott, the don't say
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: gay bill, this crew, they can spread out, they play
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: zone defense, and they smother you with bullshit. So who
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: we got here? It's the OG, the selfish old man
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: who thinks it's all about him, or his disciples who
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: are out there doing the work They're crashing the school boards.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: They're getting dunked on on and off Twitter, despite some
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: lingering concerns about underage recruiting and diaper dandies, if you
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: know what I'm talking about.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: But I think I know where John's head is at.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: And I will just say, give a country a Trump.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: You'll have a Trump for four years. Teach a country
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: to Trump. You'll have Trumps forever. So I vote for Florida.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: I vote for Florida, too.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: I knew you would.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Also, it's like, what's a NCAA tournament without a big
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: upset early on?
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: It's good. These Florida Republicans.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Huge ups that Trump goes down in the first round.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: The Duke of this thing is out. It's 2022.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: How about that? They denied the existence of COVID. They'll
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: deny you at the rim. They cut down basketball nets
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: and social safety nets.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: Wait, you know what I'm realizing?
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Tommy's just spitting out all of these lines he's worked
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: on all day and we're just talking over it.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I can't do the interview, John.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: I got work to do.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: John, you got to take the interview about unionization.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: I got to focus on this. I got these.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: I got bits.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: I got lines.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I'm busy.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: I'm a busy man.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: Last, last, last section here. Midwest. I want just to
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: warn you guys. This bracket is just soul crushingly awful.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: The dregs of humanity down here in the Midwest. So
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: it was an all Ohio play in game to get
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: us to our Susie.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, you love this. You love the Ohio.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: Yale alum, venture capitalist turned populist. JD Vance faced off
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: against stone cold idiot. Josh Mandel. Now JD shameless liar.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Tweets are insufferable. Whines about tech companies. Takes Peter Thiel's money.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: But Mandel got the win after he tried to beat
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: up a senior citizen at a U.S. Senate debate. And
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: in this tournament, it's really it's about who wants it more.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: So he will face off. Mandel will face off against
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: our seventh seat. This person is absolutely insufferable. We're talking
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: about Tyler Hansborough meets Wojo all in one. You don't
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: know anyone. Slaps the court. Fist bumps insurrectionists. I would
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: describe him as slightly more tolerable than Ted Cruz.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: So interested.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Talking about Josh Hawley.
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: Oh, okay.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Hawley, he handily defeated the Michigan kidnappers to get here
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: mostly because I'm pretty sure I can't joke about them.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: So we got Josh Mandel. He's a bruiser in the paint.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Handles on the court, but a tenuous grip on reality.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Or Josh Hawley. Because if you think about it, the insurrection...
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: was the ultimate buzzer beater. Jesus.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Good job. You know what? I'm glad I took the interview.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: He really worked hard on this. Hey, guys.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: It was a long A block, too.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: I just wanted you to know it was a blast.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: What do we got?
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I feel Holly.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I feel Holly, too.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: I think Mandel.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Because I don't think we have enough true insurrectionists in
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: the final. Actually, we got Gosar, so that's going to
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: be interesting.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, to sort of like Hawley got to be
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: an insurrectionist because he had chops Mandel doesn't have.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't even know if Mandel's getting out of
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: that primary.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Zuri called Josh Hawley the doofus whisperer, which
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: I thought was really funny. So your fascist four is
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Paul Gosar, the Thomas family, the rest of the Florida GOP,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: and Josh Hawley.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: This is a good four.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: Good four. Solid four.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: And also it captures a range, I think.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: Now, don't forget to vote on your own fascist four
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: on the Pod Save America Twitter feed. But also, the
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: serious part of this is that Vote Save America is
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: officially launching Midterm Madness, our plan to help you find
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: the best ways to volunteer, organize, and donate as we
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: head into the fall. In 2020, we launched Adopt the State.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: In 2022, we're asking you to sign up for a
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: region like the bracket. Get it? It's a theme. Here's
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: how it works. Go to VoteSaveAmerica.com slash Midterm Madness. Pick
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: a region, east, south, midwest, and west. And Vote Save
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: America will send targeted actions every week along with updates
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: on what's happening on the ground.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Go sign up. Sign the fuck up.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Pick a region.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: Come on. Bothdayofamerica.com slash midterms.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: We're all picking regions.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: We're all picking regions.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: What are you going to go with? I haven't figured
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: out yet. This is the first time I've thought about it.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like ancestral home.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Right. Or like stuff you can do in person.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's also true. New home, ancestral home. Yeah,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: it's tough. We'll figure it out. The three of us
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and Dan will have to split it up.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll figure it out.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: Okay. All right.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that, Tommy. That was fantastic. Thank you
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: to Mary Kay Henry of SEIU for joining us to
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: talk about unionization efforts.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: And thanks to everybody for praying for Clarence Thomas. We
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: got him out of there.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks to the Thomases. And thanks to everyone.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Got him out of the hospital.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone who offered takes about the Oscars.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: Yep. Yep. You did it. Decline comments. Bye, everyone.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Hot Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Andy Gardner Bernstein.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Our producer is Haley Muse, and Olivia Martinez is our
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: associate producer. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineer the show. Thanks to
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Tanya Sominator, Sandy Gerard, Hallie Kiefer, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montu. Our
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: episodes are uploaded as videos at youtube.com slash crookedmedia.