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Billionaires' Bet on Trump Pays Off · 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, everyone seems to be doing the Trump dance.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: As FBI Director Christopher Wray goes down without a fight,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Democrats start flattering Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg sponsors the inauguration. Trump, meanwhile,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: admits he might not be able to bring down prices
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: after all, during his big-time Man of the Year interview,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: an honor he celebrated at the New York Stock Exchange
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: on Thursday by telling Wall Street he'd cut their taxes.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Welcome to your populist realignment, Dan. But first, we have
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: some actual good news.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: No, stop.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: It's real. I'm not, not a joke.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: It's December, 2024, right?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: It is. Okay. All right.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: It's been a while.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: The white house announced on Thursday, the president Biden made
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: history by granting clemency to nearly 1500 people and pardoning
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: 39 others. The largest single day clemency action in modern history.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: The 1500 number is people who had largely been living
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: out lengthy sentences in home confinement because of the pandemic.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and already had been reintegrated in their communities. Those sentences
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: were commuted. The 39 pardons went mostly to people convicted
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of nonviolent drug offenses when they were younger and who
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: have since turned their lives around. What do you think
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: of the move? Pretty good, huh?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Love it. It's great. I saw that this morning when
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I woke up way too early as usual, and it
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: was great news. And It's sort of what we've been
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: waiting for. Every time you have a transition from the
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: president of one party to the president of the next,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the outgoing president furiously spends that last two months trying
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: to get as much as necessary as possible. Fireproof their accomplishments,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: use the powers they have, and pardons is a big
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: part of it. And it had felt for the last
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks like that was not happening. I'm sure
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: it was happening. Internally, because they didn't just come up
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: with these pardons yesterday, like they've been working on this
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: for a long time. But it was good to see
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: sort of that outgoing use of power in a way
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: that was consistent with the president's values and protecting people
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: from a dangerous thing that's going to happen when Trump
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: takes over.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: In the statement, Whitehouse also said that there would be
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: further action in the days to come. The Office of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the Pardon Attorney, part of the Justice Department, has received
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: nearly 12,000 requests for clemency during Mr. Biden's term. In
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: 2022 and 2023, he pardoned anyone in federal prison for
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: marijuana possession. He can also, and has been urged to,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: pardon or commute sentences of others convicted of nonviolent drug
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: offenses who were in federal prison. Some people have urged
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: him to commute sentences for the 40 people who were
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: on death row in federal prison and reduce those sentences
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to life without parole so that they don't get the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: death penalty. So altogether, he has issued, I think, 26
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: individual pardons and 135 commutations. So what do you think?
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: What do you think is going to be next? What
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: do you think should be next?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I hope it's the 40 death row inmates. Joe Biden,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: this has kind of been lost to history, but Joe
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Biden was the first modern president elected who was an
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: opponent of the death penalty.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: The upside of his Catholicism. I say that because he
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: was obviously not as pro-choice as he is now for
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: most of his life, largely due to him being raised
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a Catholic.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Obviously, there are only 40 inmates on death row in
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: federal penitentiaries. There's huge numbers of them in state prisons,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: but it would send a powerful signal to do that
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: on his way out the door. So I certainly hope
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: that that is something that is on the list of
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: things they're actively considering over the last month here.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And it seems like from all kinds of reporting now,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: since last time we talked about it, that he's still
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: considering preemptive blanket pardons for some folks on Trump's enemies list.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: And Trump has now Talked about the January 6th committee.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Talked about Jack Smith. So I guess we'll wait and
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: see if he does that.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Did you see that Benny Thompson said he'd take one?
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I did see Benny Thompson say he'll take one. You
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: know what? Which I respect. All these people playing coy.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Adam Schiff being like, oh, I don't think it's a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: good idea. Adam Schiff, you're going to take it if
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: you get it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Don't give me a pardon. That's me winking for those
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: listening to it on their phones.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, not to dwell on this again, but, you know,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: it crossed my mind since we were talking about pardons
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: and commutations today. Why do you think he didn't wait
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to do the Hunter pardon until after a move like this?
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: You know, we talked about this on a Tuesday show,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and Tommy mentioned that he wanted to do the Hunter
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: pardon before Hunter was sentenced. Though, and I guess I
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: understand that, though, you could also make an argument that
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: after Hunter was sentenced... perhaps commuting the sentence altogether, would
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: have been received better. Our old pal Anita Dunn, who
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: was one of the closest aides to Joe Biden for
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: not just his presidency, but like much of his career,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: she said recently at a New York Times deal book
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: event when she was asked about the Hunter Biden pardon,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I don't agree with the way it was done. I
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: don't agree with the timing. And I don't agree, frankly,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: with the attack on our judicial system. The argument is
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: one I think that many observers are concerned about, a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: president who ran to restore the rule of law, who
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: has upheld the rule of law, who has really defended
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the rule of law, kind of saying, well, maybe not
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I thought a lot about how and why the White
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: House did it this way. And I think it's pretty simple.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: We know all the people who work at the White House.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: They are very smart. They know exactly how shooting out
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the Hunter Biden pardon on its own before you pardon
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: anyone else on a Sunday night at the end of
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Thanksgiving weekend is going to, before you jet off to Angola,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: is going to look.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Which is why I think most of them weren't involved.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, he called the White House and said,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: this is what we're doing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. No, I mean, most of the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: very smart White House staff that we knew did not
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: know until it was happening.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: They didn't know he had made the decision to do it,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: but I'm sure there's a conversation on rollout, right? And
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: the president came back from Thanksgiving with his family, where
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: they had a family meeting about this. Hunter was at
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: that meeting. Hunter is staring down the barrel of going
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: to prison soon. And the president makes a decision. He
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: calls back and says, I've made this decision. And then
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: they have a choice. Do they just do it right
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: away before it leaks? Or do they allow it to
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: leak out there that he is thinking about it and
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: then face a bunch of pressure? And so this is
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: not how anyone would design. I think it's just, it's
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: a very, this is how the process worked. And it
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: takes a long time to get 1300 commutations and pardons together.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: And that process was ongoing and not yet finished when
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: he made this decision at Thanksgiving.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: So there's no plan that had it this way. It's
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: just like, this is how life unfolded. And This was
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: a family issue. And one thing you always read in
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the reporting is on family stuff, no one argues Biden
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: calls the shots.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And that's how this was. And I mean, I won't
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: criticize it all over again. I already did. I will
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: say that these pardons and commutations, they do make me
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: feel better about the whole thing. Yeah, of course. I
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: also think that if he, like I said, issues, you know,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: these preemptive pardons and blanket pardons and makes them about
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: sort of protecting people from political vengeance and retribution by
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the Hunter pardon sort of fits into
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: that bucket, then I feel even better, even though I'm
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: disappointed that he lied to us. All right. Elsewhere in
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the justice system, there is less reason for celebration.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: FBI director Chris Wray announced Wednesday that he would.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Step down At some point before Trump's inauguration on January 20th,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: paving the way for Trump hatchet man Kash Patel to
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: take over as head of the world's premier investigative agency.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Wray said in his statement, quote, In my view, this
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: are so important to how we do our work. A
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: lot of folks aren't happy, to say the least. Jonathan
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Shade at The Atlantic in a piece called A Scandalous
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Resignation sums it up this way, quote, The president-elect had
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: been facing the unpleasant task of firing a lifelong Republican
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: whom he had selected himself, inviting the national media to
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: raise ugly questions about his oft-confessed desire to turn the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: federal criminal justice apparatus into a weapon of political vengeance. Instead, Wray,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: like so many Republicans who couldn't stomach Trump's demands, decided
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: to go gentle into that good night. Nobody except Ray
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: will remember where they were when Christopher Ray resigned. Ouch.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can sympathize with Ray not wanting to
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: just sit around and wait for Trump to fire him,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. What do you think? Was this
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the right move?
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Abso-fucking-lutely not. The position of FBI director is one of
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: the most powerful in this country. You have an army
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: of investigators and law enforcement officers who work for you.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: It is so powerful that unlike the Department of Defense,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: the director of the CIA- Congress gave the FBI director
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: 10-year non-consecutive terms. So you can't amass too much power,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: and you are insulated from the influence of individual presidents
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: and members of Congress. And Donald Trump, for the second
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: time now, is firing an FBI director. And in this case,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: he is doing it, and he wants to install a
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: loyalist who has published an actual list of the enemies
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: who he wants to prosecute. And that should be a big,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: giant deal. And it's not going to be because Chris
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Wray just slouched off into retirement. And so instead, you
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: have to pick the alternative scenario where Joe Biden leaves,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is sworn in, he walks in the White House.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: and then he fires the FBI director who has years
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: left on his term that was confirmed by the Senate
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: to replace him with Kash Patel. But because Ray resigned,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: when he is trying to appoint Kash Patel, it's just
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: going to seem like he's filling any other cabinet, empty
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: cabinet vacancy, like all the.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Rest of them.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: And it just.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: It is a big deal what he is doing with
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: the FBI, and Chris Wray made it seem like a
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: lot less big deal. So he did not uphold any
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: of those values and principles that he talked about. He
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: actually undermined them by giving in to Trump. Pure cowardice,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: in my opinion. Pure cowardice.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I think I agree, just for the sake of argument.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, let's hear it.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: No, I guess what benefit to the country or politically
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: for those who oppose Trump would have come from Wray waiting,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: getting fired, and then Kash Patel gets the job anyway,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: just a little bit later than he would have. And
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump gets a couple days worth of very critical
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: stories and commentary by all of us for firing the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: FBI director.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: In the end, if Kash Patel is going to be
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: the FBI director in either way, It's not going to
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: make a huge difference to the Benny Thompson's, Adam Schiff's,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Anthony Fauci's of the world who are going to be investigated.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: But it is a chance to grab the nation's attention
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: for just a moment to show how dangerous this is.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Because as we're going to talk about on this podcast,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: we all ran around for a year and a half
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: saying that Donald Trump was an existential threat to democracy.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: One of the reasons he was an existential threat to
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: democracy is because every fucking morning before breakfast, he announced
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: on True Social that he was going to investigate all
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: of his political opponents, which we said was fascist and
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: authoritarian and dangerous. And now he's doing that exact thing.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: And so many people, Chris Wray included, are sort of like, eh,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: maybe not that big a deal. And so if it
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: is as big a deal as we think it is,
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: and I imagine Chris Wray probably thinks it is, then
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: you have to at least try to tell that story.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: And it makes it harder to tell that story if
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: you're just going to hand the keys of the FBI
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: to Kash Patel as opposed to making Donald Trump take
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: them from you and do it. Like, this is what
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Preet did as U.S. Attorney in New York. He made
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Trump fire him. And that was a big deal. And
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: firing the FBI director is a huge deal. And it
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: should get that attention, and it won't because of Chris Wray.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: My first reaction was sort of the way he left.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Less about, I'm quitting, you're firing me, and the difference
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: between that, and more about Chris Wray, I think, has
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: an obligation, whether he does it after he leaves or now,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: or if he had waited and got fired. But he
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: has an obligation, I think, to let people know that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: he did a good job. And the reason he's being
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: fired is because he carried out his duties to investigate
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the president of the United States for stealing classified information.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: And that's why they went to Mar-a-Lago. And he, by
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the way, retrieved classified information that the president had stole,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the ex-president at that point, had stolen and refused to
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: give back and obstructed justice. Like, I do think that
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit a defense of the bureau and the
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: bureau's actions over the last several years and just making
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: sure people know that they played it pretty fucking straight
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: over the last several years after he was appointed by
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and is a Republican himself. I do think
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: he has an obligation just for the public to know that.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: And if people don't care, then they're free not to care.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But might as well tell that story.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll get to read it in a book
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: coming out in October 2025.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe he can do a press conference with Jim Comey.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I'll send him an invite link to Substack, see if
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: he can get started early.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Also, I think there, and JVL made this point in
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: his newsletter today at the Bulwark, that people who oppose Trump,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: or at least the people who want to defend our
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: democratic institutions, anything they do to sort of delay Trump
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and his minions from doing what they want to do,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: is a good thing. And so Kash Patel getting in
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: earlier than he would have if we had to go
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: through Chris Wray getting fired, you know, it would have
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: been nice. Any delay tactics here are probably helpful. I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: have not heard a really good argument for Chris Wray
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: doing it the way he did, but maybe he'll speak
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: up soon. One factor that seems to be making the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Wray news tougher to swallow is that it's not just Wray. Obviously,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: you and Melissa talked about Wednesday. Jack Smith also made
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the decision to resign rather than get fired. And in general,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of big players, corporations, media outlets,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: even some elected Democrats, are employing a kinder, gentler approach
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to Trump's second term so far. Here's an incomplete accounting
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: from just the last few days. Meta. gave a million
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: dollars to Trump's inauguration after Mark Zuckerberg had dinner with Trump. Amazon,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: giving a million dollars too. Thanks, Jeff Bezos. The CEO
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of Time, the magazine which just named Trump Person of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the Year, accompanied him to the New York Stock Exchange
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: and started clapping and chanting USA, USA when Trump rang
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the bell. The fuck? Democratic Senator John Fetterman said, joined
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Truth Social and said that not only was the Hunter
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Biden pardon correct, but that Trump deserves a pardon too
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: for his conviction in the Manhattan case. And other Democrats
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: like Congressman Richie Torres and Senator Richard Blumenthal have been
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: praising Elon Musk, with Blumenthal calling him the tech industry's, quote,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: champion of free speech. Ro Khanna has said he's been
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: trading techs with Elon and called him an extraordinary entrepreneur.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: They said he also was clear with him where he disagreed.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Fetterman compared Elon to Tony Stark. So a lot of
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: cliches you could reach for here. If you can't beat him,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: join him. Discretion is the better part of valor. Better
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to be at the table than on the menu. What
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: do you think is going on here? And obviously all
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of the different people I just mentioned there, they could
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: all have different motivations. There could be different degrees of
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: of kissing Donald Trump's ass and Elon Musk's ass. But
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: what do you think's going on here?
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: So let's probably try to separate this out into a
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: couple groups.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: There are corporations which are staring down the prospect of
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: an all-you-can-eat buffet of corporate greed under Donald Trump. Less taxes,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: which we'll get to. We're getting to that. We'll get
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: to that. Less regulation, just fucking pay-to-play left and right.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: And they are chomping at the bit. A lot of
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: these are tech companies who, like this probably something to
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: do with Meta, who have felt like they could not
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: acquire other companies under Lena Kahn's FTC because of Biden's
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: very good antitrust policies. So the corporations, they're going to
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: be Donald Trump's friend because Donald Trump's going to do
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: what they want. And they know if you're friends with
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, he is like an old school corrupt politician.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: If you're friends with him, he will hook you up
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: with some government contracts, some other stuff. Then you have...
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Democrats who are trying to figure out how to deal
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: with Elon Musk as a public figure. Someone who is
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: quite popular with a group of voters that we lost, right?
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Namely young men. And that he, in understanding that he
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: is a world famous, very successful business person. And he
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: has taken on a task. And I think that they are,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: and I think Ro Khanna in particular is probably pretty
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: smart about this. And he has a relationship with Elon
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: from a long time in California. But I mean, he
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: was a Commerce Department appointee in the Obama administration when
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Elon was hoovering down solar tax credits for Tesla. But
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: huge fan of the Recovery Act that Elon Musk. I
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: think the way we navigate the Doge Commission requires some
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: deftness because what they want to do at the service
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: level is quite popular. Get rid of waste and fraud
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: and abuse in government. Like everyone agrees with that. And
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: so you want to be in the situation where you're
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: agreeing to work with them. And then when they come
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: back with all their social security cuts and their elimination
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: of the Department of Education, then you hammer them. So
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I think that's the appropriate way there. I don't know
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: what– I can't speak to what John Fetterman is doing.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: I don't really understand the– going on true social, that
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: is fine. Gavin Newsom did that a long time ago.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: That doesn't bother me.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Offering– suggesting Trump get a pardon, that seems primarily like trolling.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I don't really get that, but– And then I think
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: there's this other thing that I think we all have
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: to remind ourselves as we think about the next four years.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: We are never running against Donald Trump again.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: He is not our opponent. The first four years of
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Trump was about every single day trying to increase the
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: likelihood that we could beat him in the 2020 election.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: And we succeeded. We succeeded. Not as well as we
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: would like, but we did succeed because he's back. But
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: this time we have a different set of tasks. So
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: we don't necessarily have to– if we agree with Trump
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: on something that is popular, it is okay to agree
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: with him and then take that issue off the table.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: We don't have to oppose him on every single thing
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: if it is an area of potential agreement. We also
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: don't have to chase him down every rabbit hole. Our
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: task is not to beat Trump. It is to rebuild
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: our brand and then separate– The new Trump coalition from
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party that comes after Trump. And so we
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: have to think with that mentality. And that does mean
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: it's just a very different approach than resistance 1.0.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: My critique is with none of that. And I don't
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: think that what you just said is necessarily reflective of
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: what any of the fucking characters are doing or saying
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I think Ro is my exception to this.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Right. Ro is the exception, but I even think that
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you don't need to call Elon Musk anything nice at
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: all to be willing to play ball with the Doge
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: thing And putting out a list of reforms that you want.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was saying this, but I think the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Democrats should put out their own list before Elon and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Vivek have their own list and make it about the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: corporate subsidies we want to get rid of, the tax
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: breaks we want to get rid of, other waste and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: abuse that we're comfortable getting rid of. Like, let's do
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: our own thing. And then when they don't agree to it,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: then we can hit them over it, right? Like, let's
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: be constructive on policy and governing when we agree And
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: let's be really tough on policy and governing when we disagree.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: But like, we don't have to say nice fucking things
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: about these people. We don't have to kiss Trump's. We
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: don't have to. We shouldn't. We shouldn't chase Trump down
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: every rabbit hole for sure. We also don't need to
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: fucking kiss his ass. And also.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Do you think Democrats are kissing his ass?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, not Trump. Elon Musk stuff. Dick Blumenthal?
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: What the fuck are you saying?
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I don't understand that. He's a champion of free speech?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: He's not a champion of free speech.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: There is a moment when you lose an election, everyone
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: loses their fucking mind for like 90 days. And they
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: do dumb shit, right? They overreact.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: That's different.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: There are few humans more full of shit than Mark Zuckerberg.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: for like all of the values he professed that Facebook
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: had and that his company has and all this bullshit.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: It's like Donald Trump attempted a coup. He attempted a coup.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: He incited a violent insurrection. All these people, how many
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: companies after January 6th were like, never again, we're not
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: going to donate to, some of them said they were
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: going to donate to Republicans after that.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Not just Trump. Everyone who believes.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: A big lie. And here's the, I would not have
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: even been this annoyed If over the fact that Zuckerberg
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: sat down with Trump and had dinner, it's like, okay,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: you want to have dinner. He's the president of the
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: United States. You run one of the biggest companies in
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the world. Like fine, make peace, whatever. Donate a million
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: dollars to inauguration when Meta has not donated money to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: any other inauguration. What now you're like in the Trump business.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Now you're just giving him money. You're not just like
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: not saying mean things about him or even saying nice things.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: You're giving him money?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: A million dollars.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, it just- It's so fucking- It's disgusting.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Obviously, the thing that Mark Zuckerberg cares about most in
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: the world is power and money. But if there was
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: anything else he cared about, it was immigration reform. He
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: started the group Forward.US. He has given money to this.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: He's talked about it. And now he just gave a
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: million dollars to someone who was on TV over the
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: weekend talking about deporting millions of people from this country.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: It is. It's outrageous. It's so- It's like- It's just,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: what is wrong with you? You have no self-respect. No self-respect.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: It's just gross.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: And also the Elon Musk thing, too. Tony Stark, he's successful.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: The thing that bothers me about that is, yes, Elon
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Musk is rich. He's worth $ 400 billion. Congratulations, I guess.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: But do we not remember? It wasn't that long ago
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: that he pushed a conspiracy online, said that he agreed
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: with a conspiracy that Jewish communities push hatred against white people. Like,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: just said, so much truth. Yes, truth. When someone tweeted that.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: The conspiracy that then led a bunch of advertisers to
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: stop advertising on Twitter. Because it was the same conspiracy
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: that led the Tree of Life shooter to massacre a
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: bunch of people. And now we're going to be like,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, but you know what? He's like Tony Stark.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: He's like a really smart guy. Really smart guy. Really successful.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Really successful. I just... Again, it's just
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: as easy to be like, Elon Musk wants to cut government.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: You don't have to say anything about him. I got
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a list of things for him to cut. And if
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: he puts something on the table that's worth cutting, yeah,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I'm right there with him. Like Bernie, he wants to
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: cut defense spending. Yeah, I'm there for cutting defense spending too.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I'll work with him on that. You don't have to
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: say nice things about him.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: It's just, I really, I want to just emphasize this point.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Everyone loses their fucking mind when they lose an election.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: It's like a period of time. Go back and look
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: what all the Republicans did after Obama won re-election. John
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Boehner went out the next day and said, Obamacare is
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: the law of the land. And then Sean Hannity endorsed
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: immigration reform. They lose their minds. And the Democrats are– we, they, we,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: everyone is reeling and making a bunch of dumb decisions.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: And these manifest themselves in some of the examples you
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: just gave.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: We do have one pretty good clue as to why
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the corporate types seem to be coming around so quickly.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: You mentioned this. It came at 9.30 a.m. Eastern time
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: on Thursday as Trump opened trading at the Stock Exchange.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Let's listen.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: We're cutting your taxes. We're going to cut them very substantially.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: We got them down to 21 percent from probably 42
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: or 44 percent, depending on where you are. And we
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: got them down to 21. Everyone said that was a miracle.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Now we're getting them down to 15. But only if
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: you make your product here.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Now, I didn't see this footage, but was the audience
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of people he was saying that to at the New
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: York Stock Exchange, was that a group of working class
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: voters who were upset with high grocery prices? Is that
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: who he was talking to?
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: No, it was a collection of CEOs and stock traders.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, those are the taxes he wants to cut. Yes, yes.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Those are the taxes he wants to cut. So Trump
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: lowered the corporate rate to 21% from 35% in the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: 2017 tax cuts. Now he wants to lower it to 15%.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: He says he wants to do it 15%. There's a
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: new twist on it with like, if you invest in America,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: if you do business here, I don't know how that works.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: But in general, a 15% corporate tax rate would give
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the largest 10 companies in America a $ 23 billion tax
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: cut for 10 companies that reported more than $ 520 billion
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in profits. This was a cap analysis over the summer. Meta,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: his new pal Mark Zuckerberg, would get $ 1. 4 billion just
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: for Meta from Trump's plan. UnitedHealth, have you heard about
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: UnitedHealth lately? UnitedHealth would get $ 1. 3 billion, a tax cut,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and five largest grocery companies, because obviously Trump was elected
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: to lower prices for people. That's what he told us.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: But he does want to give the five largest grocery
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: companies $ 1. 7 billion in tax cuts. These are five grocery
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: companies that made $ 29 billion in profits as a bunch
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: of people could not afford their groceries. And now he
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: wants to give them another $ 1.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: 7 billion.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: You think they're going to use that $ 1. 7 billion tax cut?
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to lower the cost of food so people can buy
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: their groceries? Probably, right?
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Isn't that what happened when they did this exact same
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: thing in 2017 and cut the corporate tax cut.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Before it was once? Yeah, they passed the savings on
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: to their consumers and their employees.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: And they hired lots of people. No, no, wait, wait.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: CEO bonuses and stock buybacks.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. So that is what Trump promised. Now,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: we knew this during the campaign. I think Kamala hit
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Trump on this a few times, the corporate tax cut.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: obviously did not work, or at least it did not
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: work well enough. What is your advice here to Democrats
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: on how to make it stick in the next year
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: in a way that we did not do as successfully
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: as we could have during the campaign?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: She did mention, you said the operative word here was
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: she hit him on it a few times. And there
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: were a lot of ads on it. There wasn't the most,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the ad that Future Forward, the super PAC spent the
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: most money on was on this very topic. It was
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: called the buddy ad and it had a guy watching
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: an iPad of Trump saying to the donors at Mar-a-Lago,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: you're rich as hell and I'm going to cut your taxes,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: and then went on to say what Kamala Harris was
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: going to do to raise taxes on billionaires. But it
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: was never a centerpiece of the campaign. It never was
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: a defining issue. We can never make it stick. And
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: that I think has more to do with the short
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: runway the Harris campaign had, maybe just the dominance of
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: inflation as an issue, that it didn't stick. I do
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: not take the fact that Trump won as evidence that
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden tax cuts for corporations are popular
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Far from it. And I think this is our best
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: bet to really begin to make some cracks in the
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Trump coalition, right? People elected Trump to lower their costs.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: And so our message is pretty clear. Trump is not
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: lowering your costs. He's cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: the very companies who are making– billions of dollars by
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: jacking up prices on your groceries and your gas, he's
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: going to give them a tax cut and you're not
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: going to get, and he's not trying to help you.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: He's trying to help them. And then there's a second
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: element of this, which I think is important, which is
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: we have to make this all seem like as it
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: is giant fucking corruption. You have him promising it to
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: his donors. You have a bunch of billionaires who are
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: going to benefit from these working in the government. You
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: have Trump himself working in it. You have companies given
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: a million dollars, the inauguration who are going to get
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: huge benefits. Like we have to show that this is
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: the exact corruption that Trump said he was going to fix,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: and now he is not fixing it. He's exacerbating it
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: to help the rich at your expense. And then the
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: last piece of this is, how is this all going
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: to get paid for in the end? It's going to
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: add trillions of dollars to deficit, and Elon Musk and
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Vivek are going to want to pay for it by
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: cutting Social Security, Medicare, and getting rid of the Affordable
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Care Act. Is that what we're going to do? And
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: so I think those are sort of the three steps there.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I totally agree with all that. I also think like
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: we've got to be able to make this real for
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: people and tell stories about it that are not just
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: sort of the typical He's giving tax cuts to the
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: rich and not you. You know, like that's the message,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: but we've got to sort of add some color to
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the message so that it breaks through. I think a
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: fair lot of critiques from the left about Kamala Harris
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: and the campaign and all this, we've heard them all.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: We're not going to do it all here. I think
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: one that is fair is I don't think she is
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: someone who like feels the populist anger towards... like companies
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: that are price gouging and taking advantage of people and
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: making record profits while people can barely get by. Like
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: she doesn't really feel that in her bones. At least
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: that doesn't come across during the campaign. I realized it
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: was a short campaign. And to be fair, you don't
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: get that from a lot of Democrats. And, you know,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know which podcast I said this on, but
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I've been complaining about the glorification of and the hero
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: status awarded to Luigi Mangione. But I also think there
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: is a large space between that and saying, eh, whatever.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Rich people are rich people. Healthcare companies make profits. That's
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: what they do. I do think that people should be
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: going out, Democrats should be going out there every day
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: talking about, these companies that are going to get a
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: huge fucking windfall for nothing, who have been gouging consumers,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: raising prices in a country where people are really struggling
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to get by with their costs. And like, tell a
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: story about it every single day, make it the message
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again. And you've got to
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: be creative and you've got to figure out ways to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: break through. And you can't just be saying the same
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: fucking words over and over again. That seemed like they
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: came from a poll that tested really well. Like you've
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: got to really, you know, make it, make it real
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: for folks. And so That's what I'm kind of hoping
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Democrats do in this fight. Like, it's not enough to
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: just do the same old, same old.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: One simple way to do that is to juxtapose the
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: tax rates of these corporations with the tax rates of people, right?
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: That Walmart's going to pay a lower tax rate than
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: people who work at Walmart or shop at Walmart. And
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I know I could already hear our fucking econ policy
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: buddies saying it's totally unfair to compare individual and corporate
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: tax rates, but I do not care. Go on another
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: podcast and complain about that, all right?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Because people think it's like, oh, it's the corporate money
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: that's doing this and it's the donors that have captured
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the Democrats. It's like, no, it's like the fucking wonks.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: They're like, no, that's not the reason. We know. We
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: know all the reasons. We know that corporate greed is
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: not the only reason that people are struggling to get by.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: We know that. But it is disgusting. that people are
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: getting tax breaks, CEOs, executives, shareholders, when so many people
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: are struggling. And we're still dealing with high prices. It's crazy.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: But it should feel crazy to the Democrats going out
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: there and talking about it. And it should feel like
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: it is a mission and that they are offended on
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: behalf of the American people by it. And that's the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: kind of energy I think we need in this fight.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: The people who... who decided this election for Trump did
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: not send him to Washington to cut taxes for corporations.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: They're going to be fucking shocked. That's one of the
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: first things he does.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Well, look, I've seen the polling on this, right? Tax
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: cuts for the 1% for billionaires, they are less popular
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: sometimes than corporate tax cuts because what they try to
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: do when they talk about corporate tax cuts is say, well,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of small businesses. And when you give
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: them tax cuts then they create jobs and so if
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: corporations are doing well then they hire more people and
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: then wages go up and like they do this whole
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: fucking song and dance i really think you got to
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: hammer the fact that like we're talking about some of
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the most profitable corporations in the country who last time
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: they got this tax cut used it to enrich their
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: executives and their shareholders and did not do anything about
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: prices and did not hire more people and did not
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: raise wages like.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: One of the we can do 17 podcasts and we
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: will do 17 podcasts on the corporate tax fight, on
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the larger tax fight coming up. One thing Democrats can
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: do is you pick an income level by which you
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: agree to extend them, but anything below X, you're going
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: to extend. And then you make the, which is what
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: eventually happened with Obama and the Bush tax cuts. And
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: then the fight becomes about anything above that number. And
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: so like we'd say, we'd pass it tomorrow that everyone
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: who makes under $ 300, 000 a year, I'm just picking a
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: number out of the sky, that there's tax cuts we
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: extend it. But anything above that, They're fighting over that.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: And so you've got to isolate the fight for the very,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: very wealthy and the corporations.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. Well, speaking of that, so part of
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: the time person of the year routine is you sit
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: down for a lengthy interview with the magazine, which Trump
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: did at Mar-a-Lago in late November. It just was released
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: on Thursday, so it's a little dated, but the interview
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: is very long. Most of it wasn't very newsy, but
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a few notable things we hadn't heard before. At one point,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the reporters asked Trump, quote, If the prices of groceries
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: don't come down, will your presidency be a failure? And
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: his answer, I don't think so. Look, they got them up.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: And then he goes on to talk about his solutions,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: which are just fixing the supply chain, which Joe Biden
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: has been doing for the last four years, and lowering
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: energy costs, which involves drilling more for oil that won't
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: do anything to lower gas prices for years. If they
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: start drilling now, because also we're producing more oil than
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: any time in history. Kind of a wow moment there.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Trump's saying, I don't know if prices will actually go down.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: We find out on the day that he goes to
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the stock exchange and is like, but your taxes are
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: going down, Wall Street.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: That's the juxtaposition right there, right? Which is he's not
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: going to lower your costs, but he's going to lower
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: the taxes for the wealthy and the corporations. That's sort
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: of where you sit there. It's not a wow moment
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: for people who took two semesters of econ. But we
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: should make absolute hay of it because it's what he promised.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: He promised he would lower costs. And we have to
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: hammer him when costs do not go down. They will
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: continue to go up. They always do. And we make
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: that point, make them own it, right?
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: And I think we need to come out with some
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: plans of our own to lower costs for people and
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: do so in a way that is achievable, real. that
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: are paid for, that, you know, isn't just government spending money,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: but also sort of regulating companies and making companies actually, like,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: do well by their workers, right? Like, I think that
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: there's a good progressive populist agenda here that also, like,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: makes sense to most Americans that we should be pushing here.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: But I don't know. What do you think?
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the answer... Yeah, we should have plans. Sure,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: we should absolutely have plans. But we need a... We
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: need a simple idea that would also probably anger the
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: econ nerds. I think it's something that we don't understand
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: the power of symbolism in our ideas and we're more
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: focused on the substance. It's like, yes, we're going to
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: have a 12-point plan and it's going to do all
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: these things. It's just like Trump building the wall in Guinea,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Mexico to pay for it. The voters know that that
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: was an absurd thing. But it sent a signal about them.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: So what– like the wealth tax was an example of
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: an idea that is– tells a story about who you
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: are more than the specifics of the policy. And so
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: I think we need some things like that. I mean
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris is enforcing the law against companies that price gouge,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: which I know she sort of backed away from for
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: parts of the campaign, was one of those things, right?
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Where it's like it's not going to pass your Brookings
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: test over. Is it going to solve all the problems, blah, blah, blah.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: But it sent a signal about who she is and
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: what she would fight for. And I think we need
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: to sort of think in some big picture, less white
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: papery ideas on how to do this.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Well, I think part of it is these ideas need
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: to be paired with who we're holding accountable. Because I
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: think that sometimes it's just like it's a positive agenda,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: which is great. But I think it feels more urgent now.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: And is more appealing to people when you also talk
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: about how, you know, these big companies and CEOs and
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: everyone are like making money hand over fist and are
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: more profitable than ever before. And you're still struggling. And
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: so we're going to help you, blah, blah, blah, and
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: make sure that they're paying their fair share, blah, blah, blah,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we need an enemy.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Reporters ask Trump whether it's a conflict of interest to
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: let Elon Musk oversee the budgets of agencies that could
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: grant huge contracts to his businesses. Trump said, I don't
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: think so, and added, I think that Elon puts the
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: country long before his company. I mean, he's in a
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: lot of companies, but he really is, and I've seen it. Okay.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: You think this matters to people? Elon's getting to regulate
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: his own businesses, and some of his budget cuts might
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: affect his biggest competitor, NASA?
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: I think there is a chance that People think Elon
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: is so rich that he doesn't care about money. They
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: sort of feel that way about Trump in some ways.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: But I think that– I don't think we should accept
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: that premise of that argument. And I believe that our
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: best argument against Trump and Republicans is corruption. It's all corrupt.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: This is so fucking corrupt that the richest man in
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: the world spent over $ 100 million to get Donald Trump–
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: $ 200 million to get Trump elected and is now going
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: to get billions of dollars in tax cuts and gets
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: to pick the people who regulate his companies. Tell that story.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: And you can go down the line with all of
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Trump's appointees, the people who are in and out of government,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: David Sachs. who invests in all kinds of companies, being
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: the AI and crypto czar. All of these things that
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: tell that, like, this really is, you know, I don't
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: know if you listen to Rom Emanuel on Ezra's podcast.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I'm almost at the end.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: You're taking a small dose. It's been out for weeks.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: You're just doing it. I think you told me you
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: were starting.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: I've been busy. I've been doing a lot of stuff.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're just like, I can only take Rom in
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: seven-minute doses at a.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Time, so it's going to take me 10 minutes to
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: get through it. I'm at the part where Rom, you know,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: is talking about the Bill Clinton 1992 New Hampshire election.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: The hits I've taken are nothing like the hits your
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: family's taken. I'm like, oh, man, we're here now?
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: You're about three minutes away from a Obama reference that's
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: going to feel equally dated to a lot of people
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: listening to this podcast.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Cool, cool, cool. Great.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: But Rahm used the term that the Oval Office is eBay. Now,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: that is not the term I would use.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Also, so Rahm. That's such a Rahm.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: It's like a 90s term.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The golem gave him that line. Right.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: That is the image. He might have given that line
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: in 1998, but- The image that we want to do,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: that we want to sell is that these people are
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: all fucking corrupt, that they are all making money hand
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: over fist at your expense. You've got all these rich
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: people in there doing it. They're getting tax cuts for themselves.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: They're picking the regulators. They're getting away with stuff you
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: could never get away with. And if we can tell
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: that story vividly, I think we really do have a
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: chance to reverse the politics on a lot of this.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I think there's something that we need to add to
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the corruption message because I think If you told most
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Americans that Trump and all of his goons in the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: White House are using it to enrich themselves, but also
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: you're getting richer, too, and your costs are going down
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: or you're getting a tax cut or you're getting something,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: then people would be like, yeah, it's not great that
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: they're doing that. But honestly, kind of figured that was
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: the case when we elected him. And and I'm getting
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: like it's it almost goes back to the the famous ad,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: you know, Kamala's for they them and Donald Trump's for you.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Like we've got to make it seem, which is going
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: to be the reality, that Donald Trump and Elon Musk
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and all these idiots, they're just there for themselves. They
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: are just there to take care of themselves, their businesses,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: their people, and everyone else is getting screwed. Like that's
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the corruption I think that really gets people pissed and
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: not just the like, yeah, we're making a lot of money,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: but so are you. Everyone's making money. It's great.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that's where the prices matter, right?
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: The corruption message is going to matter more. Just like
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: people turn against the wealthy, like in Occupy Wall Street,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: they turn against the poor and people on government assistance
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: in times of economic strife. And if the prices really
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: don't go down and people continue to be angry and
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: dissatisfied with the economy, they're going to have much less
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: tolerance for these guys fucking throwing parties for themselves in
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: the Oval Office with just light and money on fire.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. A
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: couple things before we do that, though. You've heard us
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: talk about Crooked's limited Empire City, the untold origin story
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: of the NYPD. It's been getting some really amazing year-end reviews.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: If you haven't started it, now's a perfect time. In
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: just eight episodes, Empire City takes you back to the
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: origins of the NYPD and completely reframes the way we
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: think about policing today. You can listen to the series
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: now wherever you get your podcasts, or you can binge
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: all episodes ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: or on Apple Podcasts. Also, Tommy recently joined Brian Tyler
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Cohen on his show No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: to talk about Trump's cabinet picks, Democrats' path forward, and
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: lots more. Plus, exciting update, No Lie is now an
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: official partner of the Crooked Network. How great is that?
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: That's exciting. Love BTC.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: I know. We love BTC. You can hear Tommy and
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Brian's conversation in all episodes wherever you get your podcasts.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: One of the exchanges that got the most attention was
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: a question about trans rights and so-called bathroom bills. The
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: reporters reminded Trump that he said in 2016 that trans
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: people should be able to use whatever bathroom they want
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: and asked whether he still felt that way. And Trump said, quote,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get into the bathroom issue because
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: it's a very small number of people we're talking about
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and it's ripped apart our country. And he added, we're
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: talking about a very small number of people and we're
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: talking about it and it gets massive coverage and it's
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: not a lot of people. Reporters then brought up the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: House bill to ban Sarah McBride from women's bathrooms. But
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: instead of asking whether he supported that bill, they asked
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: whether he agreed with Sarah that we should focus on
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: bigger issues. And he said yes. And then they asked
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: about the anti-trans ad that the campaign ran, and he
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: didn't take the bait there either. What did you think
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: about his answers on this?
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Do you remember in the primary when Trump would go
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: to rallies and he would be like, every time I
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: bring up the trans issue, you guys all applaud. So
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: I keep bringing it up, right? Like he was sort
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: of mystified by the power of it.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I just.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: So I think it is something that he has followed.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Unlike immigration, this is not an issue that has been
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: a long cause of his. He just is sort of
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: following the applause in the room. I think it's fucking
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: gross to say, oh, it doesn't matter. Oh, it's not
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: a big issue after you mentioned it all the fucking
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: time on the campaign trail in the grossest, most bigoted
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: way possible. I generally think he also was probably surprised
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: to be reminded that he said that about bathrooms in 2020.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: 16 or whenever he said that. And so he's just
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: now trying to square all the circles in his little
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: head that I was right then, I'm right now. And
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: then they gave him an obvious out by the way
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: they asked the question about the Sarah McBride statement. So
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: we could just push him both aside and not really
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: have to answer.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I will say, even if Donald Trump himself does not
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: want to spend a lot of time focusing on trans rights... and, and, and,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and not a lot of time, you know, beating up
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: on trans people like he did during the campaign cynically. Um,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: I do think this is an issue that's going to
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: come to him and Democrats are going to have to
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: still deal with. It's not just a, Oh, we're going
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: to argue about it past the campaign. We're going to
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: argue about it in the context of the campaign kind of,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. I spoke to a Rolling Stone reporter, uh,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: wrote a really great piece that everyone should, and it's
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: an important piece that everyone should read about how this
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: is going to come up in Congress, which is that
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Republicans want to do a Hyde-like amendment that will withhold
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: government funding from any healthcare provider that gets money from
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the federal government to make sure that they do not
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: provide any gender-affirming care. So just like now, the Hyde
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Amendment is, you know, federal money cannot go to any provider,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: any hospital that performs abortions. That's why a lot of
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: hospitals do not perform abortions, why there are abortion clinics,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: because of the Hyde Amendment. And they want to do
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: something like that for gender affirming care. And the question
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: will be, like, do enough Democrats stand up and stop this?
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: And I think it could not just be done through reconciliation.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I think you would need to overcome a filibuster in
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the Senate to actually get this done, because that's the
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: same thing with the Hyde Amendment. You can't get rid
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: of that through reconciliation either. So you can't just do
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: 51 votes in a budget bill. So I think we
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: would have those to stop it. But you could imagine
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: the argument from Republicans, and then you can see what
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Trump will do, which would be, you know, well, no,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: taxpayers shouldn't fund gender affirming care. Taxpayers shouldn't do this.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: And What do you think? Like, how do you think
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Democrats respond to that? Because I think this is one
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: where fuck the polls on this. Like we just that
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: is you got to stand up for it. And I
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: think what we have to do is figure out a
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: way to message it so that it is as popular
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: as possible, even knowing that it may not be a
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: majority position and that they might think that this is
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: a wedge issue that that does that helps them politically.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I think, and this goes to one of the lessons
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: of how trans issues played out in the campaign, which
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: is you have to engage. You can't ignore them. And
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: you have to engage by going bigger. Because when you
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: get to the bigger issues of human rights and civil
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: rights and treating people with tolerance, we have the high
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: side of the argument, both morally, obviously, but also politically.
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: And when Republicans are able to narrow focus it around
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: sports teams, bathrooms, taxpayer-funded surgeries, and the infamous ad, then...
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: they often win that. And so we should absolutely take
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: it on. It would be so demoralizing to people in
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: our party if Senate Democrats were unwilling to use the
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: filibuster to stand up to protect us. So we absolutely
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: cannot do it.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: And I will say, in the piece, Holzman was expressing
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: the concern of a lot of activists and groups that
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: maybe there's not enough Democrats to stand up on this.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I do think the one... The one silver lining of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the Democratic caucus right now in the Senate, which is.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: It's quite safe.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: It's quite safe. I was going to say. We lost Manchin.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: We lost Sinema. We also lost the majority. But the
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: people left are mainstream to progressive. We don't have a
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: lot of centrists and center-right folks in the caucus anymore.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: And so I do expect that the senators will stand
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: for it. But it's something that's coming and people should
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: prepare for it. So that they don't just, it doesn't
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: surprise everyone and, you know.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: And then just, I 100% agree with that. I do,
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: maybe this is naive on my part, but I do
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: believe that Senate Democrats would fight, would stop this. The
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: other thing is, what Donald Trump says on trans issues
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: is also true. not that important because what you have
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: to really watch is what's going to happen in his administration.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: With Project 2025, which basically compared being trans to pornography
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: and just a series of very dangerous policies are likely
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: to be implemented, whether Trump wants to have the issue
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: or have the conversation or not. And we're going to
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: have to fight every single one of those that we
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: can politically at the ballot box, legally.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Et cetera. Well, and this is an issue that's come
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: up right now, even before Trump takes office, because the
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: defense authorization bill, Mike Johnson slipped in a provision that
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: says the children of service members are not allowed to
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: get gender affirming care through the coverage that their parents
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: get by being in the military. Most Democrats in the
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: House revolted against this. Obviously, we didn't have the votes
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: because the Republicans controlled the House. So now that goes
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: to the Senate. And, you know, I don't know what's
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: going to happen there. But this is the kind of
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: these are the kind of things they're going to try
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to do. They're going to try to chip away at
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: trans rights and gender affirming care bit by bit. And
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: then I think test Democrats to see if they stand
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: up for it. And if they do, then say, oh, see,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: they're still obsessed with the trans issue. They lost on
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: it and they're still obsessed with it. Like, that's what
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: they're going to do.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: This is one of the things. There aren't a lot
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: of benefits to being a minority. One of them is
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: that you can't just do the right thing sometimes.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is correct. That is correct. Speaking of the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: House bathroom bill and its sponsor, Congresswoman Nancy Mace of
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, Mace is now set on making sure everyone
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: knows she's the real victim here. On Tuesday, she spoke
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: at an event for foster care providers and alumni in
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: one of the House office buildings. This is a wild story.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: A foster care advocate apparently came up to her after
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: she spoke and said something about how trans kids need advocacy, too.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: What happened next is disputed, but a police report says
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: that this person, quote, began to aggressively and in an
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: exaggerated manner shake her arm up and down in a
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: handshaking motion. The police report was filed by Nancy Mace
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: and her staff, so this is their side of the story.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: The advocate has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault. Some
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: of the people in the room say they didn't see
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: anything out of the ordinary, just a handshake. Regardless, Mace
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: is now wearing her arm in a sling and making
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: a big thing of it. publicly reassuring her many fans
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: about her odds of survival and so on. She went
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: on Benny Johnson's show, Sling in Full Effect, to accuse
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: trans people of having a mental illness. If I didn't
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: have a medical degree, I don't know if I would
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: be accusing other people of having a mental illness if
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: I was Nancy Mace, but that's just me. What do
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: you think's going on here? Is this just like, I mean,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: I guess reporters have requested the security footage. So like,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: we're going to find out what the handshake was like.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: At some point. And, you know, maybe Nancy Mace, famous
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: truth teller, is just telling the truth about being assaulted
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: with a violent handshake. Totally possible, Nancy Mace. But it's
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: possible that... It's also possible that maybe she was looking
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: for attention. Who knows?
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: Nancy Mace looking for attention?
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: No, no, no.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: I am not accusing her of that. I just want
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: you to know. I'm saying it is a possibility that
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: that could be one of the outcomes. It is also
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: possible that she... that someone came up and asked her
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: a question and violently assaulted her hand.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: That is a common technique for injury is the old
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: handshake switcheroo. Yes.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: If I've seen it once, I've seen it a hundred times.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: I would just say, look, I, as a person who
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: waits for the facts, I will, I anxiously await the
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: security footage to be released, probably directly to Benny Johnson
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: or Tucker Carlson or someone like that.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: It'll be the January 6th footage that Mike Johnson has
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: been sitting on.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: That Nancy Mace has a long history of stunts to
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: get attention. And so this would not be out of line.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: One of her former staffers posted on Twitter, this is
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: the same woman who told staff, myself included, during January 6th,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: that she wanted to get punched in the face by
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: a rioter so she could get on TV and be
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: the face of the anti-Trump movement. That's back when she
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: wanted to be a part of the anti-Trump movement and
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: was so mad at him for the riot on January
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: 6th She wanted to get punched in the face. That
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: story was first reported in the Washington Post, and that's
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: now her former staffer confirming it on Twitter. So that's
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Nancy Mace. One last thing in the time interview before
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: we go. They asked Trump all about his thoughts on
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: his campaign strategy, the campaign in general, why he won,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: why Harris lost. He said his campaign was flawless. He
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: didn't take any days off in the last 72 days.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: He called it, he's got a name for it, he said.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: It's called the 72 Days of Fury. He said that
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: he thinks the issue of immigration was a bigger factor
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: in his victory than the economy and that he won
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: because the Republican Party has become the party of common sense.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: He also said Kamala Harris's worst mistakes were, one, taking
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: the assignment because you have to know what you're good at,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: and two, not doing enough interviews. So that's his assessment.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Were we missing anything? Did you
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: read that and think, maybe I was missing something there?
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe he's got a point.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: No, I did not. I read that whole interview, top
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: to bottom, and at no point... Me too.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Boy, was that a long interview.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: And at no point was... When I read that, I
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: was like, you know what? I know why magazines have
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: fallen down.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Let me just tell... Everyone who's listening, we're doing
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: it for you here. You do not have to go
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: read this interview.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: We are basically just an AI bot reading these and
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: telling you the best parts. But I read that whole interview,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: and at no point was I like, man, he's kind
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: of got a point there. That did not happen. It's
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: strictly not in this part. I'm trying to figure out
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: what the 72 days were. Because Kamala Harris got in
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: with 107. Oh.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was post-debate, maybe? Or post-DNC?
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Maybe.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: Or it's a fucking number.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: because he just picked numbers out of the air.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go with that one.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: It's now the second time, I think, that he has
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: said that immigration was a bigger issue than the economy.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: And I just think that is something to keep in
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: mind because his actions suggest he does not understand why
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: he was elected. And it had a lot more to
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: do with inflation than with immigration. Immigration was a big issue.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to take that. I'm not going to
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: suggest it wasn't. But particularly for a lot of the
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: voters who picked him over Kamala Harris or who moved
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: to him, who would vote for Biden in 20, inflation
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: was their top issue. And if you focus on things
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: other than inflation, you will pay a price for that
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: before too long.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's something to the people came to believe that
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party was the party of common sense. I
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: don't think they think that about the Republican Party necessarily,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: but they thought that somehow that Trump and what he
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: was selling was a little more common sense. And I
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: think it's hard to square, right? Because you're like, common sense.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: He seemed fucking nuts. And look, in exit polls, more
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: voters said that he was more extreme than Kamala Harris.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: So there's that. But when he was saying common sense,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: he was talking about the economy and He was talking–
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: he's like people realize that they shouldn't be paying so
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: much for groceries and people think– and on immigration, right?
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: Like I do think people probably saw his view on
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: immigration as more common sense than where the Democrats were
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: even though I think I could make an argument that
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: we're much more common sense on immigration. But I don't
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: think that came through to people. We could spend a
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: lot of pods and we will talking about why. But
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: I do think there's probably some truth to that.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: I think– The Democrats became the party to some voters
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: of out-of-touch extremism.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: And that is a process that began long before Kamala
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: Harris was the nominee. It was exacerbated by probably our–
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of the parties sticking with Joe Biden for
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: a long time. It was exacerbated by the trans ad
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: we talked about, exacerbated by Kamala Harris saying on The
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: View that she couldn't think of any place to separate.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: Nothing would come to mind in terms of where she
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: would differ from Biden. But it also has been going
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: on since COVID, where we have been sort of relentlessly
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: defined out of the mainstream as a party. And that
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean that people are fully on board with Trump
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: or think he is the party of common sense. But
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: I think we seemed a little less in touch with
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: working class people that may a lot less in touch
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: with working class people. And that's why he won.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it would be fair to say that
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: people perceived us as no longer or less of a
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: party of common sense than he was more. I don't
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: think they did anything to help themselves.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: No one was a party of common sense.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, but we seemed like less of a party
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: of common sense than maybe we had in the past.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: And look, again, it's not all Democrats' fault, but we
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: have control over what we say and how we act
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: and how we approach politics, so something to keep in mind.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: All right, that's our show for today. Tommy Lovett and
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: I will be back with a new show on Tuesday.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Everyone have a great weekend. We'll see you later. Bye, everyone.
• 58:08
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