Latest / Pod Save America / Trump's Perfect Interview (plus Jake Tapper!)

Transcript

Trump's Perfect Interview (plus Jake Tapper!) · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's show, Donald Trump employs the novel legal strategy
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of confessing his crimes on television. Hunter Biden strikes a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: plea deal with a Trump prosecutor. RFK Jr. 's anti-vax,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: anti-Wi-Fi candidacy gets a boost from Joe Rogan and Elon's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: VC fanboys. And Justice Sam Alito is mad that we
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: all found out he got free rides on a billionaire's
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: private jet whose hedge fund he later ruled in favor of.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Then CNN's Jake Tapper stopped by the studio to talk
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: to Tommy Lovett and me about Trump, CNN, Fox, and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: his new novel All the demons are here. First, a
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: few quick housekeeping notes. Crooked's award-winning podcast, This Land, is
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: back with a bonus episode. It's going to be out
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: this Friday. It delves into the recent surprisingly good Supreme
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Court ruling on the Indian Child Welfare Act. Host Rebecca
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Nagel discusses this pivotal court case in most of season
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: two of This Land, which reveals how the far right
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: is trying to use Native children to chip away at
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: American Indian tribes. in their sovereignty rights. In this case,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: they failed, which is great. And you can find out
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: why this Friday on This Land, wherever you get your podcasts. Also,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a reminder that Crooked Media reads first ever book, Mobility
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: by Lydia Kiesling is available right now for pre-order. Vulture
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: included Mobility on its 14 books. We can't wait to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: read the summer list. Head to crooked.com slash mobility to
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: pre-order your copy today and be the first to read.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: when it's released on August 1st. Finally, quick thank you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to all the Vote Save America volunteers who made nearly 1,000
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: voter contacts to help defeat anti-abortion Virginia State Senator Joe
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Morrissey in Tuesday's primaries. Democrats currently hold a slim majority
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: in the Senate, while Republicans have the majority in the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: House of Delegates. If Republicans win both chambers of the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: legislature this November, these are off-year elections, Glenn Youngkin... is
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: expected to pass new abortion restrictions in Virginia, bills discriminating
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: against LGBTQ plus youth, rollbacks of voting rights, and more.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So everyone's going to get involved in Virginia for this November.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Head to votesaveamerica.com slash Virginia to help out today. All right, Dan,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: lots of news to catch up on. The Republican presidential
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: frontrunner got himself a court date to stand trial for
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: 37 felony counts of violating the Espionage Act and obstructing justice.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: It's August 14th of this year. Just a week before
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the first Republican primary debate that Donald Trump is threatening
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to skip, though we should note that most legal experts
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: expect Judge Cannon to move the date back, due in
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: part to complications that come with any case about highly
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: classified secrets. CNN has the first post-indictment poll to show
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: that Trump's support among Republican voters has declined in the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: last month. 47% say he's their first choice for president,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: which is down from 53%. in CNN's poll in May.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: His favorability rating among Republican voters has gone from 77%
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: to 67%. And now about a quarter of Republican voters
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: say they won't vote for him under any circumstances. That's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: up a few percentage points from their last poll. Trump
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: is navigating these legal and political challenges like any careful
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: criminal defendant would by going on television to confess his crimes.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Here's a clip from Trump's two-part interview with Fox's Bret Baier.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Because I had boxes. I want to go through the
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: boxes and get all my personal things out. I don't
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: want to hand that over to Nara yet. And I
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: was very busy, as you've sort of seen.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but according to the indictment, you then tell this
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: aide to move to other locations after telling your lawyers
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: to say you'd fully complied with the subpoena when you hadn't.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: But before I send boxes over, I have to take
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: all of my things out. These boxes were interspersed with
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: all sorts of things.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: Golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes. There were many things.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: I would say much, much more.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: Not that I know of, but not that I know of.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Iran war plans? Not that I know of. Not that
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I know of, but the golf shirts were in there. Look,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I realize the government sends out subpoenas sometimes, but you
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: don't have to cooperate with law enforcement if you have
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: a box with your golf shirt in there. Everyone knows that.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: It's a notable exception to the law, the golf short exception.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Before we get to the political damage this interview may
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: have caused Trump, let's talk about the legal damage. You
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: think Jack Smith might want to show jurors this clip
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: of Trump admitting that he personally went through the boxes
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and held on to classified secrets in defiance of a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: federal subpoena?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Even judging this on the scale of abject Trumpian idiocy,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: this is an astounding clip. It's astounding. He admits to
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: the crime with the excuse, as you pointed out, that
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: his golf shirts had not been sorted in time. And therefore,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: he refused to abide by the subpoena. And then when Brett,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: and this part gets less attention. But then when Brett
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Baer says that, according to the indictment, he told his
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: aides to hide the boxes and then lie to the
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: FBI about it, he does not deny it. He just
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: asserts he had to do that because the golf shirts
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and the pants and the shoes were still with them.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: It's wild. It is just, I love it. It's great.
• 5:50
  Speaker 6: It's great.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Do more.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Do more. I mean, they were his favorite golf shirts. No, like,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: it's interesting because his defense... is basically I had every
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: right to keep classified information as a private citizen, even
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: though he's on tape admitting that he didn't declassify it
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: when he was president. And by the way, I don't
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: have to cooperate with law enforcement because I'm Donald Trump.
• 6:13
  Speaker 7: That's it.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: That's his defense. It's also interesting that he seems to be,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: he basically seems to be trying to do his own
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: defense and convince potential jurors in the court of public opinion.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Like it seems like his legal strategy is to just,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: you know, do as many interviews as possible and convince
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: as many potential jurors in South Florida that this is
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: all bullshit. And he's going to do his own, he's
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: going to do his own defense and he's going to
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: do it on TV. And honestly, like who knows, it
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: might work.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I think the use of the word strategy there is
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Well, however, whether he stumbled into it or not. It is.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you really want to take like one
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: serious takeaway from this is, He truly does not believe
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: the law applies to him.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's, yeah. I mean, he thinks that the law, politics, government,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: they're just, it's something to be gamed like everything else,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: like business, right? He can just kind of bullshit his
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: way through it, con his way through it, and it doesn't.
• 7:16
  Speaker 7: Apply to him.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And to date, that's been a very effective strategy.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Because people who follow the law, people who think that
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the rules apply to them, they're suckers, you know? That's
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: that's his that's his whole deal. So Trump said plenty
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of politically damaging things as well in this interview. Here's
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: a sample.
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: Your vice president, Mike Pence, is running against you. Your
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, she's running against you.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: Your former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said he's not
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: supporting you. You mentioned National Security Advisor John Bolton. He's
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: not supporting you either. You mentioned Attorney General Bill Barr.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: Says you shouldn't be president again. Calls you a consummate
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: narcissist and troubled man. You recently called and bar a
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: gutless pig. Your second defense secretary is not supporting you.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: Called you irresponsible. This week, you and your White House,
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: called your White House chief of staff, John Kelly, weak
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: and ineffective and born with a very small brain. You
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: called your acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney,
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: a born loser. You called your first secretary of state,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: Rex Tillerson, dumb as a rock. and your first defense secretary,
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: James Mattis, the world's most overrated general. You called your
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: White House press secretary, Kayleigh Kennedy, milquetoast, and multiple times
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: you've referred to your transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, as Mitch
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: McConnell's China-loving wife. So why did you hire all of
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: them in the first place?
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Because I hired 10 to one that were fantastic.
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: In your mind, did the COVID vaccine work?
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: It's such an interesting question. Because not only that, I
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: also did the Regenerons of the world, you know, the whole.
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: We did a tremendous job on that. But we had
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: a vaccine. Now, you have different... You have different COVIDs.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: You had COVID-19, and then you have different COVIDs. But
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: we had... Original was COVID-19, which was the roughest one.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: I said, I really don't want to talk about it because,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: as a Republican, it's not a great thing to talk
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: about because, for some reason, it's just not.
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: For some reason? Yeah, for some reason. Because.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: People love the vaccines and people hate the vaccines. I
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: focused on nonviolent crime. As an example, a woman who
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: you know very well was in jail. She had 24
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: more years to serve. She served for 22 years. She
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: had 22- Alice Johnson. Alice.
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: She was in the Super Bowl. High quality, yeah.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: I said, how many years? And she was on a
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: telephone call and they were involved in selling marijuana, mostly marijuana.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: And she got like 50 years in jail.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: But she'd be killed under your plan. Huh? As a
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: drug dealer.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: Under my, oh, under that? It would depend on the severity.
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: It would depend on the severity.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: She's technically a former drug dealer.
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: She had multi-million dollar cocaine ring. Any drug dealer.
• 9:59
  Speaker 7: Look.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: So even alice johnson in that ad she can't do
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: it okay by the way if that was there no
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: she wouldn't be killed it would start as of now it's.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Just there's a lot there's a lot to unpack there.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: I mean we could do we honestly do it all
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: day every day for a month just that interview alone.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess my first question is, how do
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: we get Trump to do as many interviews as possible
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: between now and when people start voting? Because this is
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: it for me. Like, I don't think people, swing voters,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: whoever else, I don't think they have voted against Trump
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: in 2016 or 2020, mainly because of what they heard
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: about him or what other people said about him. They
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: just listened to him. They just listened to him. Or
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: they read his tweets, which are now truths, and they
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: made up their mind. And this is why the more
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Trump wants to talk, the more he wants to do interviews,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the more people want to put him on TV. I
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: am completely fine with that because, you know, all you
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: have to do is ask him a few questions. I mean,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: we can get into the Brett Baer of it all
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: in a minute. But, like, all you have to do
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: is ask him a few questions. They don't even have
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to be that pointed. And he will just do that.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Do what we just heard.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: No one does a better job of making a case
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: against themselves than Donald Trump by opening his mouth.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: It's also just, he says, he's so, he's so honest
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: about what a bullshit artist he is. Like when he
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: was like about the COVID vaccines, he's like, yeah, you know,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I can't really talk about it because the base is
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: crazy and there are a bunch of anti-vaxxers and I
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: want to piss them off.
• 11:43
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It's not my problem.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: That's his most, I think, compelling political strength, I guess,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: is the... He just... He said... He doesn't sound like
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: a politician. Everything else in there is batshit insane. I
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: don't say anything else. But when Donald Trump just says
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: sort of the quiet part out loud, that actually... is
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: the least hurtful thing he says in these sort of interviews.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Cause it's like, yeah, that sounds right. You know, or
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: when he said the other thing he said in that
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: town hall about why he feels different now, he felt
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: about something else. Cause he's not, he was president then
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: he's not now like, that's just how people think politicians
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: are really thinking. And he just says it out loud.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And that's, and that is mildly helpful for him. But
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: the rest of it, that is a small silver lining
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: in a very dark cloud of idiocy surrounding all these interviews.
• 12:22
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: It's like when he, when he's asked about the first
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: debate and skipping it and he's like, why would I participate?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I'm ahead in the polls, you know? Everyone's like, oh yeah,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: that seems right. No, but I think that his proposal
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: to give all drug dealers the death penalty seems like
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that well thought out by Donald Trump and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: how it might work with the first act, which they
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: were referencing there, which basically gave, I believe, clemency to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: certain nonviolent drug offenders. you can really think that through
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and how it would work with the, with the death
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: penalty for drug dealers policy that he is now pushing.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And I do think that that is like him getting
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: caught up in that. I think that's a little, that's
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: problematic for him. Like, cause he's got to take one,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: taking both sides of a position in the same sentence.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: That's tricky for Trump.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He, there has been reporting and it's like, whoever
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: knows like what is real and Trump reporting, but there
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: was a lot of very, fan 50 reporting after 2020
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: that one of the reasons he blamed his loss was
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: that Jared Kushner tricked him into doing the first step back,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: which I think the, and DeSantis has attacked him on
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: it as being soft on crime. And so he's, he,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: without thinking it through, he went in to the execute
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: all drug dealers, including nonviolent drug dealers, including the ones
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: that he gave clemency to as a way to overcorrect
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: for that.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because he saw authoritarians do that in other countries, right?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, yeah, they did that. And then
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: there was no crime.
• 14:00
  Speaker 7: It's great.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: We should do that.
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: Perfect.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Baseball love that. All right. Second question about this. Will
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you admit that you have been wrong about Brett Baier
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and that America's greatest newsman didn't deserve your typical knee-jerk
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: partisan attacks?
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Well, John... I will say that I was prepared to
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: come on this podcast. And despite my long history of
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: calling out Brett Baer as a partisan hack, as a,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: and just having a general well of rage at all
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: the people in Washington, DC who hold them up as
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: the one good worker in the propaganda factory at Fox.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I was going to come on this podcast and say,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: job well done, Brett. And then you know what happened?
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: And then I sent you the puck piece.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Then I read an article that, from Puck by Dylan
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Byers with the headline, Brett Hot Summer, filled with a
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: bunch of Democrats talking about how amazing Brett Baer is,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: holding him up as the paragon of journalism. And that
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: was a bridge too far for me. I just can't.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I can't do it. He did a good job. He
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: did one good interview, which I would state is his job.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: He is a journalist. That's what he is supposed to do.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: And I will just say every Democrat so excited about this,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: talking about how this is how journalism covers. This is
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: how we bring down Trump. Go take a cold shower.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: We do not need a Republican savior. I don't know
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: why so many Democrats want that. It's like the Lincoln Project.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: We got Brett Baier now. You're probably going to start
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: selling Chris Christie merch in the Crooked store. Just slow down, people.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: He did a good job. I will give him credit
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: for that. That does not erase 30 years of being
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: a propaganda beard for the racism for profit industry at
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Fox News.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just, look, I know that you are
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: just a partisan lib.
• 15:54
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Straight shooter. A resistance warrior here. No, I like, you
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: know how I feel about this. I think the debate
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: over whether we are praising or looking skeptically at Republicans,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: conservative pundits, whoever, who come around and decide that Trump
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: is in fact unfit for office. I just don't think
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: it's like necessary. The debate is that like, Why did
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Bret Baier do one good interview?
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: I don't know.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Maybe he felt some level of shame after all the
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Dominion shit came out. Maybe he just wanted to get
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: back in the good graces of his D.C. establishment Republican friends.
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: Who knows?
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Who cares? He did the interview. That's great. Chris Christie,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: did he do a bunch of horrible things up until 2020? Yeah,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: of course. Now he's kicking the shit out of Donald Trump.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 16:51
  Speaker 10: Great.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: We don't need to give these people Profile in Courage
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: awards or even debate whether they should get them. They're
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: just tools to help us defeat Donald Trump, which is
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: what we're trying to do here.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: I don't disagree with that. And I also can't stand
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: the debates about Bill Kristol did these terrible things and
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: now you have a brief– lukewarm alliance with him to
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: defeat Donald Trump over a temporary basis. That I don't
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: care about. Let's see Brett Baer do something. Let's see
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: if he really is going to try to pretend to
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: be a real journalist for the next period, next several years.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: We'll see. Maybe he changed. Maybe he hasn't. Let's see.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not electing Brett Baer to anything. I'm not giving
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a Brett Baer podcast on the Crooked Network. I'm not
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: casting a vote for Chris Christie. You know, but like, great.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: They're out there kicking the shit out of Donald Trump.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Didn't you just volunteer to give Chris Christie $ 10 the
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: other day to get him on the debate stage?
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: That's different than voting for him. I'm going to put
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: him on the debate stage.
• 17:50
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: That's fair.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I haven't done that yet, but I do think people
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: should get Chris Christie on the debate stage. That is fucking,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: first of all, let's talk about the political value in that. Yeah,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: maybe it's limited. Maybe he takes her down. Maybe he doesn't.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Think about the fucking content value. I should just be saying,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I should just be having this conversation directly with Elijah.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Last question about Trump. I don't want to make too
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: much of a single poll, but do you see anything
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: in the overall trend that makes you think Trump's political
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: baggage might be catching up to him after you read
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: that CNN poll?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I think there is very little evidence to date that
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the indictment has dramatically impacted Trump's chances of winning the nomination.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: That CNN poll shows maybe there's a possible opening, but
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: it still shows him beating Ron DeSantis by 21 points,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: which is a lot of points.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: A lot of points.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: And there's a Yahoo News poll out today which shows
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: that Trump's approval rating is 79% among Republicans, which is
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: unchanged from January, continues to hold a big lead in
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: all polls. If you want to look for some possible
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: signs of weakening, there's also a Quinnipiac poll out today,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: real poll-pollers out here, but that shows that 79% of
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Republicans– think that it would be a serious problem if
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: someone showed classified information to someone who did not have
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: a top secret clearance.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Boy, do we got news for them.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Wait till they read the indictment. And so it could be,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: if that becomes something that is proven in court, then yes.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: The big thing about Trump and these polls and the
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: indictment is I don't think we should expect that the
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: mere fact of the indictment is going to hurt Trump.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: He is framed on his terms. It's something like less
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: than 20 percent of Republicans in the Yahoo poll thinks
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: he should be prosecuted for these crimes. Most people think
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: he didn't do very much wrong. It will be if
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: the full weight of all of the indictments and all
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: of the images of him getting arrested, getting arraigned, sitting
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: at a defense table add up to charges. the electability
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: equation for Republicans, maybe that will change. But right now
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: he's still– he's sitting pretty strong in the Republican primary
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: for a man just charged with 37 felony counts related
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: to violations of the Espionage Act.
• 20:03
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I don't like this, but I would wager that– Voters
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: hearing his interview with Brett Baier would judge him more
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: harshly for that than they would hearing that Biden's DOJ
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: is prosecuting Donald Trump.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Republican voters?
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I'm talking about Republican voters who have an
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: open mind about who they're supporting in the primary. There's
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: obviously the MAGA fan base, which is like locked down
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: at 35, 40% of the Republican Party. But then we
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: know there's a bunch of... voters who, you know, might
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: end up with Trump or but they're looking around. And
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I think for those voters, again, just more Trump, the better.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Let's let's hear it straight from Trump. I also think
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: what's notable in that CNN poll is what Trump lost
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: in favorability and support did not go to DeSantis. DeSantis
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: did not gain in that CNN poll. It sort of
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: went to, you know, it's the support kind of spread
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: around to different candidates in the field. which might tell
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you that, you know, there's a bunch of candidates out
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: there now, voters, and I'd love to see some Iowa
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and New Hampshire polls, but Republican voters are now being
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: exposed to other candidates and campaigns and they're hearing from them. So,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you know, it also might be a function of just
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the field is pretty full and people are looking around and,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: you know, that's that. But I think we're still in
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: status quo territory right now. One more thing before we
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: move on. Just this morning, former Texas Representative Will Hurd
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: announced he's running for president. He's now probably the most
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: moderate Republican running, and he criticized Trump in his announcement video,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: called him a lawless, selfish, failed politician. What do you
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: make of a Will Hurd candidacy?
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I think there's a wide lane within the Republican Party
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: for people who find Asa Hutchinson too exciting.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I will just, I'll tell you, like, Will Hurd, I
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: wish we lived in a country where Will Hurd was
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: like the center of the Republican Party, right? Like that's,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I don't agree with Will Hurd on a bunch of issues,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: but like that would be, that would be a good country,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: you know? But like that video, whew, man, was that boring.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: That's the problem is like all of these other candidates
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: that were not Donald Trump and to a lesser extent,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: not Ron DeSantis, they need a theory of attention. Like
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: how are you going to get attention for your candidacy? And,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you know, the other, one of the other anti-Trump, candidates
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: in the primary chris christie he's got a theory which
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: is he's gonna like go out there and kick the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: shit out of trump even will hurd's attack on trump
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: which is like just him calling him you know a
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: lawless selfish failed politician even the way he said it
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: was just boring you know and let's do this like
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: quiet boring video i'm like dude no one's who's gonna
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: who's gonna pay attention to you you gotta get some attention.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I hope i don't get this wrong but the If
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Will Hurd is a Republican nominee facing Biden, it will
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: be a contest between two candidates who have been on
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Crooked Media podcasts.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe the same number of times.
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: One.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: One each.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: No, that's not true. Joe Biden has been on Ponce
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: de America twice.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Twice.
• 23:20
  Speaker 8: Okay.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Will Hurd just once.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, I wish him all the best. Again,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I want people to take down Donald Trump. Good for
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: him for doing it. I think it's going to be,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: like I said, I think it's hard to get attention
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: from in that Republican primary if you're not going after
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump or if you're not Donald Trump. You know, like,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: have you seen that Nikki Haley and Tim Scott have
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: basically been spending a week attacking our old boss, Barack Obama,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: for something he said on Axe's podcast, which is, on
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Axe's podcast, he was asked about Tim Scott's candidacy and
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: also just basically how Obama reconciles his own hopeful rhetoric
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: about this country and racial progress, um, with, uh, you know,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the realities of, of what we're living through. And basically
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Obama said like people like not only people like Tim
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Scott and Nikki Haley, but even his own rhetoric about
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: this has to be undergirded with like an honest accounting
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of our past and present. So if there's a Republican
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: who doesn't have a plan to address crippling intergenerational poverty, then,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: You know, people may not believe that rhetoric. And that's
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: all Barack Obama says. And it has caused a furor
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: on the right. Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, they're going around
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: saying like Barack Obama, he doesn't he used to believe
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: in racial progress in America. Now he thinks the country
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: is racist and bubble. And they're doing this because this
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: is like the only way they can get any sort
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of attention for their candidacy.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Well, I have bad news for them because this is
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: the first I'm hearing of this.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Really? Wow. This is my terminally online moment.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I knew that Obama said that. And I knew
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: there was like a blow up on the right. The
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: fact that Tim Scott and Nikki Haley have been going
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: after this.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: They've been making it like their whole campaign for a
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: full week.
• 25:12
  Speaker 7: It's wild.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: That's how desperate they are for attention.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Like I follow the news for a living. News to me.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: This is what I'm saying. And Will Hurd's going to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: have the same problem. Doug Burgum, my boy Doug Burgum,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: he's going to have that problem.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Doug Brigham, at least, has untold amount of money to
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: spend on ads. He is one of the leading spenders
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: to date in early state primary ads. I don't think
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Will Hurd's going to have that opportunity.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: In other news, Donald Trump and his MAGA pals are
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: furious that one of the U.S. attorneys he appointed struck
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: a deal with Hunter Biden to where the president's son
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: will plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges for failing to
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: pay his taxes on time and avoid prosecution on his
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: illegal handgun purchase by agreeing to remain drug-free for two
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: years and never own a firearm again. The five-year investigation
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: by the Trump-appointed prosecutor will result in no jail time
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: for Hunter, which of course led to this reaction from
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: the party that thinks stealing nuclear secrets isn't a crime.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: When you look outside the Capitol, you see the Supreme Court.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: And you see a statue of Lady Justice.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: She has a scale that's.
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: Supposed to be equal, but she's wearing a blindfold.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I wonder if there was a blindfold on to the
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: prosecutor when it came to Hunter Biden.
• 26:33
  Speaker 7: He's Hunter Smith.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: He's doing hard time.
• 26:35
  Speaker 9: It is only because daddy is president that he gets
• 26:39
  Speaker 9: this sweetheart deal with no jail time whatsoever.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: So I don't care if they're Trump appointed.
• 26:44
  Speaker 9: I don't care if they were part of his former administration.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Those people that have known about these Biden crimes, and
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: sold our country out, they should be held accountable too.
• 26:54
  Speaker 9: The scary thing for me is it's not just about
• 26:56
  Speaker 9: the president going after President Trump. It's going after parents
• 27:00
  Speaker 9: and school board meetings. If you're a pro-life Catholic, you're
• 27:02
  Speaker 9: an extremist. If you're a journalist, for goodness sake, they
• 27:05
  Speaker 9: went after Matt Taibbi.
• 27:06
  Speaker 11: I just learned a lot just now that if I'm
• 27:08
  Speaker 11: going to commit crime, I should do some crack first, right?
• 27:12
  Speaker 11: Because then if I do the crack, then I could
• 27:15
  Speaker 11: say I have a problem and then they do this
• 27:17
  Speaker 11: diversion thing.
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: So always have crack with you when you're committing a crime.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Well, Dan, wannabe dictator Joe Biden let a prosecutor appointed
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: by his political opponent charge his own son. Should we
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: impeach this lawless thug? What do you think?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I've been thinking about how Trump is going to respond
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: to this, and I think he's going to pivot seamlessly
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: from Joe Biden, want to be dictator, to Joe Biden
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: so weak that he let his own attorney general arrest
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: his son.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say Trump would say, I
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have let that happen, but Trump's kids, he probably
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: would have let that happen.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: He would have protected Ivanka and maybe Donald Trump Jr.,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: but Eric and Tiffany, he would have let Merrick Garland
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: haul them off a long time. Maybe he'd get more
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: right now if he thought of it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: You want to explain the truth of what happened here
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: for people?
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we should be very clear. Five years ago, a
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Trump-appointed U.S. attorney began a wide-ranging investigation into everything having
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: to do with Hunter Biden, including his international business dealings,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: how he made money. And at the end of that process,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: and even after Joe Biden was elected, the Trump-appointed U.S.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: attorney stayed on the job to continue on this investigation
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: to ensure there was no political interference now that the
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: father of the subject of that investigation was now the
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: President of the United States. And at the end of that,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: they didn't find any of all the conspiracy theories, all
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: the things that Jim Jordan and Jim Comer and Donald
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Trump and Fox News have been talking about. What they
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: found out was that he failed to report some of
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: his income and therefore underpaid on his taxes. And there
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: was a gun crime involved from the time in which
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: he was dealing with problems with addiction. So after all
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: of that, the.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Trump- Even that though, what he did was he went
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to go buy a gun. And when you buy a
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: gun- It says on a form, are you addicted to
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: drugs or have you been, have you done drugs in
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the last two months? And he said, no. And that
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: was a lie. And so they gave him the gun
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and that was it.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Also, what a system we have, people.
• 29:17
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You could do a whole other thing on gun laws
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and whatever.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Was that right next to the box that said, I
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: don't intend to commit a crime with this gun?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: On your honor.
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: You just got to.
• 29:27
  Speaker 7: That's it.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: That's all we need. We just need you to fill
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: out this form. And you know what? I'm sure the
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: NRA is trying to get rid of that form altogether.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: We should not make people go through the process of
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: having to fill out this cumbersome form. give them the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: gun when they walk in anyway and so.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: At the end of that process he played guilty of
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: those crimes he agreed to pay his back taxes and
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: he's entered a diversion program and agreed to never purchase
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: a gun again That is a completely normal standard outcome
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: for a process like this. There is no evidence of favoritism.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: There's no evidence of involvement from Joe Biden. If there was,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: do you think the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney would say something
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: about it to someone? Perhaps.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The only thing truly unusual about the way this
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: case was handled is the fact that the Trump-appointed attorney
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: stayed on in the Biden administration and Merrick Garland stayed
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the attorney general said in a public letter at the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: beginning of this whole process, this Trump-appointed U.S. attorney has
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the full authority to investigate this case, to make charging decisions,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: to decide when he's going to bring charges, what kind
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of charges, which is extremely unusual because Merrick Garland is
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the guy's boss. But because of the potential conflict of interest,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Merrick Garland said, this guy is in charge. He gets
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: to make all the decisions appointed by Trump, started the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: investigation under the Trump administration. I'm sorry, Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and Kevin McCarthy, that he didn't charge Hunter with a
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: bunch of crimes that comport with the conspiracies you've come
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: to believe because your heads are stuck in the fucking
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: MAGA media echo chamber with a whole bunch of conspiracies
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: about how Hunter did all these international crimes against With
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: China and Burisma and everything else. Like, I know that's
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: what you think he did, but we had actual investigators
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: who were not Democrats. In fact, our Trump-appointed Republicans look
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: into it, and they didn't find anything. So, like, someone
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: should ask them, like, what would you have done? Would
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you have just made up charges for Hunter Biden?
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: That's what they would have done. What kind of question
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: is that?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: But, like, someone should ask. That's a good question from
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: a reporter.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: All right. We'll see if Brett Baird does it.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Our only hope. Our only hope. Also, guess who would
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: have gotten a similar deal to Hunter Biden had he
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: just pled guilty or made a deal with prosecutors? Donald
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: fucking Trump, who is being tried for crimes that are
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a bit more severe than Hunter's, stealing nuclear secrets. And
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of legal experts were saying that if Donald
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Trump struck a deal with the prosecutor, he could have avoided...
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: what's about to happen to him as well. But he
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to because he doesn't listen to his fucking lawyers.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: He listens to, you know, judicial watches Tom Fitton. That's
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: who Donald Trump listens to. Also, IRS lawyers have said, like,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: that this is typical of what happens to people who
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: don't pay their taxes on time. One IRS lawyer told Politico, like,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: if we prosecuted For failure to pay taxes, the jails
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: would be full. Oftentimes, they don't even prosecute cases like Hunter's.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: So that's why there was a deal. And a lot
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of people say, oh, weapons charge. People do time for
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: weapons charges. A first-time weapons charge like this that doesn't
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: involve any violence, which is just lying to buy the handgun,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: this is what you usually get. And by the way,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: if the judge really thinks this is some sweetheart deal,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: like Kevin McCarthy says, like all these Republicans are accusing
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: him of, The judge doesn't have to approve the plea deal.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: The judge can say, oh, no, this was a sweetheart deal.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do this. So we'll see. We'll
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: see what the judge does. But I'm sure whoever the
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: judge is, even if it was a Trump appointed judge,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: you know, they'll get attacked as just some Biden stooge
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: because that's their deal. That's what they're doing. Where does
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the story go next politically and legally? Is this the
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: end of this or what?
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Well, it's certainly not the end of it politically. The Republicans,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: as evidenced by the clip we played, are in a
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: lather about it. There's going to be investigations into the investigation.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: There are going to be hearings. Jim Comer, the famously
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: incompetent chair of the Government Oversight Committee, has promised to
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: dig deep into this. There's this FBI whistleblower who seems
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: to be a complete fraud. There is no chance that
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the Republicans are going to let go of their conspiracy
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: theories and just say, I was wrong. Good for justice.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: And so this will continue to be part of it.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: We'll see it all the way through the election. But
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: for the vast majority of people who live outside of
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: the MAGA bubble, this is probably resolved, which is politically
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: what Democrats want.
• 34:10
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, so another awful story that's been clogging up our
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: feeds this week is Joe Rogan's three-hour conversation with Robert F.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Kennedy Jr., who's running for president in the Democratic primary.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Kennedy has accused the U.S. government of, quote, knowingly poisoning
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: kids because of a debunked conspiracy that vaccines cause autism.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: He accused Dr. Fauci of launching a, quote, coup against
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Western democracy because he promoted COVID vaccines. He claimed school
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: shootings happened not because of access to guns. but because
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: of access to antidepressants. He said chemicals in the water
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: are turning boys trans, that AIDS might not be a virus,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and that gay men in the 80s actually died from poppers.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: And here's what he told Joe Rogan last week about
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the dangers of Wi-Fi.
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: Cancer's not the worst thing. They also, you know, it
• 35:02
  Speaker 6: opens up, Wi-Fi radiation opens up your blood-brain barrier. And
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: so all these toxins that are in your body can
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: now go into your brain.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: How does Wi-Fi radiation open up your blood-brain barrier?
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: Now you're going beyond my expertise.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Up to that point, the expertise was vast and deep.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: The effects of Wi-Fi on our blood-brain barrier. He went
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: on to call it leaky brain.
• 35:33
  Speaker 7: Look it up.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Leaky brain. And then Joe Rogan has like one of
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: his producers, Google, and then you've got some Google.
• 35:39
  Speaker 7: Oh yeah.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing right here on the Google.
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: You get leaky brain. It's a real problem. And then
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan's like, we should get the wifi out of
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: this studio.
• 35:46
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a very important point.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: What the fuck is happening?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Do you know what? That's an important point. You know,
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of wifi podcast studios.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: It's tough. I don't even know why RFK Jr. Was
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: in there.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: He's putting his blood brain barrier on the line for
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: this race.
• 36:03
  Speaker 8: All right.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: So the interview was bad enough. But afterwards, when vaccine
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: scientist and pediatrician Peter Hotez tried to fact check Kennedy
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: on Twitter, Rogan, then Elon Musk, and then his fucking
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: VC fanboys demanded, demanded that Hotez debate Kennedy on Rogan's pod,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: which led to, among other things, a right-wing anti-vax nut
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: stalking Hotez at his home. Polls, of course, show that
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: an astounding 20% of Democratic voters are considering voting for Kennedy.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: And the New York Times just ran a long piece
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: about why he's a real headache for Biden. Real blood-brain-barrier
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: headache for Biden.
• 36:47
  Speaker 10: Good.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Great work.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Do you agree? And what, if anything, should the Biden
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: campaign and other Democrats do about it?
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, once the New York Times is writing a
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: story about how something is a headache for you, it's
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: become a headache. It may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: If it wasn't before, the story's a fucking headache, yes.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, of course, it's going to be annoying. It's
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: going to be quite annoying. There's no Democratic primary. The
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: press is bored with it. They're going to cover it.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Biden's political adversaries are going to use Robert Kennedy as
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: a cudgel to try to make Biden look weak. It
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: is important to note that one of the people that
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Robert Kennedy talked to before he got in the race
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: was Steve Bannon. And Steve Bannon encouraged him to run
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: because Steve Bannon reportedly thought that RFK Jr. would be
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: a chaos agent in the Democratic primary. The reason, I mean,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: it's wild, these anti-Biden VC yahoos supporting Robert Kennedy. These
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: guys make all their money in tech, and they are
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: pretending to elect a guy who thinks that Wi-Fi should
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: be banned, should be President of the United States. Think
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: about that for a second. So it is going to
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: be a pain in Joe Biden's– like the year before
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: the presidential election starts is always a huge pain in
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: the ass for a largely unopposed president like Biden because
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: there's just mischief to be had, right? The press needs
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: something to cover. Kennedy's got a famous name. He becomes
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: someone who becomes this manifestation of whatever struggles Biden may
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: have among Democratic voters as a way to cover that story.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: What should Biden do? Do the work he was going
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: to do whether Robert Kennedy was running or not, which
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: is he has to spend this year strengthening his standing
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: among Democratic voters. We know from polls there's a percentage
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: of Democratic voters who are concerned– a shockingly high percentage
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: who think he shouldn't run, who are concerned about age,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: who don't know enough about what he has done or
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: what he plans to do. And the advantage of being
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: an incumbent is you spend that off year strengthening your base.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: You do that through ads. You do that through campaigning.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: You do that through using the bully poll. But he
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: was going to have to do all of those things.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: I think he would do those things whether Robert Kennedy
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: was a subject of New York Times stories or not.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: How does President Biden strengthen his standing with the segment
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: of the Democratic primary electorate who is concerned that chemicals
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: on the water are turning young boys trans? Is that
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: a key segment that he's going to have to do
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: some events with those folks? Or what about the folks
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: who think that the paupers are killing gay people and
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: not AIDS, that AIDS is just sort of a conspiracy?
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: He's got to go on Rogan's podcast.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: He's got to debate. He's got to debate. I will say, unfortunately,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I uh listened to about half of the kennedy rogan
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: podcast which is still an hour and a half because
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: it's a three hour three hour podcast i realize i'm
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: saying this on a day where we have a long
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: tapper interview and this podcast is probably heading to two
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: hours today but three hours so.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: You before don't give yourself too much credit you told
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: me you listened to it at 1.8 speed.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah i did i did listen okay well then i
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: can still hear everything Yeah.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying that half of three hours at 1.8
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: speed is not an hour and a half.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Look, any amount of time I devoted to this was
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: a problem. But I hadn't really heard RFK Jr. talk
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a lot, and I wanted to get what the deal was.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I can see why he's both, he can be appealing
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: to people and thus dangerous, because his whole shtick is
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: he has a whole bunch of scientific studies memorized. He's
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: got the authors. He's got the papers. And he does
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: this whole, like, look, don't take my word for it.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I think X, I think it's bad when you just
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: take experts word for it or politicians or whatever else,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: just look at the science. I'm for science. And I
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: think you should look at the science and this is
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: what it's saying. And by the way, corporations are out
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to get everyone. And this is a conspiracy because, you know,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: he started as an environmental lawyer and he, you know,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: he went after a lot of corporations that were poisoning people.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: And that's what, you know, corporations do are irresponsible, right?
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: They are out for profit. And so he's sort of
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: using people's skepticism with corporations and corporations' bad behavior in
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the past to then make people think, well, then also
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Pharma would do this to vaccines and all this other
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: kind of conspiracy. And, you know, these companies would do
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: this with Wi-Fi and all this shit. And then everything's
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: dangerous and everything's a scam and everything's sort of a conspiracy. And,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't sound, except for the clips we played,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: he doesn't sound crazy all the time.
• 41:16
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: And so I get why people are some people could
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, maybe he's making some sense. Maybe
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: I should start Googling some of this stuff. So I
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: do think it's something to I do think it's something
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: for Democrats to take seriously. I also think that if
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: we act freaked out or worried or about his views
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: or start freaking out about it, that will sort of
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: play into. people feeling like, well, I should be able
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: to make my own decisions and form my own opinions.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I think the most effective way to deal with this
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: is to just make sure people understand what his views are,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: what he has said, and what he is saying now
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: and what he will do. Like, I think that's important,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: just information to get out to people.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: I think he is a greater danger to public health
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: than to Germany's political standing.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean, look, I do think it will get,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: we've talked about this a bit, but you know, if
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden is not on the ballot in Iowa and
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire, because Iowa and New Hampshire will continue to
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: put their primaries first, even though Joe Biden and the
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: DNC have decided that South Carolina is going first. If
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire and Iowa decide to hold their primaries anyway,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: and Joe Biden does not participate because that's the rules,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: but RFK Jr. does and Marianne Williamson does, so you
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: could have RFK Jr. winning the first two primaries. Now, again,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: is that an actual threat to Joe Biden's candidacy? No,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: but Will that suck for a couple weeks for the
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign?
• 42:41
  Speaker 8: Maybe. I don't know.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: With that, we can, let's put a pin in that
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: and come back to it later.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Put in that. Yeah, we'll put a pin in that.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: So one concern is that RFK Jr. could run as
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: a third party candidate once he loses the Democratic primary.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: He's not the only one. Political activist Cornel West, who's
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: been a prominent Bernie Sanders supporter in the last few elections,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: has said he's running for the Green Party nomination. The
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Green Party is on the ballot in 16 states, including
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin. The grifters at no
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: labels have raised tens of millions of dollars to run
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: a bipartisan ticket that Joe Manchin is flirting with. They
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: are on the ballot so far in four states, including
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: the swing state of Arizona. How much of a threat
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: are these potential third-party candidates to Joe Biden's re-election? And what,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: if anything, can be done there?
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: They're a huge threat. They're absolutely a huge threat. Donald
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Trump has never received more than 47% in either of
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: his two elections. And the more people are on the
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: ballot getting votes, it lowers his win number from... 50.1
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: to something closer to 47. He won in 2016 largely
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: because in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: the combined third-party vote from Jill Stein and Gary Johnson,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: who was running on the Libertarian ticket, exceeded the margin
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: by which he beat Hillary Clinton. So it is a
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: big problem. And I made this point in a message box,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Nate Silver– really decided to take that on and say
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: I was wrong about that and say he said that
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: if Joe Biden loses, it will not be because of
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: a third party or because of age problems, health problems,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: or the economy sucking. And sure, that's all true if
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: everything's going swimmingly.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Wow, you got silvered, huh?
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just like, is that a verb now?
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I've just decided it works.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: I guess you could get coned too, I guess. That's
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: another option. But of course, if everything is going swimmingly
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: and Joe Biden has really high approval ratings and the
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: economy is roaring, then a third party won't matter. But
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: in a close election, it matters. And we know this
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: because Data for Progress released a poll yesterday, which showed
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: that in a head-to-head race between Biden and Trump, Biden
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: wins 47-45. In a race between Biden, Trump, and a generic, moderate,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: third-party challenger, the race becomes 44-44 immediately. And if it's
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: 44-44 nationally, that probably means in the battleground states, Donald Trump,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: which skew a little more Republican in the country, Donald
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Trump wins electoral college.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, all people need to know is if the
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: people who voted for Jill Stein, just Jill Stein in Michigan, Wisconsin,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania had voted for Hillary instead, Donald Trump would
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: have never become president. That's it, right? And so I'm
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: sure there's a lot of Cornel West fans out there
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: You live in a swing state. You vote for Cornel West.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: You're helping Trump become president. That's it. And you can say, oh, well,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: it's Joe Biden's fault. He did this or that.
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: No, no, no.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: It's your decision. You get to decide whether you want
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: to help Donald Trump become president or you don't. And
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: if you want to help him, then you should vote
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: for Cornel West or you should vote for Joe Manchin
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: and his no labels ticket or you can vote for,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: you know, RFK Jr. if he decides to run third party.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: But if you don't want to help Trump become president,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: You got to vote for Joe Biden. That's it. Very simple. Now,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I think messaging to voters who might actually make this
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: decision is probably a little different, I would say.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: No, chastising works.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Like, I do think you need to explain why these
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: candidates would not be good candidates for president. I really do.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: And I think we could get tripped up in that
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: because I think if If you are one of these
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: voters and you hear a bunch of people yelling at
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: you to vote for Joe Biden because you have to,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be very effective. And
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I think you have to say why RFK Jr. is
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: not a good choice, why Cornel West is not a
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: good choice, why Joe Manchin, whoever it may be, is
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: not a good choice. So that is something that I
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: think Democrats are going to have to figure out in
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: the next year. Finally, another week, another corruption scandal for
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Here is the ProPublica headline. Justice Samuel
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Alito took luxury fishing vacation with GOP billionaire who later
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: had cases before the court. Yikes. Here's what happened. In 2008,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer flew Alito on his private
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: plane to Alaska, which the justice did not pay for
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: nor disclose, as he is required to do by law.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: In 2014, Alito cast a vote in a case that
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: awarded Singer's hedge fund $ 2. 4 billion. Alito refused to respond
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: to ProPublica. Instead, he ran to the Wall Street Journal
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: before the story was even published and got them to
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: run a whiny pre-buttle op-ed where he argued that he
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't actually required to disclose the private jet ride, that
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: he never discussed business with Singer, and besides, the seat
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: on the plane would have otherwise been unoccupied. So no
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: big deal. Look, the guy is just trying to fill
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: in empty seats on private planes. This is a public service.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: It's good for the environment. He cares about climate. That's
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: why he wanted to do that.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: What is your reaction to this left-wing assault on one
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of our greatest public servants? I mean, what is the
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: world coming to that a Supreme Court justice isn't allowed
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: to take secret trips on a billionaire's private jet without
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: getting harassed by the liberal media just because he later
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: sided with that billionaire's hedge fund? in a case that
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: made him even richer.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Look, who among us hasn't flown on a private jet
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: owned by people with business before the court?
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: It's just a commonplace thing.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Alito's reaction to this, it just speaks to the absolute
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: arrogance of Alito. Thomas, how dare you question me? How
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: dare you question the idea that I can't fly on
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: private jets? As a public servant.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Or you can. You just have to tell people. You
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: can fly on your fucking private jets. Go for it.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Disclose it.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: And recuse when it comes.
• 48:40
  Speaker 8: And recuse.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. I mean, it's also, it's just, it is exceedingly
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: rare for Supreme Court justices to write op-eds at all.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Let alone what is basically a glorified letter to the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: editor bitching about a story in another publication.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: It's just a temper tantrum.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: It's about you.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: It's a temper tantrum. He threw a temper tantrum in
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal. Which then today ran an editorial
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: defending Alito.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: Paul Singer's hedge fund appeared 10 times before the Supreme
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Court after that trip. 10 times. And then, of course,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: there was the one in 2014 where he got $ 2
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: billion from the ruling. So the Quinnipiac poll you mentioned earlier,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court approves. is down to 30%, the lowest on record.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: 63% of all voters favor term limits for Supreme Court justices,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: 29% oppose. What do you think? Sound good to run on?
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think the corruption in the court is a
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: real problem, and Democrats should look like they're addressing it.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: And they have the open door to do so because
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: of the conduct of Alito and Thomas and the way
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: in which the Republicans rigged the court over recent years,
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: when then you add to that the decisions like Dobbs
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: that have dramatically affected people's lives. You have a corrupt,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: rigged court that is operating from politics, not law. Therefore,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: if we have an agenda to address the corruption in
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: that court, We should take it on immediately. It should
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: be a central part of our campaign. I think court reform, obviously,
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: I support expansion. The country is not there yet, but
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: the broader court reform agenda, including term limits and ethics reform,
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: should be a big part of what we talk about.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Well, so Democratic leaders are now saying they will force
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: a vote this summer on ethics legislation for the Supreme Court. Obviously,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: not going to pass the Republican House, but what do
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: you think of that move and what they're proposing?
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I think it's the absolute right thing to do politically.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: It's also the right thing to do substantively. It's fucking
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: bananas that the Supreme Court is this completely unaccountable body.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: There are no repercussions. And we have not just– we
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: should vote on it. We should try to get it done.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: We should make the Republicans vote against it. We should
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: attack them for voting against it. There's also another benefit here,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: which is we need to put more pressure on John
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Roberts to do his fucking job because he is the
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: administrator of the court. He is the person in charge
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: of how the Supreme Court runs. he has allowed the
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: reputation trust in the court to be absolutely damaged by
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: the conduct of his justices. And he's refused to speak
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: about his reason, do anything about it. He could get
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: involved here in some way, shape or form. And the,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: we have seen it before how efforts at court reform
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: dating back to the days of FDR have influence in
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: how the, how the Supreme court runs itself. And so
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: I think this is 100% the right thing to do.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that, um, you know, if they could
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: somehow pass ethics legislation, which I imagine they could, if
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: we went back to the house, if Biden wins reelection,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: if we keep the Senate, you know, maybe we could
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: pass some Supreme court ethics legislation. And I think that
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: would be a good thing. I think like substantively, it's
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: crazy that they don't hold themselves to the same standards.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: Every other public servant does. And there's no reason for that.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: It's not the constitution says about the Supreme court that
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: those judges and all judges should keep their jobs and
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Barring bad behavior, basically. That's it. That's all it says.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And so this is bad behavior. And it doesn't say
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: anything about how, you know, I think Roberts and some
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: of these justices are like, oh, Congress has no role
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: in regulating the court or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, it doesn't say that in the fucking Constitution.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: It does not say that Congress cannot pass laws affecting
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the court. And in fact, in like you said, in
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: the New Deal era, they did like and many other
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: times they've changed the makeup of the court.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: They fund the court. They pass laws to fund the court.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Checks and balances is not a one-way street. That's the
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: whole point of the system.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and in the Constitution, it basically gives Congress the
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: full authority to create courts that are not the Supreme
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Court when they want to. But of course Congress can
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: regulate the court.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they can add justice to the court. That's not
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: in the Constitution either.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: But so anyway, I'm all for the ethics legislation, but
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: now I'm really eyeing the term limit thing now because
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: I think that– and look, do I want to expand
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: the court? Do I want to change the– yeah, I'm
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: all for that too. But I think like in the short,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: not the short term, but maybe the medium term, the
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: most doable reform that I think would actually have the
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: biggest impact is term limits. Because, you know, we are
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: going to be fucking stuck with Amy Coney Barrett and
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh for most of our lifetimes.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: This is another thing we should put a pin in
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: because I spent a lot of, there's a real, like
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: we should, this is a, it's a, I spent a
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: lot of time researching this for when I wrote Uncharming America,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: which talked about court expansion and court reform. And the
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: term limits thing is fascinating. The constitutional questions around, we
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: should do this with strict scrutiny one day. The constitutional
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: questions around it are fascinating.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: They are, they are. And yeah, just the short answer
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: there is, there is a belief that the constitution does
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: grant justices lifetime tenure unless they have engage in bad behavior,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: which is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: But one way around that would be to say, once
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: you've hit your term limit, you go on senior status
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: and either you go to an appellate court or a
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: federal court if you're a Supreme Court justice, or you
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: just do what a lot of senior judges on senior
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: status do now, which is just sort of sit back
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: You're still a judge. You just don't. You're just not
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: involved in cases.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you sit back and you wait until a case
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: comes up in which one of the justices flew on
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: a private jet on a luxurious vacation with one of
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: the people before the court. And then that person steps down,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: you step in. That's how that works.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: That's it. That's the way it works.
• 54:14
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will talk to CNN's Jake
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Tapper about his new novel, about CNN, Donald Trump, Fox News,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of good stuff right after this. Here
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: to talk about his new political thriller, All the Demons
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Are Here, which is out in July, CNN's Jake Tapper.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: Hey, guys.
• 54:45
  Speaker 7: Good to see you.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Welcome back. Good to see you.
• 54:47
  Speaker 8: A fellow straight shooter respected on both sides.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 54:51
  Speaker 8: Oh, my God. He's the original. You were the original
• 54:52
  Speaker 8: straight shooter.
• 54:53
  Speaker 7: I don't think I was. Is that where it came from?
• 54:54
  Speaker 8: That's where it came from. That came from. I asked
• 54:56
  Speaker 8: because I said that Jake and I were both just
• 54:58
  Speaker 8: two straight shooters respected on both sides.
• 54:59
  Speaker 7: That's not true.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 55:01
  Speaker 7: That's really, I was the actual.
• 55:03
  Speaker 8: Well, that's where we began referring to you and then
• 55:06
  Speaker 8: me as that.
• 55:08
  Speaker 10: You sold a lot of t-shirts, Jake.
• 55:09
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you used a lot of merch.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you for your help.
• 55:11
  Speaker 7: I didn't know it was me. I didn't know I
• 55:14
  Speaker 7: was the original. You were.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Was it from when he was on the pod last?
• 55:16
  Speaker 8: It was from when he was on Keeping It 1600,
• 55:18
  Speaker 8: I believe.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 55:19
  Speaker 7: Keeping It 1600.
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: That was the original Pod Save America.
• 55:22
  Speaker 7: Holy smokes.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: It's been a long time. Hillary's going to win.
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: She's got this.
• 55:27
  Speaker 8: Everybody cool it.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, speaking of that, so last few weeks have
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: made it pretty clear that the Trump show is back.
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: It sure is.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it ever went on hiatus.
• 55:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah. It's different in this season.
• 55:39
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask, like, this is now your
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: third presidential campaign you've covered where the former president is
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: a candidate. Difference now is he's been indicted twice, possibly
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: more on the way, related to his role in trying
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: to overturn the last election inside a violent riot. How
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: are you feeling about going through all this again?
• 56:00
  Speaker 7: It's weird, right? It's, it's very weird. And it's, it's, uh,
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: and it's strange to see, um, who is deciding to
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: be honest about what's going on and who isn't right.
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: I mean, the, the, uh, the bill bar, uh, activism, uh,
• 56:17
  Speaker 7: talking about how serious this is the Mark Esper's, uh,
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: and then on occasion you have a, um, Nikki Haley
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: or Mike Pence. I mean, talking about these charges, uh,
• 56:29
  Speaker 7: And then, of course, Donald Trump giving these interviews and
• 56:32
  Speaker 7: talking in front of audiences in which he admits everything. Everything.
• 56:37
  Speaker 10: Strange legal strategy.
• 56:39
  Speaker 7: Not to mention Chris Christie, I should say. But that's,
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: I guess, not as much of a surprise. But, yeah. And,
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: I mean, it was always, throughout so much of this,
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: it was always like, well, who is going to speak?
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: Who in the Republican Party is going to speak against this?
• 56:52
  Speaker 7: And it would be in 2016. Well, early on, everybody
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: spoke against it. And then he started winning. And then
• 56:58
  Speaker 7: they all shut up. And then, you know, it's just
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: odd seeing the, because it's like once you criticize him,
• 57:05
  Speaker 7: it's almost like you then get put in a category
• 57:07
  Speaker 7: as a Republican and a category of, oh, well, you're
• 57:10
  Speaker 7: just a Trump hater.
• 57:10
  Speaker 10: Yeah, right.
• 57:11
  Speaker 7: I'm not saying it's fair, but like by Trump and
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: by the base. So like they stop listening to Liz
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: Cheney as if she's like some flaming liberal. Same thing
• 57:20
  Speaker 7: with Mitt Romney. Same thing with Adam Kinzinger and on
• 57:22
  Speaker 7: and on and on. But so it's always like now
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: we see who are the people who are, now going
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: to try to say something. And, boy, I saw, I
• 57:34
  Speaker 7: don't know if it was the bulwark. Somebody did a
• 57:38
  Speaker 7: list of, like, everybody who had served with Donald Trump
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: in his administration who had come out against him one
• 57:45
  Speaker 7: way or another.
• 57:45
  Speaker 10: Brett Baier read it to him live on TV, I believe,
• 57:48
  Speaker 10: on Fox News.
• 57:49
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's quite a list.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: It's a long list.
• 57:52
  Speaker 7: I mean, like, if one of those people Equivalent people
• 57:56
  Speaker 7: in the Obama administration or the Bush administration or the Clinton,
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: they would be huge. Big story.
• 58:02
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 58:03
  Speaker 7: Like, oh, can you believe that? I mean, Al Gore
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: did tepid criticism of Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky scandal. Tepid.
• 58:11
  Speaker 7: And it was like big news. Same thing with Joe Lieberman.
• 58:14
  Speaker 7: But this is, but this is like, this is not
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: that obviously. This is, he, he's a narcissist. I mean,
• 58:20
  Speaker 7: calling psychological names. Bill Bartz has said he's a narcissist.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:24
  Speaker 7: I mean, I'm not disagreeing with the assessment, but like-
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: Esper said he's a threat.
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 58:29
  Speaker 7: He shouldn't be elected because he can't be trusted. Oh,
• 58:32
  Speaker 7: and when I did the interview with Esper on Sunday,
• 58:34
  Speaker 7: this was really surprising to me. I said, well, in
• 58:37
  Speaker 7: the last few days, I've asked Stephanie Grisham, the former
• 58:42
  Speaker 7: comms director, the question is always why? Why did he
• 58:46
  Speaker 7: take these documents? Stephanie Grisham said, oh, he's like a
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: little boy and he has his toys. Mine, mine, mine.
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: And then Michael Cohen had a much more conspiratorial way
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: of looking at it. Like, no, he wanted to do
• 59:01
  Speaker 7: something with these, whether it was money or this, but
• 59:03
  Speaker 7: he was going to, and I don't mean conspiratorial in
• 59:06
  Speaker 7: a pejorative sense. I just mean like he thought there
• 59:07
  Speaker 7: was actually a conspiracy of some sort. And I asked
• 59:10
  Speaker 7: Esper what he thought. And he said, both were legitimate possibilities. Like,
• 59:16
  Speaker 7: think about that because of the Michael Cohen thing, you know,
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: he's a little, he's a little aggressive, even on, even
• 59:23
  Speaker 7: when it comes to the spectrum of people who used
• 59:26
  Speaker 7: to work with Donald Trump and have now disassociated themselves.
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: He's like, he's even on the more aggressive side of that.
• 59:33
  Speaker 7: But like even Esper was like, Oh, this seems like
• 59:35
  Speaker 7: that's a, that's a, that's a credible possibility.
• 59:38
  Speaker 8: Michael Cohen was a bad lawyer for Trump and he's
• 59:40
  Speaker 8: a bad lawyer against Trump.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 59:43
  Speaker 10: But he also has the best window into his business dealings.
• 59:45
  Speaker 10: And I guess, I don't know, it's hard to tell
• 59:46
  Speaker 10: now what, if he's playing, he was playing a role
• 59:49
  Speaker 10: for Trump as this attack dog. He called himself a fixer.
• 59:51
  Speaker 10: I don't know that he fixed much. Now he's like
• 59:53
  Speaker 10: a resistance hero. But he does know how the guy operates.
• 59:57
  Speaker 10: And if he thinks sincerely that Trump might be selling
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 10: secrets to somebody or leveraging them for some sort of
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 10: economic gain, I mean, it's interesting. It's worth listening to.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Nothing would surprise me at this point.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: That's the problem.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 8: What do you think about... Bill Barr is someone who
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 8: went through a cycle of this covering for Trump around
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 8: the Mueller probe.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 8: And now has done a full reversal. You know, you've been...
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 8: you've interviewed all of these people, many of whom have
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 8: been on both sides of being defenders of Trump and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 8: then antagonists to Trump. What do you find describes the
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 8: moment that some of them have shifted? Is there anything that,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 8: any connection you make between who has a line and
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 8: where they draw it?
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 7: I think, I can't really explain it. I mean, obviously
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: personal experience plays a big role. A lot of these
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 7: people think And I understand why they think or thought, well,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 7: this is the situation. He is the president. So I'm
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 7: going to try to steer the ship and so the
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 7: country doesn't go to war or whatever. And I understand that.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: I can't explain Bill Barr's position because what is it
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 7: about the national secrets that is so beyond the pale
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 7: that so many other things were not? beyond the pale.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 7: Like he, he, he didn't like January 6th, I would
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 7: think would just be like, okay.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 10: That would do it for me. Yeah.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 7: I mean like, even if you're like with them on
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 7: the policies or like trying to steer the ship and
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 7: so many people broke with him on January 6th and
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 7: then some, and then some of them kind of like
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: crept back secretly.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: I don't, I don't know.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 7: I can't really, I can't really explain it. I mean,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 7: I do, I do see the, I was inside trying
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 7: to make it work And like now I just can't
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 7: be silent or whatever. But there's still people, plenty of
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 7: people who are still relatively silent.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: So there was this moment on your show last Tuesday
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: where you told your colleagues in the control room to
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: stop looping the B-roll.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 7: It was before they looped it. They showed it once
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 7: and I'm like, okay, we've seen it, but you guys
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 7: know how cable works. It's like we have these live
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 7: new pictures. Let's just keep showing them. And before they
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 7: started looping, I'm like, okay, we got the news value
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 7: out of that, done.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: And this is for people who don't know about B-roll
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: of Trump at the Cuban bakery he went to.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 7: Versailles.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Versailles, very famous Cuban bakery in Miami. And he went
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: to it after his arraignment. And your point was that
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: he's just trying to make a campaign ad out of it, right?
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: How do you decide when it's worth showing your viewers
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: what Trump is saying and doing and when it's not?
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: It's such a good question.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: I mean, I think as a general note, I am
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: wary of showing any campaign event live for anyone. I
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 7: just don't really necessarily see the news value of it.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 7: And if you're going to do it for this candidate,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 7: then you should be doing it for every candidate, like
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 7: just out of fairness. This was something I didn't know about.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 7: And like all of a sudden it was happening.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: And.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 7: I was kind of surprised and not really sure what
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 7: he was doing. And I was like watching it in
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 7: real time and figuring it out. And I just think
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 7: as a general rule, there's obviously there's a difference if
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 7: somebody is the president of the United States, whether it's
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 7: Joe Biden or Donald Trump or whomever, because they're the president. And,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: you know, inherently it's important what they do, which is
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 7: not to say that we cover every single public thing
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 7: that anybody does, including President Biden. I just think that
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 7: our bar has to be pretty high. And if they
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 7: say something that, like we did cover his speech that night,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 7: but we had discussed it and we were not going
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 7: to cover it live. And when he said something, we
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 7: were going to like find a chunk, bring it to people,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: you know, put it in context before, show the clip,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 7: put it in context again, and then discuss it. But
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 7: I just think like we're in an era now where, A,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 7: there are a lot of candidates running and we have
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 7: to think about fairness. And B, you know, he's incited violence.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: And it's not just theoretical. It's, it's, we saw it
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 7: on January 6th and, and the death threats are, have
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 7: always been going on, but you know, we've seen actual
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 7: violence and bloodshed. So I just think it's something we
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 7: all have to, all of us in the media have
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: to think about.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: So now that we are a few weeks out from
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the infamous Trump, CNN town hall, do you think it
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: was a useful exercise?
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 7: I guess, um, the questions I, I would, I would
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 7: ask you this, um, Do you think that town halls,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: having a candidate take questions from voters, are worthwhile?
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Just as a gentleman.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 7: Absolutely.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: Do you think that the person who is the number
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 7: one in the polls by far for the Republican presidential nomination,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 7: forget Donald Trump for one second, just whoever that person is,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 7: should be included in that?
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: I do, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 7: So then- Look at us.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 8: He's got us on the ropes. Yeah.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 7: No, I mean, cause I've thought a lot about this
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 7: cause I, I, I didn't play any role in it
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 7: other than, um, which.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 10: Was the fucking problem.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 7: I didn't play any, I didn't play any role. I
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 7: disassociate myself from that comment. I didn't play any role
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 7: in it except for like covering it afterwards. But like,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: so what would you have done differently at all? Would
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 7: you not have done it live?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 10: The, the friendly crowd really. I mean, I agree with
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 10: you though. Like as a general matter, so much time
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 10: has been spent talking about this. I feel like there
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 10: are a few formatting problems. Like Everyone cheering and then
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 10: jeering Caitlin Collins was not great. The live part, I
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 10: don't have a strong feeling.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my view on this was the Democratic operative in
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: me was happy to have it up there because he
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: said a bunch of stuff that is extremely unpopular that's
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: just going to come back to haunt him probably in
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: the general election. So the strategy to me didn't really care.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: Thinking about the journalistic value, I do think if there
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: was an audience of undecided Republican voters, maybe throw a
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: few independents in there. Maybe someone had warned them ahead
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: of time, don't be hooting and hollering during the whole thing.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe that would have been better. Other than that, I
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: don't know that there was anything else you guys could
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: have done.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 7: So the audience is the same audience we have for
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 7: all these town halls and always have, which is Democrats
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 7: and Democratic-leaning independents for a Democratic town hall and Republicans
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: and Republican-leaning independents for a Republican town hall. And it
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 7: wasn't stacked with Trump supporters. It was New Hampshire Republicans
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 7: and Republican leading independents. And, you know, I did, I
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 7: did a Nikki Haley town hall a few days later,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 7: a few weeks later in Iowa. And it was the
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 7: same definition of the audience. And, you know, by the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 7: end of it, she had really charmed them. She had
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 7: really done a good job with them and they were
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 7: cheering for her, but, you know, they were cheering for
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 7: what she was saying, which was not, you know, belittling
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 7: somebody who had accused her of sexual assault and, you know,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 7: one in court and, Not, you know, I mean, it's
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 7: just I think what people reacted to was the fact
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 7: that a lot of Republicans are still enthralled with this guy.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 7: And I think that's that's that's really what honestly what
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 7: people were bothered by.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: And my view on that is like, hey, everyone, this
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: is what we're dealing with. This is like the reality
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: of the situation.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 7: That is the reality of the situation. And, you know,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 7: he's he is a 67 percent approval rating with Republicans
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 7: and Republican leaning independents, according to a CNN poll. Now
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 7: that's down in a month from 77, but 67% approval
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 7: rating is still pretty damn good.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 8: Yeah, there's also just, I think, a kind of viewer
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 8: who's engaged on social media, paying a lot of attention,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 8: who watches what happens on CNN like a sociologist and
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 8: can't separate Trump saying things that are deeply unpopular with
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 8: a lot of people, basically open to a national abortion ban,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 8: wanting to overturn the next election. a bunch of heinous
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 8: things about the sexual assault claims against him and are
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 8: unable to separate that from people cheering for it. As
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 8: if someone at home who might find that heinous would
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 8: be like, well, people applauded. I guess it must be
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 8: pretty good. And I do think that Nikki Haley in
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 8: your town hall, she said a lot of similarly unpopular things.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 8: She also said, I think, she had some outlandish things
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 8: to say about LGBT issues and what have you. And
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: there was not nearly the same level of outcry or
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 8: attention or concern, which I think speaks to an obsession
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 8: with Trump that isn't particularly healthy on sort of the
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 8: media watchers either, right? I mean, there is just sort
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 8: of a focus and concern about the way he's covered
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 8: that doesn't apply to the other candidates.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 7: I mean, I think one of the things that people
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 7: were reacting to was people who don't like Trump were oh,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 7: are we really going to do this all over again?
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 7: And also, you know, frankly, you know, the way he
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: talked to Caitlin, the way he talked about EG and Carol, like,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 7: you know, it's, it's, it's rude and it's not pleasant
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 7: for people who don't like him to watch him be rude.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 7: If you like him, then you like who he's being
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 7: rude to.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 7: It's look, I don't think there's any easy answers to
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 7: any of this, but I don't think pretending he's not
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 7: the Republican, the leading Republican candidate for president and that
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 7: he has a decent chance of being the next president again.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 7: I don't think that solves anything. I think Caitlin fact
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 7: checked him, you know, a ton. She knew a ton
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: about the classified documents investigation and, Like she was way,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: I feel like she was like way ahead of the country.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 7: Cause like all of a sudden now we're all experts
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 7: on classified documents.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 10: Right.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 7: But Caitlin was there fact checking him, knowing all the details.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 7: And he said a bunch of stuff that wasn't true then.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: I mean, like I'm not going to pretend any of
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: this is easy. It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's bewitching.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 7: I mean, it's, it's troubling, but he is the leading,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 7: you know, the fact that he'll go up and tell
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 7: all those lies. I would rather he go up and
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 7: be calm and normal and talk about his, policies, you know,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 7: that would be much more pleasant as a viewer and
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 7: as a journalist.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 10: So you guys have done Trump, Haley, and Chris Christie. Pence,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 10: we did Pence too. Everyone forgets about Pence. Poor Pence.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 10: So I assume they'll try to get Joe Biden to
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 10: do one.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Do you think.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 7: Yeah, everybody, Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 10: Do you think on the Democratic side, you would do
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 10: a town hall with someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 7: I would not.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 10: Okay.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 7: Because he spreads dangerous misinformation. about childhood vaccines. And I
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 7: had a personal experience with him in 2005 when he became, well,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 7: a professional experience personally with him. In 2005 was when
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 7: he began in earnest his anti-childhood vaccine campaign. He wrote
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 7: a story for salon.com that was jointly published with Rolling Stone,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: both of which have since.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 10: Rescinded it, right?
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 7: Retracted the articles and Rolling Stone just completely disappeared it.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 7: It was like it never happened. Salon has a page
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 7: where they acknowledge what happened and et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 7: But Rolling Stone, it's just like, you know, it's like Hoffa.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 7: I don't know what, you know, just gone.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 8: Under the J.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 7: It might be. It might be. So the, I guess
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 7: it's a death reference, a metal answer. So anyway, I
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 7: just dealt with him and he was so dishonest in
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 7: that experience. And since then, He lies about the experience frequently,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 7: as an example of how the media is co-opted by
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 7: Big Pharma. I did a story about the piece that
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 7: he did for Rolling Stone. This is in 2005, when
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: all this vaccine stuff was still kind of new. All
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 7: these lies about vaccines causing autism in kids. And it's
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 7: completely discredited, and it's not true at all. But anyway,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 7: we did a story about it. I called him and
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 7: told him like, we're going to hold it a day.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 7: We're going to hold the story a day. And we
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 7: were going to like, just do some more due diligence
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 7: on his claims. Um, and then we ran the piece
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 7: of the next day in his retelling of the story.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 7: He and I were working closely for three weeks on
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 7: a terrific documentary about his discovery and corporate America killed it.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 7: And I called him up and I said, it's never
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 7: happened to me before. that I've had a piece killed.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 7: I can't believe this. Like, and none of that's true.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 7: And like, he's out, he literally just said this the
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 7: other day on a podcast. It was, it was like
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 7: a minute 45 piece. It ran on world news tonight
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 7: with Peter Jennings. The next night I had had a
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 7: million pieces killed. I was a, I was a new ABC.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 7: I had been at ABC news for two years. I'd
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 7: had a thousand pieces killed by ABC news. Like, I mean,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 7: and it's just like, he's so dishonest and like, So no.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 10: This is such a media story though, right? Because that's
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 10: an example of the system working. You had editors, you
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 10: had gatekeepers, you had fact checkers doing the right thing,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 10: doing due diligence, killing stories, retracting them if need be.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 10: Now we're in 2023. There's this RFK boomlet. 20% of
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 10: the country, Democrats apparently like him because of his last name,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 10: but you have Jack Dorsey, a billionaire, founder of Twitter,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 10: propping up RFK. You've got Aaron Rodgers.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 7: Yes, a bunch of.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 10: Republicans are propping him up because they view him as
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 10: a valuable foil to attack Biden. But you've got Aaron
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 10: Rodgers propping this guy up. You've got Elon Musk and
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 10: David Sachs doing these spaces with him. And there's no
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 10: filter or layer in between these sort of credible sounding
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 10: lies and anecdotes and stories that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 10: riffs off and an audience of people who are believing
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 10: they're true. And I'm just like wondering what you as
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 10: a journalist, how you feel about that, what you think
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 10: people can do about it. Because to your point, I mean,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 10: like there have been resurgences of measles, you know, like
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 10: diseases that, um.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 7: Google Robert F. Kennedy jr. And Samoa and measles.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 10: Exactly.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 7: He, I mean, there was a horrible incident in Samoa
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 7: where some nurses screwed up and, um, the anti-vax people
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 7: turned that into this vaccine kills kids or this, and
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 7: he went to the island and And he propped them up,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 7: and then there was an epidemic of measles.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 10: And kids died.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean, I don't know what there is to
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 7: do about it other than do what I do as
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 7: effectively as possible, which is just fact check and make
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 7: sure people understand what he's saying isn't true. He's still
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 7: out there claiming that thimerosal was his preservative that was
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 7: in some of these vaccines, and there was false accusations
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 7: that this had some– But it's been out of vaccine
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 7: since like 1999. And the rate of autism continues to climb.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 7: A lot of this is just people being more aware
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 7: of diagnosis. But there might be some chemical. I don't know,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 7: you know, all the reasons, but it's not the Marisol
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 7: and vaccines. And anyway, I think he's dangerous. And I
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 7: think and when I say he's dangerous, I don't mean
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 7: like his ideas make me afraid. No, I think he's
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 7: dangerous because he tells parents not to get their kids
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 7: vaccinated and the kids get sick and die.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 8: We should also tell people, though, that Jake did. He
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 8: was wearing an Eli Lilly hat and he gave everybody
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 8: a tempeh. Which I think was like a weird move.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 7: Well, take the hint.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 10: The good news is he just says this shit on podcasts.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 10: Nobody takes that seriously.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 7: But he said, I'm now a big pharma shill. That's
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 7: his argument. That's crazy. And it's just like, I don't
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 7: even know what you mean. I'm a big farmer. What
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 7: does that even mean?
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: But I sort of got it. So I finally, I'm
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: halfway through the Joe Rogan interview. I don't know why
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: I did this to myself.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 7: Why would you?
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Because I have not, I've never listened to him. So
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: I like wanted to see what was going on here.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: And I get why he's both dangerous and why some
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: people find him like convincing.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 7: Because he looks exactly like his dad.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Well, but also.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 7: And he sounds exactly like his mom.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: He goes on and on and on about like this
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: scientific study and this and this. And he does this
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: whole thing like, Don't take my word for it. I
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: think experts are bad. I don't want to be one
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: of those experts. Just read the science. Read the science.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 7: But he's wrong about all this shit.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: I know, but how many people are going to... And
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: then Joe Rogan's like, hey, can you Google what he
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: just said there about 5G causing leaky brains?
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 7: And then someone's going.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: To be like, oh, it popped up on Google.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 8: Honestly, that's my problem. I got 5G leaky brain. But see,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 8: this is a small... This is one example of a
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 8: larger problem. There's been so much attention... on CNN in
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 8: just the past couple of weeks. A lot of- What?
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 8: There has been. Like, navel-gazing around CNN and its management
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 8: and the ideology being represented on its shows. But that
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 8: is a tiny conversation taking place as this massive shifts
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 8: take place. And it feels as though the power of
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 8: an institution like CNN, MSNBC, major news outlets, that that
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 8: power itself is all collectively shrinking. Yeah. as the gate
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 8: like with so there are fewer gatekeepers around information and
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 8: and everyone in those sort of those legacy outlets are
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 8: kind of chasing the lies and misinformation that are being
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 8: spread all the time by people like rfk jr by
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 8: trump by any of a number of figures and you
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 8: know you just said i don't know what i can
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 8: do except go on television and try to correct it
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 8: and and and be accurate but.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 7: Or just bring the right information to bring.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 8: The right information to people but How do you see
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 8: your role when you are one little star in a
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 8: firmament of information, most of which is now not fact-checked
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 8: at all?
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 7: I mean, I can only do what I can do.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 7: I mean, it bothers me a lot, the state of
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 7: the media. It bothers me a lot, you know, what Fox,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 7: you know, the $ 787. 5 million settlement that they had to
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 7: pay Dominion. And that's just one of many such settlements.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 7: There was the whole secret settlement to the family of
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 7: Seth Rich. I mean, and there's more stuff coming with
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 7: Smartmatic and other. And they're just, other than the financial penalty,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 7: there seems to be actually no punishment. There's no disincentive
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 7: for these networks that just like openly lie to their
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 7: viewers for ratings. I mean, that's what we had here
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 7: in the Dominion Texts and emails was an open admission
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 7: that Fox was lying, not just giving a conservative spin
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 7: on something, but lying. We are lying because we don't
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 7: want to lose these viewers because they're going to Newsmax
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 7: because they want to be lied to. And like there
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 7: was a $ 787. 5 million disincentive structure, I guess. But like,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 7: I mean, who lost their job? I mean, I don't
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 7: know if Tucker losing his job was part of that
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 7: or not. There's like whispers that it was, but I
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 7: don't know. It just, I don't know what the, I
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 7: don't know where the disincentive is. for these people who
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 7: have just openly decided to, uh, exploit, um, you know, our,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 7: the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 7: that we have. It's, it's, it's depressing.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: It's us.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 7: I don't, and this is not me trying to make
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 7: an awkward turn to my book, but it is one
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 7: of the reasons why one of the subtext or what's
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 7: one of the plots of the book is about the
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 7: rise because the book takes place in 77. And one
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 7: of the, one of the points of it is the
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 7: rise of tabloids and the rise of Murdochs of the
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 7: world in the 70s because that's when it happened.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 8: Do you feel at all hypocritical given that much of
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 8: what happens in the book is not real?
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 7: No, because it is fiction.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: It is fiction.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 7: It's a good, it's an excellent question though. I appreciate that.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 8: Sorry, that's stupid. It's fiction.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 7: So in the book and All the Demons Are Here,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 7: I have a similar type of Murdoch character moving to DC,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 7: starting a tabloid called the DC Sentinel. But One of
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 7: the things that when I researched Murdoch for the character
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 7: of Max Lyon, who was based on Murdoch, it was
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 7: just amazing the stuff he would say, just openly admit
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 7: about what he thought sold and why it was important
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 7: to do that and what he had been doing in
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 7: Australia and the UK. It's rage and fear.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: Do you think Fox should be treated as a legitimate
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: news organization after all this?
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 7: I know you're saying this because in 2009— week after
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 7: my son was born.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: Wow, putting on him.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 7: What did he do? He wasn't insane. That was my follow-up.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 7: In the haze of seven sleepless nights.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 8: Wow.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 7: You guys, the Obama White House had launched a campaign
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 7: saying the Fox was not a legitimate news organization. And
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 7: I asked Robert Gibbs in a gaggle, why was it
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 7: appropriate for the White House to label this organization, which I,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 7: in my I was looking for the world, looking for
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 7: the fellow credentialed member of the White House press corps,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 7: but what I said was sister organization, which I regret
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 7: very much. Why was it legitimate?
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: Why was it.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 7: Responsible or appropriate for a White House to say that
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 7: about a credentialed news organization? That was the question, which
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 7: I've been.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 10: Did Bobby Gibbs take it well?
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 7: He basically asked me to turn... He said, you should
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 7: turn on Uh, and then he alluded to when Glenn
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 7: Beck show was on, you know, he's turned on whatever.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 7: And I'm like, I'm not saying why, uh, and this
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 7: transcripts out there for anybody wants to read it, but
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 7: I'm not saying, why would you not say that show?
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 7: I'm saying you labeled the whole thing. And also the
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 7: other context is who was the white house? Who were
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 7: the major Garrett? Who's a legitimate journalist with CBS news now.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 7: was the white house correspondent for Fox at the time.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 10: They always have a beard. They kind of hang out there.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: I do remember that incident. I just asked the question
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: cause I was interested in what you think now. I
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: should have known that you would remember that. I would
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: remember that. I, um, I think.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 7: That the Fox of 2009, uh, is not the Fox
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 7: of 2023. Um, I understand why Obama and the White
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 7: House were going on the campaign. I still think it
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 7: is a fine question for a reporter to say, why
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 7: is it appropriate to do this? If I were in
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 7: the White House press corps now and you guys were
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 7: doing it and whatever, I don't think I would ask
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 7: that question.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, even reading through all the Dominion stuff,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: I was like, what? Like, the opinion stuff you get,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: but just like the coordination, sort of the, like, you know,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: just admitting that it's for money and ratings. And I mean,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: it's just, it was wild.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 7: And no journalistic standards at all. Like Maria Bartiromo's, the
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 7: source for all that stuff was some crazy woman who
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 7: talked to ghosts.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 10: Yeah. It was a forwarded email essentially.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: And, um, and it bled into the news side, like,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: you know, a hundred percent.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 7: So I think the most shocking thing to me was reading, uh,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 7: you know, quote unquote, straight news anchors talking to the
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 7: opinion people and saying like, I, I told the decision
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 7: desk to put Arizona back in the Trump column. Um,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 7: and it's like, first of all, Arizona was never in
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 7: the Trump column. So what do you mean back in
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 7: the Trump column? Second of all, what do you, what
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 7: are you even talking to the decision desk? I w
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 7: it would never even occur to me to think it
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 7: was appropriate to, for me to reach out to the
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 7: decision desk. But in that wild world where like, let's
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 7: just say that I want to reach out to the
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 7: decision desk. I wouldn't even know how to do it.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 7: Like there is such a firewall. I wouldn't even know
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 7: the big first way to do it. I would never
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 7: want to do it. It's crazy to me. And then
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 7: that same anchor said that he told them to slow,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 7: slow roll the Nevada call. I just like, this is
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 7: crazy stuff to me.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 8: It does it, you know, this idea though. And I,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 8: and I do agree that there's, you know, something has shifted,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 8: but like this idea that you can have serious news
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 8: people on one half of your channel and then fomenting
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 8: the like rage and nonsense and fear and misinformation on
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 8: the other half of your channel, as if that that's sustainable,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 8: seems to have been like a larger problem for Republicans,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 8: this idea that they can have their serious policy Paul
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 8: Ryan types while winning elections on the backs of Donald
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 8: Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and the kind of the
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 8: racialized and sort of, you know, the fear mongering that
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 8: has sort of become the main way in which they
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 8: draw people out. Come November, like the idea that these
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 8: two things could exist in parallel forever. It just seems
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 8: like it wasn't true. It wasn't true for Fox. It's
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 8: not true for Republicans.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 7: I mean, like I said, I wouldn't ask that question today.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 7: I mean, I think they're I think that they are
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 7: I think that they are different, which is not to
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 7: say that they were great in 2009. But I think
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 7: that I think that it is it is a different
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 7: situation now. And again, I I really felt like I
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 7: was kind of standing up for Major Garrett. who I
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 7: thought was a really good reporter and a friend and
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 7: was a colleague. And the other reporter, the other White
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 7: House reporter was Wendell Goeller. Wendell Goeller. Who passed away
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 7: in the last year. I mean, rest in peace. Also,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 7: just like, I can't say straight shooter without looking at
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 7: you and laughing, but like, just a solid reporter. They
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 7: were good reporters and good guys.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 8: Yeah, no, but I wasn't even coming at it from
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 8: the perspective of that 2009 question.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 7: No, but you're saying, right, you're saying.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 8: I'm saying that there's a larger bit of, there's a
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 8: self-deception that seems to go on, on the right, that
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 8: tries to separate their kind of, whatever, their intellectual, serious
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 8: policy operation that has sort of conservative values from some
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 8: bygone era and then this sort.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 7: Of rage machine.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 8: And the idea that they kept them separate was never true.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 8: It was never possible.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 7: I'm open to the argument that, you know, the Wall
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 7: Street Journal news organization and the Wall Street Journal opinion
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 7: pages can coexist. And I'm open to the argument that
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 7: you can have like a serious news Division or news
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 7: shows and then like opinion shows at night. I I'm
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 7: open to that argument what is what has changed or
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 7: maybe I'm just I Don't know Maybe I'm just more
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 7: aware of it or but it seems worse is just
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 7: the degree to which it's just based on lies just
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 7: lies not Conservative opinion. This is how I view the
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 7: world because I'm a conservative but just lies and I
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 7: like for instance, I, you know, MSNBC is opinion at night.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 7: It is, I mean, Chris and either Rachel or Alex and,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 7: and then Lawrence, I mean that, and then Stephanie, like
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 7: it's opinion generally. Um, and you know, I don't, you
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 7: could argue, like, I don't know that it's the healthiest
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 7: thing in the world to have preaching to the choir television,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 7: but it is based in fact, uh, And what they,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 7: you know, and what, what I, you know, I mean,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 7: I hear the way Hannity, like Hannity attacks me or
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 7: goes after me and I, I don't, you know, I'll
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 7: hear about it like a day or two later or whatever.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 7: And like, he says things that just aren't true and
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 7: it's just insane. And I don't like, you can't even
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 7: combat it. There's no even attempt to try to get
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 7: anything in the realm of real.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 10: Can I ask you about a moment of radical candor
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 10: on the air with you? Uh, we were, we were
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 10: thinking back on your storied career and it is storied.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 10: You were interviewing, uh, a gentleman named John Bolton.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 10: And, uh, you made a comment that you don't have
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 10: to be a genius to stage a coup in a
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 10: foreign country. And he got offended by that.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 7: No, I said, you don't have to be a genius
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 7: to stage a coup. I was talking about in America.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 9: Sure.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 8: Okay.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 10: Sorry. And he took offense to the idea that you
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 10: don't have to be a genius and said, I've staged
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 10: coups in many places. What was that like for you
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 10: to have someone just admit to staging a coup on air?
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 7: Well, he, I mean, he kind of retracted a little bit,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 7: but it was, it was a kind of, I didn't
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 7: really know what to say.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 7: Would you want to be more specific?
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 10: Like where?
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you, someone who's staged a few coups.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 7: It takes some serious preparation.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 7: That was, that was an odd moment. That's just like the,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 7: the perils of, or the perils of the, the opportunities
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 7: and perils of live TV where people just say things
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 7: and like, what?
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: Roll that back.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah. And sometimes you don't necessarily catch it or even
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 7: know how to react to it because it's so bizarre.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 7: And like, you might like come back to it like
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 7: 30 seconds or a minute later, because your brain is
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 7: still kind of like, I don't think I followed up immediately.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 7: I think I followed up like a minute or two later.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 7: I think I had to be like, could we go
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 7: back to something you said like a minute ago? Because,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 7: because my brain in real time was like, wait a second.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 7: I think he just admitted that he did a coup.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 7: It was odd. I will say that if the, uh, that,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 7: If you look at the way that Donald Trump attempted
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 7: to undo the election, it wasn't for lack of planning.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 7: There was a lot of different avenues he went, right?
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 7: I mean, he did the challenges and the election boards,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 7: then the courtroom cases, then the state legislatures. I mean,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 7: there was a whole bunch. Before they got to the
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 7: violent overthrow, there was a whole bunch of... So, I mean,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 7: I don't think there was a lack of brainpower there.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 7: They were trying all sorts of ways.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 10: They were.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: They were.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 7: Just the guardrails held. But you know something? We did
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 7: a documentary called American Coup after in 2000, either 2021
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 7: or 2022. And something Adam Kinzinger said was really interesting.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 7: And I don't know if he made it up or what,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 7: but it was the first time I ever heard it
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 7: was from him. It's like you see a guardrail that
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 7: a car has hit and it's like all mangled, but
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 7: it's there and you're like, okay, so that it held,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 7: it held. But that doesn't mean it's going to hold
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 7: the next time. when a car hits it the next time.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 7: It's been battered so badly, it might actually break.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 8: I think about- It's like a very tight pickle jar.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 7: A what?
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 8: Like, you know. Elaborate on that.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 7: You open the pickle jar?
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 8: Well, it's just like, ah, I can't get it. Someone
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 8: else gets it. You're like, I lose it.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 10: I'm losing that metaphor.
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: Is that helpful?
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 8: Do you need a second metaphor, you think?
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 7: I like the guardrail one better.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 8: No, I think, you know what? Hey, let's just fix this.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 8: Make mine the guardrail one.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: Give Jake the pickle one.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 7: You're fixing it in post?
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 7: I feel like you take, first of all, I don't
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 7: know how many pickles you're consuming at your home, but
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 7: it does seem like you're arguing a lot to your
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 7: certain other person.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 8: You seem stuck on this for some reason. But you
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 8: loosened it. I think we should move on.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like you are one of the few reporters who,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: when you've interviewed Trump, has really like, held him to account,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: really elicited some interesting stuff from him.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 7: Well, he hasn't let me interview him since the summer
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 7: of 2016.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: I thought you interviewed him in.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 7: No, in Judge Curiel. It was like June 2016. He
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 7: was going off on how there was the Trump University
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 7: case and Judge Curiel couldn't be fair because Judge Curiel's
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 7: a Mexican. Right, I remember that. And I basically said
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 7: to myself before the interview... I like he's that's just
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 7: like the definition of racism to say somebody can't do
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 7: their job because of their heritage or race. And and
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 7: I just I kept on going until I finally got
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 7: the question out. And that was the last time he
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 7: let me interview him.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Is that like talk a little bit about your strategy
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: with someone like Trump? Is it I've got to just
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: keep asking follow ups. And even if I sort of
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: go off my plan and don't get enough questions in,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: I've got to get him on this one thing.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 7: I think, I think he's not somebody that you'd like,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 7: you come with, like, I have to cover all these
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 7: 15 different topics. You know, I have a question on
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 7: energy and I have a question on like foreign policy
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 7: and a question on treatment. You just have to come
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 7: and ask questions. And then when there's something that you
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 7: think is important, just drill down until you, until you
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 7: get there. I mean, I think that's, um, that's been,
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 7: that's the most effective way, not just him, but like
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 7: anybody who is a difficult interview, anybody who is not, um,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 7: who doesn't come to like actually answer questions and like is,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 7: does a lot of, I mean, he, there are other
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 7: people I've interviewed who are like this, but he's definitely,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 7: you know, uh, a quality into himself, but just like
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 7: the filibuster, the change, the subject, the insult, the, the,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 7: the interruption. I mean, he, he does it all. And it's,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 7: it's a challenge. It's a real challenge. It's tough to do.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 7: I mean, you saw it like, so you saw the
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 7: bear interview. He interrupts bear the whole time over and
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 7: over and over. And, you know, this is part of
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 7: what you get.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 10: Jake, you're doing the lead five days a week. You're
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 10: doing Sunday shows.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 7: Every other week. Dana does half of them.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 10: Dana does half of them. You're doing the town halls.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 10: You're writing three fiction, three novels.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 7: Well, since 2016. Why did you decide to become a novelist?
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 7: I always was interested in, I went to film school
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 7: after college and then I wrote a novel in my
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 7: twenties and it didn't, it got me an agent, but
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 7: it didn't get published. And then I kind of just
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 7: took a break, um, and focused on reporting. And then
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 7: after the outpost, I wrote this book about Afghanistan called
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 7: the outpost, which was so nonfiction, it was so meaningful
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 7: to me. And then people, the publisher wanted me to
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 7: write another nonfiction. I said, I like that book was
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 7: so intense and it meant so much to me to
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 7: tell the story of these soldiers. if I find something
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 7: I care that much about, I will, but I, it really,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 7: it took so much out of me emotionally. And then
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 7: this was just, honestly, it was just like, I've been
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 7: thinking about a plot for the Hellfire Club, the first
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 7: book in the series. And it was just fun. It
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 7: was just an escape. And after, and I think I
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 7: started writing in 2015, 2016. And it was, it was
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 7: really nice to get out of it. And also like
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 7: the first book takes place in the McCarthy era and
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 7: Joe McCarthy's a character in it. And I felt like
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 7: I could say something about the era we were in
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 7: by looking at Joe McCarthy. Just like in this one,
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 7: All the Demons Are Here, I felt like I could
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 7: say something about charismatic demagogues and mobs and yellow journalism
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 7: and tabloid journalism today by making something up fun about
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 7: the past.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 8: And you go into a room and you start writing
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 8: and you stay there for hours. Do you guys do
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 8: writing as an escape? I mean, my God, I don't
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 8: understand it.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 7: That's not what I do.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 8: What do you do? How do you do it?
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 7: So I do an outline first.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 8: Uh-huh.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 7: And then I.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 8: What time of day is this? Seriously, what are you
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 8: fucking writing a book? You're on television every goddamn day.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 8: I do two podcasts a week. I'm exhausted. I don't
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 8: have a computer in front of me. I didn't even
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 8: prepare for this.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 7: I can't really explain it. I know that I'm very
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 7: driven and it's kind of crazy. I can't really explain it.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 7: I know my staff gives me shit about it. Like,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 7: how do you have time to do this? How do
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 7: you have time to do that? All I can tell
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 7: you is I find it enjoyable. I find it fun.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 8: What kind of coffee is that right there?
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 7: Just an iced coffee, black. Okay.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 8: Black, nothing in it.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to ask a question about
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: the book.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 10: Speaking of driven, Trump called you fake tapper. Do you
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 10: feel like he mailed that one in?
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that's kind of lazy, right?
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: Can you give us one final pitch for all the
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: demons are here? Are we done? Okay.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 7: So I think that you guys would like it because
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 7: it takes place in 1977 and is in addition to
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 7: Having these plots that have to do with resonant things today,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 7: like tabloid journalism and mobs and the like. I think
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 7: you'd like it because it's a wild year. And 1977
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 7: was just crazy. Like there were so many insane things
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 7: that happened. Evil Knievel is like a big character in
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 7: the book. Elvis dies, Summer of Sam.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: Tommy and I were talking about this. We're like, do
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: we think people who listen to this podcast will even
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: know who Evel Knievel was? Because I remember being a kid.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 7: Is that right?
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 8: You do?
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 7: So I was not a fan of Evel Knievel. It
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 7: didn't do anything for me, but like I had friends
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 7: who were fans of his, but he's just a great,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 7: very American character. He's a horrible motorcycle rider, just not talented, but.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 8: Like that pilot who crashed into the, like the hit
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 8: the swans and then crashed into the Hudson. Like that
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 8: was cool. sully well yeah sully sullenberger no i'm just
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 8: saying he was famous for crashing the thing that's a
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 8: weird thing to be famous for as a pilot no
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 8: he's more sorry you know what i mean it was
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 8: more that he was think about all the pilots that
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 8: didn't hit ducks that day okay okay so he was.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 7: Uh he was willing to do these insane stunts right
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 7: that's and so that that's what that and he was
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 7: and he was like he lived in butte montana and
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 7: he stayed in butte montana and he was just like
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 7: this completely self-made like that he would only this would
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 7: only happen in the United States and maybe only in
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 7: the 70s yeah and I just think it's a wild
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 7: era that's fun to explore that's so cool.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 8: See that Tom Cruise rides a motorcycle and then uses
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 8: a parachute in the new Mission Impossible movie.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 7: I've seen the that little skit the little clip yeah I.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 8: Wouldn't call it a skit the man did it the
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 8: man really really did it he's nuts That's cool.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 7: He'd die for us. He would die for us. I
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 7: think so.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 10: The thetans will keep him. The Scientology guys will protect him.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: Anyway, the book is All the Demons Are Here. It
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: is out July 11th, but you can pre-order it now.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 7: Yes, absolutely.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: Go get the book. Jake Tapper.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 7: Thanks, guys.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: Come back again soon. I appreciate it.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Jake Tapper for joining us today. Everyone have
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: a fantastic weekend and we will talk to you next week.
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner Bernstein
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer,
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Mia Kelman,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: Ben Hefko, and David Toll. Subscribe to Pod Save America
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: on YouTube to catch full episodes, exclusive content, and other
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: community events. Find us at youtube.com slash at Pod Save America.