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RFK Jr. Decapitates the CDC · Pod Save America

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  Speaker 2: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Right here in studio.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Nothing like the collapse of our public health infrastructure to
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: bring me to the office.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: So good to have you in Los Angeles.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Great to be here, Jon.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: So we got a lot to talk about today, as usual.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Trump's telling Americans he can do whatever he wants as
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: he gets ready to send troops to Chicago. He's telling us, again,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: people want a dictator. But it turns out people may
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: not love their cities being occupied by their military, at
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: least according to new polls. So we're going to talk
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: about that. We'll also talk about how Democrats should handle
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: this issue. Speaking of Dems, we'll talk about the party's
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: wildly successful, universally praised summer meeting in Minneapolis. Wow, that's exciting.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: The possibility for a midterm convention. That's right. And Gavin
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Newsom's concerns about 2028. Not about him. But let's start
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: with the CDC news. Hope no one was counting on
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: easy access to vaccines or credible medical information anytime soon
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: because RFK Jr. has decapitated the leadership of the CDC
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: like it was one of his dead whale carcasses. Here's
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: what we know so far. Things are moving fast on
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: this story. Earlier this week, Kennedy announced that the new
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Maha FDA chose to limit the authorization of this year's
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: COVID vaccine. You're now only eligible if you're over 65
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: or have at least one underlying health condition. The CDC
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: vaccine panel, which Kennedy stacked with anti-vax kooks, still has
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: to approve that FDA recommendation, which they're scheduled to consider
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: at their meeting in September. They also plan at that
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: meeting to consider whether to keep authorizing vaccines for diseases
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: like RSV, hepatitis B, and measles. Kennedy, after this, then
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: met with CDC Director Susan Monarez, who was just confirmed
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: by the Republican Senate last month and asked for her
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: resignation over what he said was insubordination over vaccine policy.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: She refused. He then said she could only stay if
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: she fired senior CDC officials and agreed to accept whatever
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: recommendations his anti-vax kook panel comes up with. Dr. Monarez
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: again refused. She then called Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: who in turn called RFK Jr., and then this enraged
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Kennedy that she had told Cassidy and he called, and
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: he then demanded that the CDC director resign. She refused again,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: and then Trump fired her. Four top CDC officials left
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: as well and were literally escorted out of the building
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: by armed security. The officials were the CDC's chief medical officer,
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  Speaker 2: the doctor in charge of public health data, the doctor
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  Speaker 2: in charge of vaccine safety, and the doctor in charge
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: of vaccine recommendations, who posted quite a resignation letter on Twitter,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: which reads in part, quote, I am unable to serve
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  Speaker 2: in an environment that treats CDC people is a tool
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  Speaker 2: to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific
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  Speaker 2: reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: the public's health. Cool stuff. Uh, RFK Jr. went on
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Fox and Friends Thursday morning to talk about the shakeup.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Take a listen.
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  Speaker 5: What's your reaction to people that are getting a little worried?
• 6:01
  Speaker 6: The agency is in trouble and we need to fix
• 6:04
  Speaker 6: it and we are fixing it. And it may be
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: that some people should not be working there anymore.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: He sounds like he's fixing it. Uh, I've seen doctors
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: and public health experts all over social media struggling to
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: convey just how serious and dangerous all of this has been.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I know you've recently interviewed a few of those experts
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: for the pod. What do you think? What are your
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: takes on everything that's happened here?
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  Speaker 3: So, you know, in the recent weeks, as RFK Jr.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: has been sort of gutting our public health infrastructure, has
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: been undermining vaccine policy, I talked to the healthcare writer
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  Speaker 3: Atul Gawande, Caitlin Gedalina, who is a leading epidemiologist and
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: writes a very prominent substack. and Dr. Michael Osterholm, who
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: runs a vaccine center at the University of Minnesota. And
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: in each one of those conversations, I raised the question
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: with them about what does this mean for the actual
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: safety and efficacy and availability of the vaccines that we
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: care about? And at each point, they all said to me,
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  Speaker 3: the reason you can remain confident, even with these kooks around,
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: as alarming as it is, and no one was saying
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: not to be alarmed, but it's that there were still real,
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  Speaker 3: serious career scientists staffing the CDC and the FDA.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Oops.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: That is no longer the case. like RFK Jr. and
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump have gutted our health infrastructure. They've gutted the
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  Speaker 3: agency that monitors pandemics abroad. They've gutted the agency that
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: deals with the availability, efficacy, and safety of vaccines. They
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: have gutted the agency that is tracking foodborne illness across
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  Speaker 3: the United States. We are so much less safer than
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: we ever possibly could be because of these decisions. And
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: what it really does, and I think this is a
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  Speaker 3: really alarming thing here, is there is a real risk
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  Speaker 3: of a sort of deadly spiral on vaccines because the
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: people who don't trust the government now run the government
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  Speaker 3: and are undermining vaccine policies from there. So then the
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  Speaker 3: people who do trust the government have very real questions about,
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  Speaker 3: can we trust this group of kooks to ensure that
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  Speaker 3: we're getting safe vaccines? And you can see just a
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  Speaker 3: complete undermining of the vaccine system that has kept us
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  Speaker 3: safe for generations in this country because of the work
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: Because Trump picked and the Republican Senate confirmed a anti-vaccine
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  Speaker 3: conspiracy theorist to be in charge of our vaccine supply.
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  Speaker 3: It's incredibly, incredibly dangerous.
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  Speaker 2: Quote, I think this is quite a negative and potentially
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: catastrophic step for the country. That's Admiral Brett Giroir, who's
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  Speaker 2: a physician who helped lead the response to the coronavirus
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  Speaker 2: pandemic during.
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  Speaker 3: Trump's first term. We remember him from the briefings.
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  Speaker 2: And he advised Kennedy during the latest transition. So this
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  Speaker 2: is not some liberal kook. And Jerome Adams, who was
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  Speaker 2: the Surgeon General for the first term, he's been criticizing this.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it is not like, you know, a group
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  Speaker 2: of liberals and Democrats on Twitter. This is, people are very,
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  Speaker 2: very alarmed. Like you said, what happens if there's an
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  Speaker 2: Ebola outbreak right now? What happens, like, bioweapons, the next pandemic? Like,
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  Speaker 2: we just, forget about whether they're kooks or not. None
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  Speaker 2: of them have the experience. And these were some of
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  Speaker 2: the best, most trusted officials who have served both Republican
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: and Democratic administrations, including some in Trump's administration over the
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  Speaker 2: last couple of decades. And now the CDC doesn't have
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: that expertise anymore.
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  Speaker 3: It's not just that they question the science. It's they
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  Speaker 3: explicitly reject the science because it's science. Because if you
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  Speaker 3: were to actually listen to the science, to actually take
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: a moment to listen to the people who know what
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: they're talking about, to look at the research, it just
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: eviscerates their entire position on vaccines. And so now basically
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  Speaker 3: we have our public health infrastructure is run by anti-scientists.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And just so people understand what limiting the authorization
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: for a vaccine like COVID-19 actually means. So they say, okay,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: you can get it if you're over 65, it's authorized
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: for people over 65 and for people with one comorbidity,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: one underlying health condition. So of course it has not
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: been approved yet by this CDC panel as well. FDA
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: already did this. The kook's over there now. And now
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: we're waiting for the CDC kooks in September to approve
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: this too. If it is approved, that means if you
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: or I wanted to get the COVID vaccine, we could
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: try to ask our doctor, But a lot of doctors
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: know that if they prescribe something that is off market,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: which this would be if it's not authorized for people
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: like us, then they could be open to litigation, to lawsuits,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: to malpractice suits. And so, you know, some doctors will
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: probably say, sure, I'll still do it anyway because these
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: people are fucking crazy. But others won't. And another thing,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, most people get these vaccines at Walmart, CVS,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: places like that. They're not going to administer them to
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: people who aren't over 65 or older. have one underlying
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: health condition. So you really have a lot of people
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: who just don't get this vaccine. And this is the
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: COVID-19 vaccine. The fact that they're going to look at
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: and reconsider measles, hepatitis, I mean, it's like really fucking scary.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Well, at least measles hasn't been in the news recently.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, did you see the guy that was in
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: charge of vaccine recommendations? I read some of his resignation letter.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: He also said in that letter, it's clear that he's
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: never once, the senior leadership, he and his team, have
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: never once had the opportunity to brief Kennedy. And it's
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: clear that Kennedy's only listening to outside groups.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. This is my point. Kennedy's position is absurd. The
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: scientific consensus around vaccines is so strong that it is impossible.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: He is like an anti-gravity or flat earth person. You
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: can't have a conversation about it because you can't withstand
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: one minute of scrutiny. So instead of testing, because like
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: being an actual public service official and actually abiding by
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: what he said he would do in his confirmation, what
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: Kennedy is doing, he's avoiding having the conversation so he
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: doesn't have to test, he doesn't have to try to
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: defend his position and people actually know the answers because
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: he will fail in a second.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Again, this is like, you know, going back to the pandemic,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: this isn't about like vaccine mandates and you're forced to
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: get this or that. This is just about the availability
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: of vaccines and that have been tested, that have saved
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: millions of lives. And people just saying, I think I
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: want to choose that. It's safe. It's going to protect me.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And I'd like to choose it. And basically, Kennedy and
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: HHS and CDC and the government right now are going
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: to say, no, you can't. You can't unless you can
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: find it off market somewhere.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: They know better than your doctor.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Kennedy tried to fire Menard as he couldn't. Trump had
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: to do it. So Trump, the White House said today
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: that Trump hasn't commented on this yet, at least as
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: of this recording, we're Thursday afternoon. But Caroline Leavitt at
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: the briefing said that Trump fired her. And this guy,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Jim O'Neill, who was a Kennedy advisor, is now going
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: to be, you know, the head of the CDC temporarily
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: until they can find a permanent replacement. This guy was
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: a Peter Thiel advisor. Cool. And here's what he thinks
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: of vaccines. In January of 22, he tweeted, is Omicron
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: the best vaccine? Remember, CDC can redefine the word vaccine
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: at will. So his suggestion was if you get Omicron...
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: That's the best kind of vaccine.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: It's going to be really interesting to know whether they
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: actually put up another person for this job.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I suspect they're not. I suspect they're just going to
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: run through whatever it is, 180 days of acting appointments
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: until the midterms or until forever.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: So unfortunately, Kennedy was also asked about the horrific mass
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: shooting at a church in Minneapolis this week, which took
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: the lives of two children. I say unfortunately because it
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: gave him a chance to say this.
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: We're launching studies on.
• 13:39
  Speaker 6: The potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: to violence.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: So this is the new line. J.D. Vance also echoed
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: that in a speech later on Thursday. This is the
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: idea that SSRIs treat people for depression, for anxiety. And
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the idea here is kids are taking these, young people
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: are taking these, And it's contributing to mental illness, even
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: though they're prescribed to help mental illness. It's contributing to
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: mental illness, and that's causing mass shootings.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: I would just note that in the United States of America,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: it is much easier to buy an assault rifle than
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: it is to get access to antidepressants.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is what they do, though, because there's
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: this whole debate around SSRIs, right? And, you know, they
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: have some downsides, some side effects, especially for people under 25,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: which is why the FDA has... like a warning on them.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: And doctors tend to monitor people, especially young people who
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: are on them closely for the first couple of weeks
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: to make sure everything's okay. After that, the record is excellent.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: It has helped millions and millions of people who are
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: on these drugs. There is zero evidence that it contributes
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: to mental illness or violence at all. There are some,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: you know, there are some side effects. People get off
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: them too quickly. You have to watch that. So, you know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: do it with a doctor. But the idea now that
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: we are going to blame mass shootings on antidepressants? It's
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: just like, and this is just one response to the
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: horrific shooting in Minneapolis by the Republicans. They have turned
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: this whole thing into a culture war. The shooter, 23
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: years old, took their own life. It appears that the
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: shooter was trans. So they're, of course, blaming the fact
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: that the shooter was trans on this, on the shooting.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: It's said that the shooter in one video had like
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: killed Donald Trump And so they're saying, oh, it was
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: like an anti-Trump trans person that did it. The shooter
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: also had anti-Semitic, racist, anti-Latino, all kinds of other slurs
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: written on the weapons. The shooter worshipped other mass shooters
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: like the Christchurch right-wing shooter. and other like extreme right-wing shooters,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Timothy McVeigh, all this other stuff. So clearly the person
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: is just disturbed in a whole bunch of different ways
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: that don't fit into a fucking political box either way,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: which is typically the case, which is why you don't
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: make every shooting about politics. And this is all they
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: can talk about now.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, I've been in your office all day today,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: which means I've been watching more Fox News than I've
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: watched in months. And the guy I run all day
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: is trans shooter when talking about this.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And trans violence. This is their new thing that all
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the mass shooters are trans now, which is just fucking horseshit.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: The dialogue on this, frankly, the entire dialogue on it
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: is so depressingly tedious, particularly after school shootings, where it's
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: just like it's so detached from the reality. What the
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: right is doing, I'm going to get to that in
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: a second, is absolutely gross and horrendous. But the whole
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: conversation always happens is that everyone runs and tries to
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: find out, is this person a Republican or a Democrat?
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Are they pro-Trump or anti-Trump? And then we're going to
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: make our whole case on that. And I think that
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: is so detached from... That's really a problem in the
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: political class. It's very detached from, I think, how real
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: people feel about this. I think about this all the time,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: but just my daughter's elementary school is less than a
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: mile from my house. So every time I'm home during
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: the school day and I hear a siren, my immediate
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: instinct is that the worst thing might be happening, right?
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: And I think that's how every parent feels. So you
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: think of that every time you drop your kid off
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: at school. No matter where you live, big city, small town,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: it can happen anywhere.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: And so just.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: And I think the response, everyone's response, the failure to
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: be able to do anything about this, even though this
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: is obviously the Republicans' fault that we have not been
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: able to deal with guns in this country, is one
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: reason why people are so detached and depressed about politics.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Because it's like, here is this thing that's happening that
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I worry about every single day that only happens here
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: in the United States and we can't do anything of
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: consequence about it. It's very frustrating. On the right, what
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: is happening here is... The way they respond to these shootings,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: whether it is turning to a culture war, making it
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: about trans, making it about SSRIs or whatever it is,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: betrays the weakness of their position. They're trying so hard
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: to gaslight away from the most obvious fucking fact in
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: the world, which is it is too easy to get
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: guns in this country. It's that simple. Because that's why
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: it happens here. It doesn't happen in all the other countries.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: We are not a country that has, we don't have
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: more mental illness than the rest of the world.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: We don't have Other countries have trans people. Other countries
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: have mental illness. Other countries have all the other shit.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: The difference here is that you can walk into a
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: store and you can walk out with a gun that
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: same day.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And it's like, you know what, fucking cowards? Just say,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: we want people to have guns. And that's it. And
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: we know that everyone having guns means there's going to
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: be a bunch of mass shootings. People are going to die.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: But more important for our people to have guns to,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: you know, I guess defend themselves, to keep themselves armed
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: in case there's government overreach. Yeah, wouldn't want that, right?
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: And that's it. But instead, they have to make up
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: all these other fucking excuses and targets for people, which
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: is just, it's disgusting.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: The logical consequence of the Republican position here is that
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: their strict reading of the Second Amendment means that they
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: are willing to live with tragedies like this. That is
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: a price they believe is worth paying for treating the
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Second Amendment the way they treat it. Not the way
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: it's been treated for most of the history of the
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: United States, but the way it has been treated by
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Republicans in this moment, by the Supreme Court over the
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: last 15 years.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: And they will not own up to it, right?
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: Just admit it.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: The other thing is that this debate has moved very
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: quickly from, you know, a year ago during the campaign
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: when it was, let's talk about the participation of trans
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: people in sports, especially young children. It's moved from that
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: to now, I mean, and there was always this contingent
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: on the right, but now it's like the Republican Party position, basically,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: which is being trans is just a mental illness. and
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: that it's not real. Not even like, it's moved so,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: it's not even like, should we have gender affirming care?
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Which age? No, and now it's just like, kids who
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: are allowed to be trans, the parents are doing them
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: a disservice, the schools are doing them a disservice, and
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: now they're going to get mental illness, and now they're
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: going to kill people. This is what they're saying. It's just,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: it's like, and honestly, by the way, that is not
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: where the polling is. Like, we've talked a lot about,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: this is another thing where, you know, we've talked about
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Immigration after the election where the polling was and where
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: it is now on every one of these issues These
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: culture issues that you know, the the consensus after the
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: election is that you know, Donald Trump You know part
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: of the reason he won was because of this he
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: has now gone so far to the other extreme And
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: everyone in his party has that he is not in
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: line with the polling on most of the shit, right?
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: You can have debates about trans participation in sports and
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: you can look at the polling and be like Oh,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: we got some work to do but the idea that
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: like trans people shouldn't exist is That's not a majority
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: position by any fucking stretch of the imagination.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: And the way the Republicans have handled this and the
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: way they've handled trans issues since Trump's been elected is
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: the argument for why Democrats cannot back off on defending
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: the rights, dignity, and humanity of trans people.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Like, we can debate sports participation, you can debate the
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: other issues, but you cannot back away on this because
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: you have the president of the United States, you have
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: members of one of our political parties demagoguing some of
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: the most vulnerable people in our society and and treating
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: them as less than human. And it is our responsibility.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: It's our moral imperative to stand up for them. And
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: I think that that, and this is beyond politics, but
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: as you point out, doing that, treating humans as humans
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: to let people live their lives is good politics.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: And again, like in a normal world, like you said,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: everyone who has children, people who don't have children would
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: just be saying, okay, two children were murdered praying in church.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: And a whole bunch of others were injured. And what
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: can we do as a society about how to make
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: sure that doesn't happen? That's it. Without doing all this bullshit.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: You know, and one way is maybe, maybe we can
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: limit the availability of guns. People still have the right
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: to have guns, but maybe we can do something to
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: limit the availability of guns. Or to make sure we
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: do background checks. Or make sure they don't get in
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the hands of people who are mentally ill. Or make
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: sure they don't get into the hands of people who
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: have already committed crimes.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Maybe.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: So... unbelievably, all these statements from RFK aren't even his
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: most upsetting of the week. We're back to RFK. This
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: didn't get a ton of attention for some reason, but
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Kennedy gave the following
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: update to Trump.
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: We're finding interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly, almost
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: certainly causing autism. And we're going to be able to
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: address those in September.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: So again, he's referencing September. That's the meeting where they're
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: going to reconsider some of the authorizations on these other vaccines.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Kennedy has previously said for a long time that he
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: thinks there's a link between vaccines and autism. There is
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: no link. No science, no evidence has ever shown any
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: kind of link there. Trump has also flirted with this
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: idea as far back as 2014, I think. Bill Cassidy,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: the Republican senator who's, again, supposed to be a doctor
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: and was very concerned about RFK's nomination, but then voted
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: yes anyway because he just wanted to give him a chance.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: He has now called for the CDC vaccine panel meeting
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: to be postponed because of, quote, serious allegations that have
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: been made about the meeting agenda, membership and lack of
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: scientific process. And he said that if it goes forward, quote,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy. Would
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: have been nice if he had weighed in on the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: on the lunatics on the panel and Kennedy by just
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: voting no on his nomination. But here we are. What,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: if anything, do you think Democrats in Congress and maybe
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Bill Cassidy can do here?
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I think to make this work, you would need to
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: build a bipartisan coalition of senators, potentially members of Congress
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: as well, who want to fix the situation of the
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: CDC or improve the situation and hold RFK Jr. accountable.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: And so you could do this in a couple of ways.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: They control the power of the purse in whatever government
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: funding bill we're going to discuss. There could be some
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: specific funding restrictions or guidelines about how they can spend
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: their money. You could demand in exchange for funds more transparency,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: regular briefings and hearings. You could, in negotiations, if you
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: had a majority there or you had a true bipartisan coalition,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: you could try to force new members on the committee
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: or revamping of the committee to get more legitimate scientists
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: on there. But the question, you asked the question, what
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: can Democrats do? Democrats can do very little because we
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: have no power. And we're not in a world where
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: there is a specific HHS appropriations bill moving through Congress.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: because the appropriations process is broken. So this would have
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: to be something that took place in the larger government
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: funding discussion.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: And you could, you could like shut down the government
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: over this.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Or you could, or if a deal was many things,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: or if a.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Deal was being done, you could write it into the deal,
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: but it's just easier when you have a specific bill
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: for a specific agency where you have more leverage, the
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: power of the purse is more important than when it
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: was more powerful. You have more leverage in them than
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: if you joined the whole thing, but you, you really
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: need Republicans here to go along and maybe Cassidy will
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: do it. Maybe there are some others who will, but
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: you need, You need more than just Cassidy and maybe
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: like Collins, Murkowski. And I don't know how Mitch McConnell
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: is feeling about vaccines today.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I guess what Democrats can do then
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: is make it a big enough issue and keep the
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: drumbeat going so that when we get to the government
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: funding fight, this is one of the things that becomes
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: a sticking point in the funding. I mean, you know,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about this, I'm sure, in the coming weeks
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: as we get closer to the funding fight. But we
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: are now piling up a bunch of very big problems,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: crises in this government. That are making it, I think,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: easier for Democrats to say, look, we're going to fund
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: this kind of fucking health agency. We're going to fund
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: this ICE agency. We're going to fund this tariff policy.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: We're getting close to that, I think.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: It's hard to overstate how far out of the mainstream
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: RFK Jr. and Trump are on vaccines.
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Like, extremely.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: And just public health in general at this point. Because
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: it's definitely vaccines, but it's also, I mean, pandemic preparedness, Ebola,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: all the stuff that we talked about.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: The polling on the coronavirus vaccine is very polarized on partisanship.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: But on all the other vaccines, we are at, like,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: 90% trust. So, like, they are in the far, far,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: far minority here. And so I think whether it's through
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: the government funding fight, whether it's through yelling and screaming
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: about this, like, actually drawing attention to this, Because you
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: want this to feel so messy for Trump, who I
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: think is like, he is vaccine skeptic and agnostic, sort of.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: He sort of tried when RFK Jr. came on board
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: to push back on the idea of this. You want
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: to make this really messy for the Republicans in the Senate,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: the House, and the Trump White House.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was maybe the most successful initiative of his
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: first term. Yeah. Operation Warp Speed.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: He's a vaxxer. He was getting boosted all the time.
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: He's over 65. He'll probably get his COVID booster.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: We say a lot that this, like, you know, Dem
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: should talk about this and make noise about this, you know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: name your issue. But I do think on this one,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: this is people's health, getting their kids vaccinated, making sure
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: that their family has good medical care, can follow good
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: and trust credible medical information coming from the government. That's
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: important to people. That is one that I think resonates
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: with people and that they're going to experience in their
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: daily lives.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, every parent at the beginning of the school
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: year is certifying their kids' vaccines.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right?
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Like it's something that is very much in your life
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: on a very frequent basis.
• 27:25
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• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Rules and restrictions apply. See Blinds.com for details. So, we've
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: all become used to the ritualistic Trump fluffing at cabinet
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: meetings now. Must have been some real tendinitis after the one...
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: I don't want to get explicit, but where's the tendinitis?
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Where do you think it is, Dan?
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: That's a good answer.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Three and a half hours. Three and a half hours
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: of Trump fluffing in the last cabinet meeting this week.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: We have an excellent compilation that our producers put together.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Let's listen.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: Mr.
• 29:03
  Speaker 7: President, I invite you to see your big, beautiful face
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: on a banner in front of the Department of Labor
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: because you are really the transformational president of the American worker,
• 29:13
  Speaker 7: along with the American flag and President Roosevelt.
• 29:16
  Speaker 8: And there's only one thing I wish for, that that
• 29:19
  Speaker 8: noble committee... finally gets its act together and realizes that
• 29:23
  Speaker 8: you are the single finest candidate since the Nobel Peace,
• 29:27
  Speaker 8: this Nobel Award was ever talked about.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: And you, sir, are restoring trust to government.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: I do believe we're in a revolution. 1776 was the
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: first one, 1863 or so with.
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: Abraham Lincoln was.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: The second.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: This is the third with Donald Trump leading the way.
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: And we are saving America.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: How do these people, like, how do they keep a
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: straight face? I mean... They don't believe that.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: I assume not, but I'm not so sure anymore. I
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: think people can convince themselves of some really crazy shit.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I want to believe that before the cabinet meeting, before
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: he walks in, they're all doing like a bit with
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: each other and they're like having a fun competition. Like, okay,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: who can be the most embarrassing?
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: We know that Marco.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Rubio has got jokes, right? That's what we've heard on
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the Katie Miller podcast. So maybe Marco Rubio is sort
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: of organizing and maybe it's like a pool.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: I don't think so. I think that they were too
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: afraid of getting caught doing that and then being kicked
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: out of the club.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Three and a half hours, Dan. Three and a half hours. Like,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Fox cut away because we were watching it. And, like,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I had been in a meeting and I came back
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: and I was looking on Twitter and I still see
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Aaron Ruppar and ACYN sending clips around from the cabinet meeting.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I'm like, it's been three hours. What is happening? Yeah, it's...
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: No substance. No substance at the meeting. Just total fluffing.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Like, I love my parents, but I don't think I
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: could in public talk about them in the same way. Like, I.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: This is how our cabinet meetings went, right?
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, this is very similar. Barack Obama would lose his
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: mind if anyone was ever that obsequious in his presence.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: And I know everyone's like, oh, you know, everyone loved Obama, blah, blah,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: it was a cult. But like, he got extremely uncomfortable
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: in cabinet meetings when it seemed like people were just-
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: In any meeting. Any meeting, but also, you know, in
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: the cabinet meetings, the pool comes in, right? And so
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: the pool, then you have like a sort of a
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: fake cabinet meeting while the press is there and everyone
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: gives like, little reports. Actually, we had like one person
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: give a, like each new meeting, there would be like
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: a different cabinet member giving a quick report, and then
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Obama would say something, and then the press.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: The press would leave. And then there'd be a real agenda.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: Usually the press would just be there for Obama's opening remarks.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: And then they would leave. So here's the thing. You
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: do a fake meeting for the press, then you do
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: a real meeting. They never did the real meeting in
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: this case. They just did the fake meeting for three
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: and a half hours.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Even the real meeting is not like, I mean... It's
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: kind of fake. It's kind of fake, right?
• 31:50
  Speaker 7: But.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: And we say that we were in the outside of
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: the cabinet.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: We were definitely in the outside.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: There's the people around the table and there's chairs all around.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: And you had to give up your phone and that
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: was fucking brutal.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, because it's like I wasn't talking, that's for sure.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: It's like can we.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Speed through the SBA presentation here? It's going.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Anyways, nothing like this. So Trump's cabinet giving him the
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Kim Jong-un treatment, it's clearly going to his head because
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: here he is musing about himself as a dictator for
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: the third time in the last few weeks.
• 32:19
  Speaker 9: So the line is that I'm a dictator, but I
• 32:22
  Speaker 9: stop crime. So a lot of people say, you know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 9: if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator. If
• 32:27
  Speaker 9: he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants. Not
• 32:30
  Speaker 9: that I don't have the right to do anything I
• 32:32
  Speaker 9: want to do. I'm the president of the United States.
• 32:34
  Speaker 9: If I think our country's in danger, and it is
• 32:36
  Speaker 9: in danger in these cities.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: The statements and the sentiment are, of course, not new
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: by now. You know, I mean, I think it was
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: very early on in the administration that He tweeted that,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: you know, he who saves his country cannot violate any law,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: the Napoleon quote, or at least the quote that's attributed
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: to Napoleon. He seems to be saying it a lot
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: more frequently these days. The White House, I think, told,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I think it was Politico, oh, he's just doing it
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: to knock down all those silly dictator accusations. He's just
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: taking it on because it's so ridiculous. Is that what's happening?
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: He seems to really enjoy the dictator part of the job. Like,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: it is his favorite part. He's not really digging into
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: the substance of policy issues. And he really likes sending
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: the military places, having parades in his favor. being fetid
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: by his cabinet member for three and a half hours.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: And he will say, I'm not really a dictator, but
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: there's no enthusiasm in that part. All the enthusiasm is
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: in the, look at all the things I can do.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: I'm a dictator. So yeah, we know this is what
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: he values in leadership. These are the people around the
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: world he admires. It's not the Democrats, it's the dictators.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: So it shouldn't be surprising.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: It's really dangerous here. And we're going to talk about
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: the Occupied Occupied D.C., maybe soon to be occupied Chicago
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: and sort of the politics around crime. But what drives
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: me nuts about the whole debate around crime or immigration
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: is what he's saying there, which is I can do
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: whatever I want if the country's in danger. Right. Same
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: with the tweet. He who saves his country violates no law.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: What he is setting up there is whatever happens, whatever
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I decide to do, all I have to say is
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: that there's an emergency in the country. that we are
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: in danger, whether in danger from immigrants, from protesters, from Democrats.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know. We didn't even play this clip. I
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: forgot about it. Stephen Miller was on Fox earlier this week.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: He literally said, the Democratic Party isn't a party. It
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: is a domestic extremist group. That's what Stephen Miller said.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: They are setting it up so that they can do
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: whatever they'd like with the military, with their secret police
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: force to anyone in the country and say, it is
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: because there's an emergency because the country's at risk.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is textbook fascism. This is how fascist
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: regimes happen. They fake a threat. They seize power to
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: protect people from that fake threat and they never give
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: it back.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: And it's just like, and we're going to look back
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: on it and be like, well, at the time he
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: just said it was about fighting crime and people, People
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: want crime to go down. Or he said it was
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: about immigration and people were really upset about the border.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: How could it have been about this? Some of those
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: protesters turned violent. Of course we wanted to bring in
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: the troops. So those comments were part of a longer
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: rant about sending troops to Chicago. Why it's so offensive
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: to him that J.B. Pritzker won't ask him to do
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: it before he does it anyway, which it seems like
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: he will after he posted about Chicago on Thursday and said, quote,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: the people are desperate for me to All caps, STOP
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: THE CRIME, something that Democrats aren't capable of doing. All caps,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: STAY TUNED, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation, President DJT. Again, the Gavin
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: tweets are the ones that are silly, right? Those are
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: the ones that are. The administration has also asked for
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Naval Station Great Lakes, which is just north of the
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: city in Chicago, to offer logistical support for what Christine
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Noem is calling an ICE strike team that is on
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: its way to Chicago. Meanwhile, in occupied D.C., armed troops
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: are still patrolling the streets. The federal government has seized
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: control of Union Station. So that's cool. Mayor Muriel Bowser
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: got criticism from the D.C. Council after saying she, quote,
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: greatly appreciates the surge of officers and believes that crime
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: is going down, though she did also say that the
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: masked ICE agents are unhelpful and that the National Guard
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: presence is unnecessary. The New York Times reports that Cleveland
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Mayor Justin Bibb hosted a call with other big city
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: mayors to talk strategy around Trump's deployment, where he urged a, quote,
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: serious on safety, serious on cost messaging strategy. The big
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: undercurrent in the Times story is Democrats worrying about appearing
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: soft on crime because of their opposition to the president's
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: military occupations of major American cities.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: Kill me. Right?
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Like, you say the sentence and you're like, I don't
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: want to be soft on crime. Polls are mixed on this.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: So there was a new AP poll that shows that
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: 55% of Americans support the use of the military and
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: guard in assisting local police. Trump was not attached to this.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: It was not asked as a, do you support what's
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: happening right now? But in that same poll, 55% oppose
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: the the federal government taking control of local police. On
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: the other hand, voters in a new Quinnipiac poll this
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: week opposed Trump's D.C. deployment by 56 to 41. And
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: a new Reuters poll has just 36 percent of Americans
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: approving of Trump's takeover, while 46 percent oppose. Polls also
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: show that D.C. residents fucking hate it, which is also
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: evident by the fact that the Justice Department has now
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: failed to get multiple indictments from multiple grand juries in D.C.,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: for charges involving alleged assaults on federal officers, including Sandwich Guy.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, Sandwich Guy got off.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: They didn't get Sandwich Guy. Well, he's going to get
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: charged with a misdemeanor because they couldn't even get a
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: fucking grand jury to indict the guy.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: Really bring a lie to the idea you can get
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Ugh, Dan. It's there. It just came to you.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, should we take a moment right now, speaking
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: of great sandwich jokes, to point out what's soon to
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: be available in the Crooked store?
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Dan.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, I was shocked and disappointed by this, but
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: you tell us.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Well, Lovett had the idea of having a t-shirt with
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: a sandwich on it. And underneath the sandwich, it says Hero,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: which is a name for a sandwich.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: It was pointed out by Saul, our producer.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it took Saul a minute to get it.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: But he got there.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: He did get it. They also wanted us to wear
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: it during this.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: It was sitting on the back of my chair.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like, no, we're going to end up
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: on Fox anyway. I don't need to be wearing that
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: shirt while we do. That's right.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: Wait till we get to the Democratic section, then we'll
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: be on Fox.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: That's where we really shine. I do think there's something
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: to be said for all jokes about the sandwich guy aside.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: It is extremely rare for grand juries not to indict.
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: Oh, yeah.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: I have the stats that's going around Twitter, which I
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: don't know why this is dated to 2010. But in 2010,
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: there were 163,000 federal prosecutions, and they failed to get
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: an indictment in 11 of them. So that's a 99.993%
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: success rate.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Because I'm not a lawyer, didn't go to law school,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: not like Leavitt and took the LSATs and got a
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: high score. I looked this up the other day, not
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: about this, but way back when it seems like all
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: of our colleagues might be getting indicted for the Russiagate hoax.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: And I was like, why do grand juries turn back
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: indictments like so many times? And I didn't realize like
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: in many cases, there's no judge there. There's no defense attorney.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: It's just the prosecutor. The prosecutor has– they run the
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: evidence or they present the evidence. And they also instruct
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: the grand jury on what the law is. So they
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: have enormous power here with really– No sort of dissenting,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: opposing argument.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the point of it is to prove to a
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: jury that you have probable cause for the charge.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and the standard is obviously much, much lower.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: So the fact that they couldn't get that, it does
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: tell you that people in D.C. might be getting, you know, D.C.,
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: extremely democratic city, but... I tell you, people are getting
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: pretty radicalized against the military takeover.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: Is he on video throwing the sandwich?
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the reason is he's throwing the sandwich.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: It's not a felony.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Of course you can't be throwing fucking sandwiches at police
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: officers or federal officials, but misdemeanor, which is what he's
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: getting charged with and not a felony, which is the
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: way the law is supposed to work. Back to crime.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: What's your sense of where public opinion is on this?
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: We have talked about, I don't know if you and
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I have had the conversation about the DC takeover. We've
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: had it privately, obviously a million times. But I don't
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: think we've had it on mic. Please correct us. We
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: literally might have done it last week. You can all
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: correct us. Yeah, I don't know. But what do you think?
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's worth just acknowledging that the
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: politics of crime are complicated. So in 2024, two-thirds of
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: Americans told Gallup that crime was up over the previous year.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: Crime was down. And this is not a new phenomenon,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: TikTok broke our brains sort of situation. In every year
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: since the year 2000, a majority of Americans have thought
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: crime has gone up. Most years, crime went down. And
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: it's because there's a couple of reasons for this. One
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: is the news. It's much, this is a worse problem
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: now in social media, but for the beginning, as long
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: as there's been television, the news is, has led with crime.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: So if there is one murder in your community, it
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: will be on the news for like six weeks at
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: a time. Right. So it's, it never gives you an accurate,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: you know, the, the news covers the bumps, not the road. Um,
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: the second is people. And the polling also shows that
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: people are very think of crime as a serious problem,
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: even when statistically they have no reason. to be very
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: worried about crime, but people's fears are not rational conversation.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: You and I have about flying all the time.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Where it's like, you just, you're going to say flying too.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: And also a conversation we had about inflation, right? That's
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: a different subject, but like, you can't be like, oh,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: the statistic, the economy is doing great. And someone's like, well,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: actually it's fucking expensive.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: When someone's scared of something, you can't like telling them
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: that they're more likely to die from a piano falling
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: on their head than whatever they're worried about. Like this is,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: this is a ongoing frustration of Barack Obama's because remember
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: everyone was worried that ISIS was going to come to
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: their mall. And attack them. And it's like the odds
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: of that are so small. And you have all these
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: other ways in which you could die. Like you're at
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: risk every time you get a car. Much more at
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: risk when you get.
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: A car, et cetera.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: So people's fears are irrational. And Republicans have a strength
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: on crime. Right? Trump, he had a one-point advantage on
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: crime in a poll that happened in 2024. But every
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: other issue, he's underwater. This is an issue where he
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: is not underwater. Although there has only been limited polling
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: on crime up until very recently.
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: So you hear that in Denver. People are like, avoid
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: his trap. Don't fall in his trap. He wants you
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: to talk about crime instead of tariffs. Well, the president
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: invades a U.S. city, the United States Capitol, with armed military.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: It's kind of hard not to talk about it because
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: you probably find the best way to talk about it.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: My view of it is that you can't make it
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: about crime. You can't say, like, I have just told
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: you the facts that crime has actually gone down, and
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: it's gone down a lot in D.C. It's one of
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: the largest drops in violent crime in history year over year.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: But telling people that is not basically your best play
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: here because then it does sound like you are minimizing crime.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: I think you should make this be about the fact
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: that this is a stunt. It's a giant waste of
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: taxpayer resources and it's happening against the wishes of the
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: local officials and the local, most importantly, the local police.
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: It's tough because if someone thinks that the presence of
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: troops and extra cops and everything else is about, okay, well,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: There's more cops on the beat. And so that seems
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: good because most people think more cops means it's going
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: to be safer, especially if I saw it.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: And it's not just about like- And Bill Clinton ran
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: on that promise.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: And it's also not just about people.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Well, you could say like how many people have actually
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: experienced a crime. It's not just about experiencing a crime,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: though it is about that. But- It's just about public disorder, right?
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: In cities, yeah.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: If you're on a subway, if you're on a street corner,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: you see someone screaming and yelling at somebody, you're like, okay,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: this is kind of scary, right? And so it's about
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: more than that. But if you think that ICE is
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: about deporting the worst of the worst, and you think
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: that extra cops is about bringing down crime, then you're
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: going to say, well, this all seems fine to me.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: But if you're walking around the city and suddenly they're
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: tasing delivery drivers and and people in masks and hauling
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: them off and throwing them in a van. And you're
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: seeing all these troops armed just in your city day after,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: maybe a couple of days, it's no big deal. Maybe
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks, it's no big deal, but like
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: day after day after day. And then you're going to
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: be like, I don't know, is this really about crime?
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Because this seems pretty, and to your point about the stunt,
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: I think everyone who saw the National Guard troops just
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: picking up trash in DC, because there was nothing really
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: else for them to do. They probably don't think, oh,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: this is scary, but they probably think, This is maybe
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a waste here.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: That's what I think the right argument here. So the
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: hard part is like, yes, if you live in the city,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: you experience the disorder to the extent it exists. If
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: you live in a city and you have to get
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: someone at Walgreens or Duane Reade or CVS to let
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: you get deodorant every single time because they're so worried
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: about shoplifters, that contributes to how people feel about public safety.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: But most people don't live in cities or a lot
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: of people don't live in cities. And so they're not
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: seeing the National Guard they're also not experiencing the crime. Now,
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: people who don't live in cities are actually oftentimes more
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: afraid of crime.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Because they watch the local news, which is about the
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: city that they live near.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, there was a time in which people were
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: so afraid of crime that they wouldn't put sports arenas
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: in cities.
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: They would put them in the suburbs because they thought
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: people from suburbs wouldn't go in the cities because they
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: were so afraid. And so I just think that in
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: the argument that Democrats should ignore this is not a
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: real argument because it's not possible to ignore it. You
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: cannot be someone who is a member of the opposition
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: party who has taken an oath to the constitution and
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: then say, I am just going to stay silent on
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: the military occupation of one American city, possibly spreading to
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: others because it doesn't pull well. So you would just
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: have to figure out how to talk about it. And
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: I do think like the way to do it is
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: to sort of ally the crime trap and try to
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: treat it as a stunt that's a waste of taxpayer
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: resources that runs against the advice. It's not what people
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: in the city or the people who run the city
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: or the people who protect the city actually want.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Also, people don't want crime, but I bet if you
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: ask them, do you want a situation where there are
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: these masked agents setting up vehicle checkpoints, asking for people's papers,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: who look like they might be undocumented immigrants, who have
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: brown skin, or in some cases just anyone, and they're
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: stopping the cars and they're saying, where's your papers? I
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: don't think people like that. Like, throw that in a poll.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Because I don't think that's how people want to live
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: in this country. So I do think it's about framing
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: it in a way. And by the way, that was
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: happening in Tennessee. It happened in D.C. on 14th Street.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I just don't think people want to live like that either.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: And this is incredibly dangerous. There was a moment, as
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: you guys talked about on Tuesday, the National Guard is
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: now carrying weapons in D.C. for no reason that has
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: been articulated. But at some point, something bad is going
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: to happen. Something Ken state level is going to happen.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: And that could be the sort of thing that fundamentally
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: changes the fabric of this country, both in how the
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: public reacts to it and how Trump uses it.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.
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• 49:20
  Speaker 2: All right. Speaking of the Democratic Party trying to figure
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: out what to do about our descent into fascism, boy,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: did they nail it at the annual summer meeting in
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: Minneapolis this week. So this event had everything. Land acknowledgements,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: competing Gaza resolutions, worries about fundraising, polling presentations that advise
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: ditching the phrase tough on crime for serious about safety,
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: even a proposal for a new fight song, which we
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: will get to in a bit. No surprise that the
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: coverage of the event, which was for some reason live streamed,
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: focused almost entirely on the party's internal conflicts with a
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: heavy dose of mockery. To be fair, the party did
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: have some wins. Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Iowa this week with a point overperformance. And the DNC
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: had invested in the organizing around that race. So they
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: took some credit for that. But overall, the consensus seemed
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: to be that the meeting wasn't exactly Democrats putting the
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: party's best foot forward. Afterwards, Democratic operative Adam Jentleson told
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the Bulwark's Lauren Egan, quote, it would probably be better
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: for the party as a whole if the DNC just
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: turned the lights off and padlocked the building for the
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: next two years. What do you think?
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: I think the whole thing is maybe a microcosm of
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: all of our problems, which is you have in Iowa
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: this great win, right? Like we know we do well
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: in special elections. We're actually in 2025, we're doing about
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: five to six points better in special elections than we
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: were doing in 2017. So I think that like there
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: is evidence that underneath the challenges we're having at the
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: party establishment level that people are doing the work and
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: winning races. And that's very important.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Did you see that turnout was 55% of the 2022
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: midterms in that district? That's high for a special election
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: in the summer of 2020.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: So like that, that is the positive part here. It
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: is the establishment of the party, which is embodied by
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: the DNC, which is a collection of whatever it is,
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: 400 some party chairs, party committee people, just like the
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: absolute establishment of the establishment. that is still struggling to
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: reckon with the moment we are in. Right.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: Both.
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, I will, I will stipulate I've been in
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: politics a long time. The DNC has been a shit
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: show almost for the entire time of my, my career.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: And particularly when we're in opposition.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: It exists to be a punching bag and a shit show.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Like when you have the white house, the DNC is
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: a political arm of the white house. And it usually
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: is neither, you don't ever really hear from it. It just,
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: it raises money. It organizes, it does what the white
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: house wants when you're in opposition. it becomes the vessel
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: for everyone's anger about the party, even though it has
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: so little power and so little influence.
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: Like everyone thinks the DNC like makes messaging decisions, picks candidates,
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: can fix presidential elections, all these things. And it's really,
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: it's basically in a presidential election, it's a bank account
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: for the nominee with some organizing on the side.
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: Here's my big criticism of the whole event. Why did
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: they live stream it? Why did that just, if you're
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: going to have a meeting and you're going to have
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: polling presentations and And you're going to do the whole
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: thing and just talk about shit? Like, just don't. I mean,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: I guess you have press there. I don't know. They
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: can just have a fucking meeting. I mean, it's open press.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I get that some parts are open press.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: I'm sure they've been live streaming it for 100 years,
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: like since live streaming was available.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: Well, then if you're going to live stream it, do
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: we need to start with the land acknowledgement? Is that
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: something that we're doing? Have we not learned our lesson?
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: First of all, and it's not like the land acknowledgement.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Do we think the land acknowledgements do anything? Do we
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: give back the land like we probably should? Maybe people
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: should go do something to help indigenous Americans in the
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: country instead of just acknowledging the fact that hundreds of
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: years ago, something horrific happened on that land. I don't know.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: What are we doing? It's very hard to think about
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: what we should do as a party and reverse engineer
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: it from what is going to make it Fox and Friends.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: I don't want us to do that. But there does
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: need to be a little more savvy about the whole
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: picture that is painted, right?
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Just a touch.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: Just a little touch more savvy. Like what is the
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: story you're telling with this? Like there is a world
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: in which you could use this to, like we have
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: a bunch of exciting candidates, like really exciting candidates. We've had,
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: to the credit of the Senate and House, we've recruited
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: a bunch of great candidates to run. The Sherrod Browns
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: were at Cooper's, a bunch of really interesting people running
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: for House. Veterans, former like fired federal government scientists and
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: people working in the VA and all this. You could
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: highlight those people. We're winning races instead of doing that. Instead,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: the DNC, which has no real say in a lot
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: of these issues, and then we're going to get to
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: the Gaza resolution in a second, is putting itself in
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: the middle of it. And I think one challenge here is,
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know what the answer is, but Ken Martin
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: won the DNC race. He was the most insider of
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: insider candidates, right? He was the chair of the Association
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: of Democratic Party Chairs. He'd been a party chair for
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: a long time. He'd been a very successful party chair
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: to his credit. But he won the race because he
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: had relationships with all the other party chairs, which is
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: a huge part of the voting bloc. But it was
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: a continuation of what the DNC had been. I know
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: he's trying to make changes, but after 2024, you probably
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: needed someone who was going to come in a little
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: bit like Howard Dean did when he won the DNC,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: who was going to knock it over and start from
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: the beginning. And so we're not making any real wholesale changes.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: We're just kind of making cosmetic changes around the edge,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: and it's not working. Publicly. I mean, that's the thing.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: And it's the public aspect that's the tough part, right?
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Because I think that Ken Martin would say and did
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: say to me when I interviewed him, it's like, you know,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: he's been investing and organizing and doing all this stuff. And,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: you know, that's why they took credit for the Iowa
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: thing and good for them. And he is an organizer
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: at heart. There is a larger problem with the DNC.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: And just the party in general that Ken Martin is
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: not going to be able to fix.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: Yes. The DNC is an embodiment of the party's larger problems.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Yes. And it doesn't seem like they really dug into
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: those that much or at least made a lot of
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: progress projecting an image of the party that has learned
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: anything from the last defeat. Right.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: I think that's the bigger thing is you can't expect
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: the DNC to solve the problem. You can't expect them
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: at the August 2025 deadline. annual summer meeting, I guess
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: it is, to have figured everything else out. But there
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: was probably a way to be a little more deliberate
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: in the public presentation of what the party was doing.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: For example, I'm just thinking of this now, so that
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: candidate who just won in Iowa, invite that person to
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: come speak there. And some of the recruits that we
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: have that are exciting candidates in some of these swing districts,
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: invite them to come speak.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: I bet they wouldn't come. That's the problem.
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is the problem. Yeah, I know. We're
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: going to get to this, the other convention idea going on.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: But one of the challenges is if you're Roy Cooper
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: or Sherrod Brown.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: You would never go there. You don't have that.
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: You don't have the taint of the DNC being on you. Yeah,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: that makes sense. While all this was going on, Gavin
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: Newsom did a big live interview with Politico. where he
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: did not mince words, I think we have some tape.
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: This guy doesn't believe in free, fair elections. He tried
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: to wreck this country. Were you there January 6th? Tried
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: to light democracy on fire. He dialed for 11, almost 12,000 votes.
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: Now he's doing it in plain sight. And people say, oh,
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: it's just Trump being Trump. You think he's joking about 2028?
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: You think when he brings foreign leaders to the Oval
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: Office and he goes to the White House store, have
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: you seen this?
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: Anyone? Is it just me?
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: And he shows them the 2028 hats.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: He's not being serious. Wake up. You will lose your country.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's one way to do it. Yeah.
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Now, I caught a couple lines from Ken Martin's speech. And,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: you know, he was doing the, like, we got to
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: fight fire with fire thing. And he was trying to,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: you know, be tough like Gavin. But again, that's one
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: person in a whole meeting that gets.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: It's not that the people there don't want to fight.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: No, it's not that. It's just it looks too... We're
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: hammering on them.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: I'm not trying to defend them in any way, shape,
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: or form, but there was no way this was going
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: to go well. Right. There was just absolutely no way because.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: There's ways it could have gone better.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: It could have gone better, but it's just Democrats are
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: mad at Democrats right now. If you have a great
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: meeting and the Republicans are going to shit on it
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: no matter what the meeting is, but if Democrats are
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: mad at the party, as they have every right to
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: be right now, then you just create this, you're pleasing
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: no one with anything you do.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: I do think and wish very much that more Democrats
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: would find their own inner Gavin Newsom. And what I
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: mean by that is not just do exactly what he's
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: doing and then try to do the tweets that his
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: office is doing and then say the same things that
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: he's like, find what's making you upset and what's really
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: bothering you and where you think the country should go.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: And like go say that more and be less– I
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: mean we've talked about this, but like be less cautious.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: And again, I'm not even saying that like Gavin Newsom
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: is going to be our best nominee, right? Like I'm
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: just saying in this moment, in the summer of 2025,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: there should be more Democrats sounding like that.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: I think the– I wrote about this in my newsletter,
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: The Message Box, this week. But there is a fundamental
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: divide in the Democratic Party. And we have divides on
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: every issue. Like, as I wrote, we're divided over Ezra
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: Klein's book writings.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: We're about to talk about Gaza.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: So we're divided on everything. But I really do believe
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: that the big fundamental divide in the party, and Alyssa
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: Slotkin has talked about this a lot, which is people
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: who think Trump is an existential threat to democracy, which
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Gavin Newsom does. And a lot of people who think
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: that Trump is very, very bad, but survivable. That our
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: goal here is to just make it to 2026 and
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: then make it to 2028. And that if you are
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: in the Gavin Newsom camp, you need to think outside
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: the box. You have to be willing to embrace high-risk
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: strategies that push the envelopes, are willing to run over
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: norms or previously held positions. And if you're in the
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: latter camp where I think Chuck Schumer is, I think
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: And I think more people should be in the Gavin
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: Newsom camp. I am in the Gavin Newsom camp, but
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: I really found that to be the way to understand
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: how people think about it. Because the DNC meeting is,
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: even if people use the public rhetoric that sounds a
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: version of what Gavin Newsom says, the way that they
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: keep doing things the same way suggests that they are
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: in the, this is bad, but survivable camp.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: Yes. And I'll give you an example of why this
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: is not ideologically necessarily, or even old versus young, or even,
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: are you going to go hard at Trump or not?
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has been acting now for several
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: years like he believes that we're in an existential emergency.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: He hits Donald Trump whenever he can, but he also
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: has his Bernie thing, right? He believes that the oligarchy
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: is the problem, and he's very economically populous. He's been
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: consistent about this for his whole career. But he's out
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: there pulling huge crowds, probably the most popular politician in
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: the party, and he's acting like this is an existential threat. right?
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: Completely different, could not be more different than Gavin Newsom
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: in a whole bunch of different ways.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: It is interesting. I could do a whole podcast on this,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: but Bernie Sanders, I am interpreting this, but believes that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump is the symptom of the larger problem he's
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: been talking about for years, which is the oligarchy, an
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: unfair economy, a rigged economy. And Newsom, who I think
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily disagree with Bernie on some of the things
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: about the economy, thinks Trump is the problem.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: And like Alyssa Slotkin, right? Who you just mentioned.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: Former- Former CIA. Yeah.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: She's in that camp too. So it's like, it's all
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: kinds of people. But, and then, and then I, the
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: people I really worry about, I don't know if I'm
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: just going to name, I'm not going to name names here, but.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: No, please do.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Well, because I can't, I can't even think all of them,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: but the people who I think believe we're in an
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: existential crisis, but do not sound like it. You know,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: like some people have thought about it and are like,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: I think this is survivable and I'm just going to
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: act that way. There's some people who they just don't,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: they can't get themselves there. You know, they can't get
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: emotional about it. And I don't want emotional, but like,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: They don't have the passion. They don't have the fire
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: in the belly. And they're just sort of very just
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: analytically talking about it. I'm like, what are you doing?
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: I think it's a poverty of imagination.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: I think it is very, very hard. I think this is,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: you guys talked about why everyone's shrugging about what's going on.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: I think it's very, very hard to imagine what is
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: happening to America actually happening here. Because it was impossible
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: to imagine just a year ago. The idea that you
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: would have a politicized law enforcement agency, law enforcement agencies
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: that would be prosecuting people's political opponents. that you would
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: have military marching in the streets. That seemed the idea
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: that democracy could crumble. We believed it could last forever.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: We believe that for a very long time now. And
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: certainly believe that the only thing that could stop it
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: would be a foreign power and not something internal. And
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: so I think for a lot of politicians, particularly ones
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: who've been around a long time, there are exceptions like Bernie,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: it just cannot fathom this is actually happening and are
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: unable to think about it in real, talk about it
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: in real ways, think about it in real ways, and
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: then embrace the solutions that are proportionate to the threat.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's well said. And there's just a lot of,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of trying, like almost like trying on
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: a costume.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Well, that's the fake bullshit, right?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: It's the fake bullshit. You get a lot, I've said
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: this before, like a lot more of them are swearing.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Like they think if they swear a little bit, they
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: drop a few fucks. then suddenly everyone's going to be, oh,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: they're tough now.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: I'm for the swearing. I think it's fine.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: I'm only for the swearing if you swear normally. If
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: this is how you talk, you know, unfortunately, this is
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: how we, I wish I swore less on this, but like,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: this is how we talk, you know? And if that's
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: how you really talk, then like, go do it. But
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: some of the, Some of them drop it mid-conversation. You're
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: just like, where'd that come from?
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: I've never met a politician who didn't swear a lot,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: I would say. Never once in my life.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: So, again.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: Maybe Joe Lieberman would be the exception.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: I like the Gavin tweets, but find your own thing.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's just embarrassing. Don't do your Gavin tweets.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: The other Democrats doing the Gavin tweets is embarrassing. You
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: need your own schtick.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, figure out your own schtick. That's all.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one
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• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: So as I mentioned, the DNC also, we got off topic.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: DNC also debated two competing resolutions about how to respond
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: to the war in Gaza, with one resolution calling for
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: a complete arms embargo and the other, supported by Ken Martin,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: calling for a more moderate middle course. After a lot
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: of debate, Martin ended up pulling his resolution and kicking
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: the issue down to a task force of stakeholders. Okay. Again,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: don't want to beat up on the meeting here, but
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: maybe this is a chance to talk about, in general...
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: You think the party can get its shit together on
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: this before 2026?
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: It is the question of whether the party will be
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: able to catch up to public opinion, not just within
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: the Democratic base, but within the entire country around offensive
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: military aid to Israel during what's happening in Gaza.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: That's the question. Also, side note, we don't need committees
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: doing resolutions. What is the DNC resolution going to do?
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: We can have a larger discussion about the party platform
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: in the presidential election year. There's some real questions about
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: how useful that is, but that at least has some...
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: You're putting on paper what, theoretically, the nominee believes in,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: so then you can hold them accountable to that point.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: But the mid-year... Just the opinion of the Democratic Party
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: is this. I don't know that... I think there's a
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: real effort that should be done to try to move
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: the other half of the Democratic caucus to be where
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: we think they should be on this vote. I don't
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: think a DNC resolution is... meaningful in that task.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: And I will say, because I'm not going to make
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: the moral case for this again, and especially because the
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: people in the other side of the party who are
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: still singing the same tune about Israel, they'll say, oh,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: I get that this is emotional, but we get to
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: seem like we're on the side of Israel where that's
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: where the American people are. That's not where the American
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: people are. Look at the polls. If you think that's
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: where they are, those are old polls. And it's not
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: just Democrats. First of all, that Quinnipiac poll, like if
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: you ask what if Democrats, if you ask just Democrats,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: if they believe that we should end weapons sales to Israel,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: it is like, it was like 70%. I mean, it
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: was overwhelming. But the overall number, including independents, and of course,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: Republicans are still for it. But like the overall number,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: I think was like, I don't know, it was like 56, 57, 400.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: ending weapon sales? Like, it's a majority opinion now.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, you ask people if they approve of how
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: Israel's conducted the war in Gaza, the numbers are even
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: more devastating.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: If you ask people who they sympathize with more, the
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Israelis or the Palestinians, it's now the Palestinians, which is
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: also a huge shift from October 7th. I mean, and
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: the reason I'm just bringing up the polling is not
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: because that's how I think we should talk about it,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: but to those people in the Democratic Party who think
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: this is a polling issue, it is not.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: I think that there is a lot of parallels in
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: terms of the politics. I'm only talking about the politics here.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: With Iraq?
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: With Iraq.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: I know, I've been doing the same thing.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: You, there are people who know what the right thing
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: to do is, but because of an outdated view of
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: politics are afraid to do it. And those people, especially
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: if they're running for president, are eventually going to get
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: to where everyone else is, but you're going to be late.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you're going to be, you're going to seem inauthentic.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: You're going to seem fake when you get there. Because
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: it is. You know? I mean, I'm sure there's some
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: people who are going to be like, wow, of course
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: you could have this conversion where you're like, wow, I
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: fucked up and this is horrible and Netanyahu, clearly is
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: never going to end this war and just wants to
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: fucking bulldoze Gaza and doesn't give a shit what happens
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: to people and whatever else.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: You can come around to that, but a lot of
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: people are just going to, they're going to look exactly
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: like what it is, which is, oh, this is where
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: the base is and I want to win. And so
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going to now pretend this whole time that I
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: was actually there.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: Were moments to do like, obviously incredibly great credit to
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: the people who were very critical when the Democrats are
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: very critical when Biden was president. Like, like, that is
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: the right thing to do, but not easy to do
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: it against your president, particularly in an election year. But
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: with Trump as president, and with the the way things
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: have changed, particularly with the famine in Gaza, the moment
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: is was months ago. And so like, like, that is
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: an actual change. of facts on the ground that could
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: cause you to change your opinion. But the more, the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: more you wait, the more you're going to look like
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: you're playing politics here.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: See Jake Sullivan.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: Uh, Biden's former national security advisor was talking to our pal,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Tim Miller on the Bulwark podcast and said that he's
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: advised Democrats that, uh, they should, uh, oppose weapons sales.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Like that's Jake.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: Who was in the Biden administration.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: It was the person in charge of implementing the hug
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: BB strategy.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: So like, if you're, what are you doing? If you're,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: you know, I just don't understand. So, Axios reported on
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: Wednesday that senior Democratic officials now want to host a
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: mini-convention ahead of the 2026 midterms. I'm now laughing at
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: this because.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: Of the conversation we just had.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: Where they can showcase candidates and emerging party leaders not
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: to be out down the next morning. Trump posted that
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: the Republican Party might host a convention of their own
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: before the midterms. That, to me, was the only evidence
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: that maybe this is a good idea. What do you think? I.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: In theory, I understand the idea, is that Democrats need
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: opportunities to get attention and having another convention. Particularly if
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: you did a big one. You're not filling the.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: Where did we go to the convention? Where was that?
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: Chicago. You're not filling the United Center.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: It's okay. We all want to forget it.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: I know we went to Milwaukee for a week. I
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: know we went to Chicago for a week.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: We're still waiting for Taylor Swift to come out on stage.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: Just getting Leon Panetta.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: Just Leon Panetta instead, yeah.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: Like, so the idea of doing a big event and having, like,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: good speakers and you'd have to get, like, Kamala Harris
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: would speak there and maybe you'd get a Barack Obama. Like,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: you would need to draw real attention to get real
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: people to do it. Like, that is intriguing.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: Joe Biden.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 6: Your face is so good.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: That was so worth it.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: It's an option. I mean, it's an option. I mean,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: I actually would say that I'm sure that the people
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: who would attend the Democratic convention would be very excited
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: to hear from Joe Biden. You and I were in
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: the audience for his speech in Chicago, apparently, which is
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: where that was.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: Keep going.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: But it does, I'm not sure we could execute it
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: in the right way, would be my concern. Like, I
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: understand the idea of theory, but if you do it
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: and then you just have another giant fight over a
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: Gaza resolution, or the other thing you would see is,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: the most prominent Senate candidates don't show up because they
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: don't want to be there for it. So it's like,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: you're doing this convention and Sherrod Brown doesn't come to work.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: Cooper doesn't come. And Graham Platner, if he's the nominee
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: in Maine, doesn't come. And maybe John Ossoff is busy
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: that week. Then it's embarrassing for the party.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because then you're getting, it's like a speech from
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: Chuck Schumer, speech from Hakeem Jeffries. And then now we're
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: looking for, now we're looking for more people to fill
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: this speech role. And it's like, quick, where's Kerry Washington?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: And where's all the, where's all the, it's just like,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: I don't, I don't, it gives me the, At first
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: I was like, you know what? We need to get attention.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: My first instinct was like, oh yeah, a good idea
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: to get attention. And then having watched the summer meeting
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: and talking about this, I'm like, I think the execution
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: is quite difficult.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: The Republicans are definitely going to do this.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: Because Trump will make another.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: And then we're going to... Trump probably did it to
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: goad us into doing it.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: No, no.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: He wants to do it because he wants another party
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: celebrating him. But.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: Well, and... I think it's to his advantage. Yeah, because
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: I think his big issue for the midterms is... the
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: people who turned out for him don't turn out for
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: Republican candidates. And so if he can attach himself to
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: the midterms in people's minds, then he can tell everyone, hey,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: get out for me. Don't forget about these candidates.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: It's a double-edged sword, for sure. But he's probably going
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: to get all the downsides of the anti-Trump fervor anyway.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: So a moment where he could keep a high-profile moment
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: where he could communicate to his voters that this is,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: the people who didn't turn out to turn out for
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: this is probably to his advantage. So if he does it,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: then we'll probably have to do it.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: Or one place we could just do it is CrookedCon.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: Did you know we're having a... I'm aware.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 5: Have you heard?
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: I'm aware.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: November 6th and 7th.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: Is there a website you can go to?
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's CrookedCon.com.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: I got it.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: Was that an intentional tongue twister? I don't know. Was
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: it a prank from the marketing team on you?
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think most things are. All right, Dan, as promised,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: just to close out the meeting section, it did include
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: a fight song, which no DNC meeting is complete without.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: Semaphores Dave Weigel reported that someone from Act Blue not
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: only shared the song, but recommended that the party adopt
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: it and in multiple sessions put the lyrics up on
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: a presentation so the attendees could sing along.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: Did they incessantly text it to everyone?
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: I apologize for doing this, but I do need you
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: to read the lyrics.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: I can't read the lyrics. I do this off the dome.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: I don't have a laptop, so you'll have to do it. D-E-M-S,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: we rise. Stronger together.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: Blue skies. Lift your voice. We're bold and true. Onward, Democrats.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: We shine blue.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: The thing that is so funny about this, other than
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: the fact that someone thought we needed a fight song.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: Yes. And that it has a blue sky reference. Yes.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: A little on the nose. It's the use of the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: term stronger together, which is the failure of every democratic
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: messaging process ever, no matter how bad it is, no
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: matter how many yahoos are involved, it ends up with
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: some version of Stronger Together.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: Everything is perfect about it. The only thing I am
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: disappointed in is that we can't hear it. Like, is
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: there a melody it goes to? That's what I want
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: to know. I asked Dave Weigel on Twitter, but he
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: did not respond. If anyone has, the person from Act Blue,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know who it was, but whoever can give
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: us a melody to this, I just, I want to
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: be singing it, you know, because I want to practice
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: for this midterm convention and Crooked Con and whatever else.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: You heard it here first, that if someone can find
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: the melody for this, Jon Favreau will sing it solo.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: Can you play it on the piano?
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: I will learn to play it on the piano. It
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: will become our new theme song to Pod Save America.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: That's ridiculous. I think you should perform it at- Cricket Con?
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: Cricket Con or the wedding, birthday, celebration, whatever, of whichever
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: Vote Save America volunteer knocks the most doors.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good one.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: Jon Favreau will come to your gathering.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: And sing it. This is now something that's getting out
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: of control.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: If that is not up on votesaveamerica.com by the time
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: this episode comes out on Friday morning, it's a failure
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: of the political team.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: Come up with the melody, everyone. All right, last thing
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: before we go. We have to talk about one more
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: piece of news. Taylor Swift's engagement to Travis Kelsey.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 6: What?
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: This is the first time I'm hearing of this.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: I was in a meeting. I was off my phone
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: for an hour. I come back outside. There's like 40
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: texts online. on my, most of them from my wife.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: I was going to say.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: In all of the text chains I'm on with her
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: and other Taylor Swift fans, it was wild.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: You know what I was doing when this came out?
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 8: What?
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: I was talking to Caroline Reston on Polar Coaster and
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: no one interrupted the show to tell her.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: About Hunting Wives.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: We were talking about Hunting Wives at the time.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: Which I hate watched and now can't wait for the
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: second season.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: That's how I hate watched. If you want to hear
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: my take on Hunting Wives, subscribe, become a friend of
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: the pod. There you go.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 7: Anyway.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: Most of the world offered their congratulations. A nice little
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: moment here in our broader descent into fascism. Even Donald
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: Trump was gracious about it. But then Charlie Kirk. You
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: know Charlie Kirk.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: Familiar vaguely with him.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: He recently called us a group of low-T complainers and whiners.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, I thought he was just referring to the Tuesday pod.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: It's true. He had this advice for the happy couple.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: Maybe one of the reasons why Taylor Swift has been so...
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: just kind of annoyingly liberal over the last couple of
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: years is that she's not yet married and she doesn't
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: have children. Taylor Swift might go from a cat lady
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: to a JD Vance supporter. And I think we should
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: celebrate that. It's a great chance for Taylor Swift now
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: to get married and have a ton of children. You
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: can certainly afford it, Taylor. This is something that I
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative. Engage in reality
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: more and get outside of the abstract clouds. Reject feminism.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: Submit to your husband, Taylor. You're not in charge.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: What a lucky woman who got to submit to that
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: penis with a hairpiece. That is a... She is one
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: lucky lady. You know, there's clips of Charlie Kirk's wife
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: talking about how I love submitting to Charlie.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 5: Oh, wow.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: You are deep in the internet.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's why I get straight fives on Terminally
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: Online all the time. So that's interesting, huh? It seems
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: like he was purposely trolling. Is that what that is?
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: No, I think that's his legitimate, sincere belief.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he does think like birth control makes women crazy.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: He said that before. I mean, he's a real piece
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: of work.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not great.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: A real piece of work.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: Just the kind of person you want being a close
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: advisor to the President of the United States.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: So it's like fucking Taylor Swift is like, Worth more
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: money than a million Charlie Kirks put together and probably
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: more people go to one of her shows than have
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: ever listened.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: To Charlie Kirk.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say that's possible. It's just like, what?
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, man. Good luck. Good luck. Again, lucky lady married
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: to Charlie Kirk. All right. New Crooked merch just dropped.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: Check out crooked.com slash store to see the latest. Who knows?
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Who knows? Maybe you'll find the hero t-shirts.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: And they released the Epstein Files doormat.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: There may be an Epstein Files doormat in there as well. Again,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: gotta go to the design meetings more uh more at
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: once that's where love it is right now probably also
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: reminder that you can now stream ad-free video with a
• 1:18:55
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• 1:18:57
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• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: exclusive shows like inside 2025 and polar coaster with mr
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: dan pfeiffer no interruptions just the content you actually came
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: for Ad-free video is available now on Supercast, Substack, and YouTube.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: Visit cricket.com slash friends to learn more. That's our show
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: for today. We'll be back on Tuesday with a special
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: episode for Labor Day, which will be marking our thousandth episode. Wow.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: I know. That's a little behind the scenes. That's why
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: Dan's here, guys. He's here. We have to bring him
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: down for the thousandth episode.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: It's a very, very, very important moment.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: Big deal. That's what we're celebrating, I guess. We're going
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: to be answering lots of great listener questions for the occasion,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: so check it out. And everyone, have a great holiday weekend.
• 1:19:40
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• 1:19:42
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• 1:19:45
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• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: episode and everything we do here at Cricket. Pod Save
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: America is a Cricket Media production. Our producers are David Toledo,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: Emma Illich-Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safaris.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
• 1:20:18
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• 1:20:28
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