Latest / Pod Save America / Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term

Transcript

Trump “Not Joking” About 3rd Term · Pod Save America

0:00
Speaker 1: Today's presenting sponsor is SimpliSafe Home Security. April Fool's Day
0:03
Speaker 1: is all about pranks and surprises, but your family's security
0:06
Speaker 1: is no laughing matter. With SimpliSafe, there are no gimmicks
0:08
Speaker 1: like unbreakable contracts or hidden fees, just real protection you
0:12
Speaker 1: can count on 24-7 because the only surprises you should
0:15
Speaker 1: deal with are harmless ones. With SimpliSafe, millions of Americans
0:18
Speaker 1: enjoy the new standard in home security and greater peace
0:20
Speaker 1: of mind every time they arm their system. When heading
0:23
Speaker 1: out in the morning or when locking up each night,
0:25
Speaker 1: traditional security systems only take action after someone has already
0:28
Speaker 1: broken in. That's too late, obviously. SibleySafe's ActiveGuard outdoor protection
0:33
Speaker 1: can help prevent break-ins before they happen. If someone's lurking
0:36
Speaker 1: around or acting suspiciously, those agents see and talk to
0:38
Speaker 1: them in real time, activate spotlights, and even contact the
0:41
Speaker 1: police all before they have the chance to get inside
0:42
Speaker 1: your home. No long-term contracts or cancellation fees. Monitoring plans
0:46
Speaker 1: start affordably at around $ 1 a day, 60-day satisfaction guarantee,
0:49
Speaker 1: or your money back. And you can set it up yourself.
0:52
Speaker 1: John Lovett did, and he loves it. Visit simplisafe.com slash
0:56
Speaker 1: crooked to claim 50% off a new system with a
0:58
Speaker 1: professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com
1:03
Speaker 1: slash crooked. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Welcome to Pod
1:27
Speaker 1: Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
1:29
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
1:29
Speaker 3: I'm Tommy Vitor.
1:30
Speaker 1: On today's show, Trump says he's not joking about trying
1:33
Speaker 1: to serve a third term and that there are, quote,
1:35
Speaker 1: methods to get around the very clear constitutional amendment that
1:39
Speaker 1: prevents him from doing so. Of course, Trump's already acting
1:44
Speaker 1: like a dictator. The Supreme Court will decide whether he
1:47
Speaker 1: can round up people without due process and send them
1:49
Speaker 1: to a foreign gulag, which apparently ICE agents are now
1:52
Speaker 1: doing based on tattoos that they think might be suspicious.
1:56
Speaker 1: The first pair of elections that could give us a
1:58
Speaker 1: hint as to how voters are feeling about America's golden age.
2:00
Speaker 1: Or Tuesday, we'll talk about Elon's last minute Wisconsin trip
2:04
Speaker 1: to quite literally buy people's votes. Then you'll hear my
2:07
Speaker 1: conversation with newly minted Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona about
2:10
Speaker 1: how he's feeling about Trump's second term and what more
2:13
Speaker 1: Democrats can do to fight back. But first, by the
2:16
Speaker 1: time you're hearing this, we'll just be one day away
2:19
Speaker 1: from Liberation Day. Big day, guys. That's what Trump is
2:22
Speaker 1: calling Wednesday, April 2nd. the day he's expected to announce
2:26
Speaker 1: a set of reciprocal tariffs, which are tariffs on other
2:28
Speaker 1: countries that impose tariffs on us. But in remarks aboard
2:32
Speaker 1: Air Force One on Sunday, he indicated that he'll be
2:35
Speaker 1: going much bigger.
2:36
Speaker 4: You're expecting to hit something like 10 to 15 countries,
2:39
Speaker 4: is that right?
2:40
Speaker 5: No.
2:42
Speaker 2: No.
2:42
Speaker 5: All countries?
2:43
Speaker 3: All of the countries.
2:43
Speaker 5: Is it across the board?
2:44
Speaker 4: Not 10. I don't know. Who told you 10 or
2:46
Speaker 4: 15 countries?
2:46
Speaker 5: Well, we heard that. So we heard that you were
2:48
Speaker 5: going to hit 15%.
2:49
Speaker 4: But you didn't hear it from me.
2:51
Speaker 2: Okay.
2:51
Speaker 5: So how many countries will be in that initial trudge?
2:54
Speaker 4: You'd start with all countries. So let's see what happens.
2:58
Speaker 4: We're going to be much more generous to them in
3:01
Speaker 4: terms of heart. We're going to be much more generous
3:03
Speaker 4: than they were to us. This country is going to
3:06
Speaker 4: be more successful than it ever was. It's going to boom.
3:10
Speaker 4: We're going to have boomtown USA. We're going to boom.
3:14
Speaker 1: We're going to boom.
3:15
Speaker 3: It's going to boom all right.
3:16
Speaker 1: We're going to boom. So no one seems to know
3:18
Speaker 1: what Trump is actually going to do here, including his
3:20
Speaker 1: own advisors. There's been a bunch of reporting that he
3:23
Speaker 1: may just do blanket tariffs of up to 20% on
3:26
Speaker 1: all imported goods from everywhere, which is what he talked
3:28
Speaker 1: about during the campaign. Peter Navarro, Trump's trade guy, told
3:32
Speaker 1: Fox over the weekend that the tariffs will raise $ 6
3:35
Speaker 1: trillion over 10 years. Which experts say would be the
3:40
Speaker 1: largest tax hike in American history, although Peter Navarro calls
3:43
Speaker 1: them tax cuts.
3:44
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah, of course he does.
3:46
Speaker 1: And when Kristen Welker at NBC asked Trump about the
3:48
Speaker 1: 25% auto tariffs that are scheduled to go into effect
3:51
Speaker 1: this week, he said he, quote, Couldn't care less if
3:55
Speaker 1: car companies raised their prices. Couldn't care less, was the quote.
4:00
Speaker 1: Sure enough, the S & P ended March with its
4:02
Speaker 1: steepest monthly decline since the Fed raised rates in December
4:06
Speaker 1: of 2022, and the worst quarter at the start of
4:09
Speaker 1: a president's term since the financial crisis in 2009. Not
4:13
Speaker 1: good moments, either of those. What do you guys think?
4:17
Speaker 1: How's America's golden age looking right now?
4:20
Speaker 3: So the only way I can make sense of what
4:21
Speaker 3: Trump is doing... with tariffs as a policy matter is
4:25
Speaker 3: it's got to be part of a negotiating strategy where
4:27
Speaker 3: he's just trying to convince these other countries that he's
4:29
Speaker 3: so crazy that he's going to tank the global economy
4:31
Speaker 3: so they come to the table and cut a deal.
4:33
Speaker 3: Because the stated rationale for all these tariffs are self-evidently ridiculous,
4:37
Speaker 3: like cutting off fentanyl flows from Canada, right? It doesn't
4:39
Speaker 3: make any sense. And that's because tariffs are a tool.
4:43
Speaker 3: They're not a strategy. They're designed to protect existing industry's
4:46
Speaker 3: against unfair trade practices by other countries like China dumping
4:49
Speaker 3: a bunch of steel or aluminum into the U.S. market.
4:52
Speaker 3: But they're not designed to grow a U.S. industry on
4:54
Speaker 3: its own like the CHIPS Act was, which Trump says
4:57
Speaker 3: he wants to get rid of. And so even like
4:59
Speaker 3: in the most charitable scenario where Trump tariffs the auto industry,
5:04
Speaker 3: so Mexico, it becomes more expensive to create, assemble vehicles
5:09
Speaker 3: in Mexico. So GM and Ford rev up some plants here.
5:11
Speaker 3: That's going to increase prices for everybody. And I know
5:14
Speaker 3: Trump doesn't care. But the companies can't eat that hit.
5:18
Speaker 3: So labor costs are much higher in the U.S. than
5:20
Speaker 3: in Mexico. So it's going to raise prices for everyone.
5:22
Speaker 3: So just like none of it makes sense. You know,
5:24
Speaker 3: it's like tariffs, when used effectively, they're targeted. But we're
5:28
Speaker 3: talking about a broad-based 20% to 25% tariff on every
5:33
Speaker 3: country maybe. And if China is the real threat and
5:35
Speaker 3: the real problem, why are we starting by tariffing the
5:38
Speaker 3: EU and Canada and Mexico and all the allies that
5:41
Speaker 3: we actually need?
5:43
Speaker 1: Or all the countries, as he sort of hinted at.
5:45
Speaker 4: Right.
5:46
Speaker 2: They can be reciprocal tariffs if it's tariffs on the
5:49
Speaker 2: whole world. The other fundamental problem is the more money
5:54
Speaker 2: your tariffs are raising, the less your tariffs are working
5:58
Speaker 2: to produce the result that you claim they're going to produce.
6:00
Speaker 2: If putting tariffs on the world leads to a boom,
6:05
Speaker 2: a manufacturing boom domestically, then the revenue coming from those
6:08
Speaker 2: tariffs should slowly tick down. If tariffs really are raising
6:12
Speaker 2: $ 600 billion a year consistently, it means we are still
6:16
Speaker 2: importing huge amounts of goods. The other part of this
6:20
Speaker 2: that's confusing is on the one hand, you have Navarro
6:24
Speaker 2: out there saying this is going to raise vast sums
6:27
Speaker 2: of money, the greatest tax increase in history, which would
6:30
Speaker 2: be extremely disruptive to the economy. And then today you
6:34
Speaker 2: watch as the markets kind of flit around, but still
6:38
Speaker 2: are behaving as if this is sort of an idle threat.
6:40
Speaker 2: Like they're not, you know, we're not seeing the kind
6:42
Speaker 2: of like chaos in the markets you would expect if
6:45
Speaker 2: we thought we were going to see the biggest tax
6:48
Speaker 2: increase in history and some of the greatest disruption to
6:53
Speaker 2: trade that we've ever seen?
6:55
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the markets are pretty... The
6:58
Speaker 1: fact that we had the steepest decline in a couple
7:00
Speaker 1: of years in just one month of the first term,
7:03
Speaker 1: and it's like entirely self-inflicted.
7:04
Speaker 3: I think.
7:05
Speaker 1: I think that obviously there's some uncertainty on what's actually
7:08
Speaker 1: going to happen here. But I think most of the
7:11
Speaker 1: economic indicators and most of the people, like everyone's raising
7:14
Speaker 1: the recession risks.
7:16
Speaker 2: I'm not saying the signs are good. I'm not saying
7:17
Speaker 2: the signs are good. But like the Dow is still
7:19
Speaker 2: up year on year. The S & P is still
7:21
Speaker 2: up year on year. NASDAQ is still up year on year.
7:23
Speaker 2: Like everybody is still behaving as though Trump is going
7:26
Speaker 2: to do these kind of chaotic tariffs. He turns off,
7:29
Speaker 2: turns on, he turns off. No one is behaving. The
7:32
Speaker 2: markets aren't behaving as if what we're about to see
7:34
Speaker 2: It's like a fundamental shift in U.S. economic policy that's
7:37
Speaker 2: going to last.
7:38
Speaker 3: I think what the markets think is that what will
7:40
Speaker 3: happen this time is what will happen last time, which
7:42
Speaker 3: is Trump will threaten this universal tariff and then he'll
7:44
Speaker 3: delay it. And then an army of lobbyists will storm
7:47
Speaker 3: into the White House and they'll carve out special deals
7:49
Speaker 3: for big companies like Apple or GM or whichever foreign
7:53
Speaker 3: leader buys enough Trump coin will get an exception. Half
7:56
Speaker 3: kidding there. And so I also think that these countries
8:00
Speaker 3: that like cut a deal with Trump, they know that
8:03
Speaker 3: Trump only cares about the day one headline. Like the
8:05
Speaker 3: Chinese in the first term said they were going to
8:07
Speaker 3: buy billions and billions of dollars of American exports. And
8:11
Speaker 3: Trump trumpeted that and took a huge win. And then
8:13
Speaker 3: they bought none. They bought zero additional exports. They just
8:17
Speaker 3: didn't care. So you can give Trump the win on
8:20
Speaker 3: the negotiation and then win for real in the implementation.
8:24
Speaker 1: He also said over the weekend that someone's like, are
8:27
Speaker 1: you going to lift them at some point if something happens?
8:29
Speaker 1: He's like, no, these are permanent now. I have been
8:31
Speaker 1: trying to envision a scenario where this trade war doesn't
8:33
Speaker 1: ultimately inflict real political damage on Trump and the Republicans.
8:37
Speaker 1: I am coming up short. I think that there have
8:40
Speaker 1: been certainly many times in the first term, and even
8:43
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this one, where he has gone forward,
8:46
Speaker 1: backed off, delayed, backed off. But like, I think that
8:50
Speaker 1: it is, I don't, I think that he believes that,
8:55
Speaker 1: and his advisors believe, some of his advisors, at least
8:58
Speaker 1: most of them, that they are sort of restoring economic
9:02
Speaker 1: nationalism to America. And they're going to remake, I saw
9:05
Speaker 1: somewhere that he thinks he's going to remake the global economy,
9:08
Speaker 1: not just for years or decades, but maybe centuries.
9:11
Speaker 2: Centuries.
9:12
Speaker 3: Centuries.
9:13
Speaker 1: That's what they said this morning.
9:14
Speaker 2: I love a century. I love a time horizon on
9:16
Speaker 2: Trump that's centuries.
9:17
Speaker 1: And so I do feel like it's more of an
9:20
Speaker 1: ideological project, a crazy one, but an ideological project than
9:24
Speaker 1: I had originally assumed, just based on What Navarro is saying,
9:29
Speaker 1: what Trump's been saying, what Vance has been saying and
9:31
Speaker 1: Bannon and all the and all the big economic nationalists.
9:34
Speaker 1: I think it's fucking crazy. And I think they're going
9:35
Speaker 1: to find out like pretty quickly that it is very damaging.
9:39
Speaker 1: But I don't know what you guys think.
9:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's some there's another school of thought
9:42
Speaker 3: that some economists think that the Trump plan is to,
9:45
Speaker 3: long story short, like weaken the American dollar by cutting
9:48
Speaker 3: a bunch of deals with other countries and forcing them
9:50
Speaker 3: to stop currency manipulation to make it cheaper to export
9:54
Speaker 3: American goods and thus resuscitate American manufacturing. That too sounds
9:59
Speaker 3: a little far-fetched. to me.
10:00
Speaker 2: You also have, Politico was reporting this, that Republican House members,
10:04
Speaker 2: industry groups are scrambling right now for exemptions, like to
10:08
Speaker 2: the point Tommy made earlier, that they are desperately trying
10:10
Speaker 2: to exempt. Farmers are already being hit hard by the
10:13
Speaker 2: impact of tariffs, that there are tons of industries in
10:17
Speaker 2: Republican districts that these Congress people are worried are going
10:20
Speaker 2: to be adversely affected. They're industry groups desperately trying to
10:22
Speaker 2: figure out how to lobby. And so now, look, maybe
10:25
Speaker 2: they are doing some grand ideological realignment. But one way
10:29
Speaker 2: to make sure you are in control, able to do
10:33
Speaker 2: the kind of corruption you want to do where companies
10:36
Speaker 2: and Republicans have to come and pledge fealty to you
10:40
Speaker 2: is by being deadly serious right now while So you
10:43
Speaker 2: can then claim you've put on these big tariffs while
10:45
Speaker 2: there's tons and tons of holes cut into them for
10:48
Speaker 2: which you've gotten God knows what concessions, promises, etc.
10:52
Speaker 3: It is just worth quickly pointing out that there's no
10:54
Speaker 3: legal authority to do this. Trump is claiming he's going
10:57
Speaker 3: to do it. Some of his team is suggesting they're
10:59
Speaker 3: going to use a law called AIPA, which allows the
11:02
Speaker 3: president to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency overseas.
11:07
Speaker 3: So we're going to declare there's a national emergency in
11:09
Speaker 3: every single country, and therefore we're slapping a 20% tariff.
11:12
Speaker 3: It is. It's nonsensical.
11:13
Speaker 1: The legal basis for many of his foreign policy decisions.
11:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:17
Speaker 1: Quite fragile.
11:18
Speaker 3: Not there. There was a great story in the journal
11:19
Speaker 3: about Harley Davidson and tariffs. Harley Davidson, great American company.
11:23
Speaker 3: They could face a 50% retaliatory tariff on selling Harleys abroad.
11:28
Speaker 3: So they did the math on a Harley Davidson sale
11:30
Speaker 3: in Denmark. It would go from $ 28, 000 to purchase here
11:32
Speaker 3: in the United States. to $ 124, 000 all in with all
11:37
Speaker 3: the VAT tax and everything else over there. So it's
11:39
Speaker 3: just going to decimate Harley-Davidson. And they dealt with this
11:41
Speaker 3: in the first Trump term. And in response, they actually
11:44
Speaker 3: moved some production from the US to Thailand. So there's
11:47
Speaker 3: like effects you cannot anticipate.
11:49
Speaker 1: They're not going to be good. I was going to say,
11:50
Speaker 1: not only are prices going to go up and he
11:53
Speaker 1: doesn't care about that, but the stated goal of the
11:55
Speaker 1: tariffs to bring back production and manufacturing in the United
11:58
Speaker 1: States isn't going to work on a whole host of
12:01
Speaker 1: industries because it's just, it's not the way the world
12:04
Speaker 1: works anymore. It's like, it's just, it's cheaper to move
12:07
Speaker 1: stuff overseas.
12:07
Speaker 2: And just even on its own terms, like look at cars, right?
12:12
Speaker 2: Navarro's out there saying it's going to generate a hundred
12:14
Speaker 2: billion dollars. Let's say it's, there's 8 million cars imported
12:18
Speaker 2: that were sold, right? That's over $ 10, 000 per car. There's
12:22
Speaker 2: not some immediate increase in the supply of American-made cars
12:26
Speaker 2: to make up for the more expensive cars that would
12:29
Speaker 2: be coming from abroad. The cost of all of these
12:31
Speaker 2: cars goes up. The cost of everything goes up.
12:34
Speaker 1: And for the American car companies, the cost of the
12:36
Speaker 1: materials to make the car is going to go up
12:37
Speaker 1: because they rely on materials from overseas.
12:40
Speaker 3: And these materials cross the border like three, four, five times.
12:42
Speaker 3: Are we going to tariff them every single time?
12:44
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of people make the argument that
12:47
Speaker 1: the Trump tax bill that we're going to be debating
12:50
Speaker 1: soon is going to be like when Bush tried to
12:52
Speaker 1: privatize Social Security in 2005. I actually think that Trump's
12:56
Speaker 1: tariffs could end up being the more apt comparison here
12:58
Speaker 1: because he's just sending out a lot of signs that
13:02
Speaker 1: He doesn't really give a shit about the prices.
13:04
Speaker 3: He, you know, there was- He never really said as much.
13:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly. And, you know, there was this thing
13:10
Speaker 1: that like, maybe the stock market, he cares so much
13:12
Speaker 1: about the stock market and like, that'll be, you know,
13:15
Speaker 1: I kind of bought into that too. It doesn't seem
13:17
Speaker 1: like that he cares about that either.
13:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's only been a 10% correction. I mean, like,
13:22
Speaker 3: we haven't felt real pain in the stock market yet.
13:24
Speaker 2: That's, like, there's, but I think the bigger, the thing
13:26
Speaker 2: he cares about more than that, right? Like, if you
13:28
Speaker 2: watch Fox right now, they're like, Donald Trump's approval rating
13:31
Speaker 2: has never been higher because it touched like 49, right?
13:35
Speaker 2: And while his approval on the economy has gone down,
13:37
Speaker 2: his approval on immigration has never been higher. And you
13:39
Speaker 2: watch his immigration number. He is at the lowest he's
13:41
Speaker 2: ever been on economic approval since he's been president. His
13:44
Speaker 2: approval on handling inflation is going down. These are Fox polls.
13:47
Speaker 2: Those are numbers he does care about, and those are
13:49
Speaker 2: ticking down and down and down.
13:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Fox poll said that 53% of people said
13:53
Speaker 1: that tariffs will hurt the economy versus help the economy
13:56
Speaker 1: at only 28%. 69% accurately say it'll make products more expensive.
14:01
Speaker 1: So it's not like people don't understand tariffs or don't
14:03
Speaker 1: get what's going to happen here.
14:04
Speaker 3: They're pretty sophisticated in these answers.
14:05
Speaker 1: Very sophisticated. And the new AP poll in the economy
14:08
Speaker 1: does have them at 40-58 on the economy and trade
14:13
Speaker 1: even lower at 38-60. And his approval is sitting at 42.
14:16
Speaker 1: There's also now talk about stagflation, which he was asked about,
14:20
Speaker 1: which is when you have both inflation and weak economic growth.
14:25
Speaker 3: Seems bad.
14:25
Speaker 1: And high unemployment.
14:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.
14:27
Speaker 1: Ask Jimmy Carter.
14:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
14:29
Speaker 1: How that went for him.
14:30
Speaker 3: Can't ask him anymore. But we can try.
14:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
14:33
Speaker 3: I agree with you though. I mean, I do think
14:35
Speaker 3: the big caveat is always like if implemented as currently described,
14:39
Speaker 3: I think these tariffs would be disastrous. And we're already
14:43
Speaker 3: seeing polls where you have people saying Trump is too
14:46
Speaker 3: focused on tariffs. Only 23% of people think Trump's policies
14:50
Speaker 3: are making them feel better off financially in the CBS poll.
14:53
Speaker 3: And to the point on the stock market, like there's
14:55
Speaker 3: been a 10% correction so far, which basically means like
14:57
Speaker 3: the stock market has given up the gains it had
15:00
Speaker 3: from election day until now. But if these tariffs really
15:03
Speaker 3: go into place as described, that could lead to another 10%, 20%, 30%,
15:09
Speaker 3: like a serious hit to the stock market. And that's
15:11
Speaker 3: when all of his donors are going to be calling
15:13
Speaker 3: him and be like, what the fuck are you doing?
15:14
Speaker 3: This is not what we bought you for.
15:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.
15:17
Speaker 1: And also like Stock market aside, just if economic indicators
15:20
Speaker 1: outside the stock market keep getting worse, then it's just
15:22
Speaker 1: going to be bad for everyone and its popularity. Pod
15:34
Speaker 1: Save America is brought to you by Article. We get
15:36
Speaker 1: some Article furniture.
15:37
Speaker 3: Sure do.
15:38
Speaker 1: We've had it in the office for a while. I
15:40
Speaker 1: have some patio furniture at home. It looks great. It's
15:44
Speaker 1: really affordable. It arrives quickly. Article allows you to effortlessly
15:48
Speaker 1: create a long-lasting, stylish home at an unbeatable price. Their
15:52
Speaker 1: curated collection of mid-century modern, coastal, and Scandi-inspired pieces can
15:57
Speaker 1: stand alone or be combined with nearly any other Article product.
16:01
Speaker 1: This thoughtful design approach makes mixing and matching incredibly easy,
16:03
Speaker 1: helping you create a cohesive and stylish space. Article offers fast,
16:07
Speaker 1: affordable shipping across the U.S. and Canada with options for
16:10
Speaker 1: professional assembly if you prefer a hands-off experience. If you
16:14
Speaker 1: have a question or need help with your design choices,
16:16
Speaker 1: Article's customer care team is available seven days a week,
16:18
Speaker 1: offering knowledgeable support and even free interior design services to
16:22
Speaker 1: help you get your home just right. With Article's 30-day
16:25
Speaker 1: satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence knowing that if
16:27
Speaker 1: you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you
16:30
Speaker 1: can easily return it. This peace of mind ensures you
16:32
Speaker 1: can invest in your home without hesitation. Article's offering our
16:35
Speaker 1: listeners $ 50 off your first purchase of $ 100 or more.
16:38
Speaker 1: To claim, visit article.com slash crooked and the discount will
16:41
Speaker 1: be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash crooked for
16:45
Speaker 1: $ 50 off your first purchase of $ 100 or more. Let's
16:51
Speaker 1: talk about the other news Trump made on Sunday that
16:53
Speaker 1: I referenced at the top of the show in his
16:55
Speaker 1: call with Kristen Welker, which sadly there is no audio of.
16:58
Speaker 1: Trump apparently said he was, quote, not joking about serving
17:01
Speaker 1: a potential third term. When asked why he wanted to
17:03
Speaker 1: do that, Trump said, quote, I like working.
17:07
Speaker 5: Yeah.
17:08
Speaker 1: He also talked about this in that press avail on
17:10
Speaker 1: the plane. Let's listen.
17:18
Speaker 5: To leave office on January 20th.
17:19
Speaker 4: I'm not looking at that, but I'll tell you, I
17:21
Speaker 4: have had more people ask me to have a third term,
17:25
Speaker 4: which is in a way a fourth term because the
17:27
Speaker 4: other election, the 2020 election was totally rigged. I don't
17:30
Speaker 4: even want to talk about it. I'm just telling you,
17:33
Speaker 4: I have had more people say, please run again.
17:36
Speaker 2: They said, we have a long way to go before.
17:39
Speaker 1: We even think about that. Please, please, sir, run again.
17:42
Speaker 1: More tariffs and run again. Here's the 22nd Amendment, quote,
17:45
Speaker 1: Trump fans are pointing out that the amendment only refers
17:47
Speaker 1: to being, quote, Welker also said she floated to Trump
17:56
Speaker 1: the idea, like, why did she do this? But she
17:58
Speaker 1: floated to Trump the idea of J.D. Vance running with
18:02
Speaker 1: Trump as his running mate, winning and then passing the
18:06
Speaker 1: baton off to Trump, like a little Putin medvedev.
18:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's really cool. Let's definitely emulate that.
18:11
Speaker 1: Trump said that that was one method. He acknowledged that
18:13
Speaker 1: was one method, quote, but there are others too, which
18:16
Speaker 1: he then refused to elaborate on. I should note here
18:18
Speaker 1: that the 12th Amendment states that, quote, no person constitutionally
18:22
Speaker 1: ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to
18:26
Speaker 1: that of vice president of the United States. So the
18:28
Speaker 1: whole swap thing doesn't seem like it would fly with
18:31
Speaker 1: the 12th Amendment either. But I think it.
18:33
Speaker 2: Does fly with the 12th Amendment because he is eligible
18:35
Speaker 2: as long as he's not elected. If he's not, that
18:38
Speaker 2: he can become president.
18:39
Speaker 1: I think it's just you and Larry Tribe think that.
18:42
Speaker 2: I just think we should assume. The two greatest legal minds.
18:46
Speaker 1: We've been down this road before, I believe.
18:50
Speaker 2: Last time we were on the opposite side of the
18:51
Speaker 2: issue and I won in front of the Supreme Court.
18:53
Speaker 2: Larry Tribe, zero. Love at one.
18:55
Speaker 1: Are we taking Trump seriously and literally on this one?
18:58
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think, like, I think Trump is, first of all,
19:01
Speaker 2: I think he's having fun with this.
19:02
Speaker 3: He's enjoying this, right?
19:05
Speaker 2: You know, the idea that we're in a place where
19:06
Speaker 2: Trump is so resoundingly popular that the country is clamoring
19:10
Speaker 2: for yet another turn is, of course, ridiculous and exists
19:13
Speaker 2: only in his mind. For what it would take for
19:15
Speaker 2: Donald Trump to become president a third time is a
19:18
Speaker 2: kind of Medvedev as president, Putin as prime minister, and
19:23
Speaker 2: an actual campaign in which Republicans are fully admitting that
19:27
Speaker 2: they are just vassals for a Trump dictatorship or some
19:30
Speaker 2: other ridiculous scheme in which he has made Speaker of
19:33
Speaker 2: the House or some other cockamamie shit in which the
19:35
Speaker 2: whole Republican Party is now completely given over to the
19:38
Speaker 2: idea that Donald Trump is a dictator. But we don't
19:42
Speaker 2: really need to worry yet about the possibility that Trump
19:46
Speaker 2: is going to behave like a dictator three years from
19:48
Speaker 2: now because he's behaving like a dictator right now. We
19:51
Speaker 2: probably should focus on that. And our job is to
19:54
Speaker 2: make Trump so completely unpopular and unpalatable to the American
19:57
Speaker 2: people that this becomes a joke.
19:59
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:59
Speaker 3: We need him to have a Katrina level approval ratings.
20:02
Speaker 5: Yeah.
20:02
Speaker 3: I think these things start as outrage bait. It's just
20:04
Speaker 3: like chum for media attention. It's chum to get MSNBC
20:08
Speaker 3: fired up like Steve Bannon being intimately involved in this,
20:11
Speaker 3: I think is a real clue. But over time, I
20:14
Speaker 3: do think the outrage bait evolves into something real in
20:16
Speaker 3: a lot of cases like Greenland invading Greenland, for.
20:19
Speaker 2: Example, overturning the election.
20:20
Speaker 4: Yeah.
20:21
Speaker 3: And once Democrats get really worked up about literally anything,
20:25
Speaker 3: negative polarization can take over and Republicans in Congress, for example,
20:29
Speaker 3: decide that politically they would rather be opposed to what
20:32
Speaker 3: the annoying Democrats say than in favor of what the
20:34
Speaker 3: Constitution says. And so I do think there's like a
20:37
Speaker 3: real risk here. And there's it's part of a very
20:39
Speaker 3: rapid authoritarian slide. But I agree. Like, I just don't
20:42
Speaker 3: want to take the bait on it. I don't think
20:43
Speaker 3: we need to have members of Congress putting forward bills
20:46
Speaker 3: to focus on it. Like, focus on it here now.
20:49
Speaker 3: Those bills aren't going to go anywhere anyway.
20:50
Speaker 4: Right.
20:51
Speaker 1: I mean, just so people know, like how this would
20:54
Speaker 1: work if it happened. Right. Is he would try to
20:57
Speaker 1: seek his party's nomination.
20:58
Speaker 3: Right.
20:59
Speaker 1: Which the party probably would just let happen.
21:02
Speaker 3: Maybe.
21:02
Speaker 1: Let's say the Republican Party doesn't stop him there. He
21:04
Speaker 1: eventually would need to get his name on the ballots
21:06
Speaker 1: in all the different states, and certainly the blue states
21:10
Speaker 1: wouldn't put him on the ballot, so then it would
21:11
Speaker 1: go to the Supreme Court, and then we'd hear what
21:13
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said, and then the Supreme Court would
21:15
Speaker 1: either be like, obviously this is fucking crazy, you can't
21:18
Speaker 1: do it, or they would do what sometimes they've done
21:21
Speaker 1: in the past and surprise us all and say, go
21:23
Speaker 1: for it, right? But if they tell him no, and then...
21:28
Speaker 1: We're getting to the point where he clearly does not
21:30
Speaker 1: give a fuck about the judiciary, right? They are testing
21:33
Speaker 1: this out, as you said, like we don't have to
21:34
Speaker 1: think about this four years from now. They're testing it
21:36
Speaker 1: out right now. And they're going to, they're testing it
21:39
Speaker 1: out with birthright citizenship, which they'll get a ruling on, right?
21:41
Speaker 1: Like there's going to be a whole bunch of things
21:42
Speaker 1: like this. But yeah, I mean, I forget which one
21:45
Speaker 1: of you said it, but one scenario is he just
21:48
Speaker 1: doesn't leave office, which is basically the scenario he tried
21:51
Speaker 1: last time.
21:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw that one.
21:52
Speaker 4: Yeah.
21:52
Speaker 1: So we don't have to think about a campaign or
21:54
Speaker 1: handing off to JD Vance. You could imagine a scenario
21:56
Speaker 1: where he either says, I'm not leaving office and I'm
21:58
Speaker 1: staying or there's an election between JD Vance and some
22:01
Speaker 1: Democrat and it's close enough and it's like a 2020 situation.
22:04
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, well, while we do a recount
22:06
Speaker 1: and while we fix this out, I'm just going to
22:07
Speaker 1: stay in power for a little while. And then it
22:09
Speaker 1: just goes and goes and goes and goes. So yeah,
22:10
Speaker 1: I think everyone should like be, I don't think we
22:13
Speaker 1: should like laugh about it.
22:14
Speaker 4: Right.
22:15
Speaker 1: But I do think we should be like, fuck you.
22:16
Speaker 1: You're not doing this. It's it's.
22:18
Speaker 4: Yeah.
22:18
Speaker 2: I just think he would do it. He would love
22:20
Speaker 2: to do it. I think he would do a fucking
22:22
Speaker 2: make JD Vance, his little puppet. That's a fun way for,
22:24
Speaker 2: there's a lot of methods that look, you don't believe
22:27
Speaker 2: in the constitution. We should also say like, It is a, like,
22:31
Speaker 2: we're so used to this now. Saying this is disqualifying.
22:34
Speaker 2: It's despicable. The clear intent of the 22nd Amendment is
22:37
Speaker 2: that he should not be able to seek a third turn.
22:39
Speaker 2: The language is not, like, the language leaves, like, a
22:43
Speaker 2: loophole for him to seek the office in some ridiculous
22:46
Speaker 2: roundabout way. But there's lots of ways that if you just,
22:49
Speaker 2: you know, if you don't believe in the Constitution, don't
22:51
Speaker 2: care about its precepts, there's all kinds of workarounds, including
22:53
Speaker 2: with the pardon power that he uses every fucking day lately.
22:56
Speaker 2: So this is a vaguely, this is like on the
23:00
Speaker 2: verge of an impeachable offense to claim you're going to
23:02
Speaker 2: kind of not leave office. But it's not our job
23:05
Speaker 2: to kind of, you know, let's leave it at that.
23:08
Speaker 3: Obama should run.
23:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be fun.
23:09
Speaker 3: We should mop the floor with this piece of shit.
23:12
Speaker 3: So he would run it back, sir.
23:14
Speaker 1: Right before we recorded, Trump was doing an avail in
23:16
Speaker 1: the Oval Office again for another one of fucking executive order.
23:18
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was. Kid Rock was there.
23:20
Speaker 1: He was asked about the Obama thing because Mike Lawler.
23:23
Speaker 1: A Republican from New York was asked about Trump running
23:26
Speaker 1: again on CNN. And instead of just saying, no, of
23:29
Speaker 1: course not. That's crazy. He was like, well, we wouldn't
23:32
Speaker 1: want Obama to run for a third term, would we?
23:35
Speaker 1: So that was so then Trump was asked about it.
23:36
Speaker 1: He said, I'd love it. But I think if he's
23:39
Speaker 1: going to try to, you know, bait us and make
23:42
Speaker 1: us freak out and have some fun with it, we
23:44
Speaker 1: should have some fun with it every time we're like.
23:46
Speaker 1: Number one, we should just say, yes, Obama's going to
23:47
Speaker 1: run and mop the floor with him. We should also,
23:50
Speaker 1: reporters should be asking J.D. Vance about this, because if
23:52
Speaker 1: I was J.D. Vance, I'd be pretty pissed.
23:54
Speaker 5: Yeah.
23:55
Speaker 4: Right?
23:55
Speaker 1: Like, there was a story today that J.D. Vance is
23:57
Speaker 1: doing his first fundraiser tonight by himself, and he's getting
23:59
Speaker 1: this network of donors getting ready for 2028. So cute. Yeah,
24:03
Speaker 1: I would ask J.D. Vance. Even better, if J.D. Vance
24:05
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump are ever together and do a joint interview,
24:08
Speaker 1: I would ask them together so that J.D. Vance could
24:10
Speaker 1: be really sad when Donald Trump is like, I don't know.
24:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm going to do it. Like,
24:14
Speaker 1: there's so much we can do with this. There's got
24:16
Speaker 1: to be a little bit of... Yes, we don't freak out,
24:19
Speaker 1: but we also don't say, like, oh, we can't talk
24:21
Speaker 1: about it. Like, fuck them. No, you're not going to
24:24
Speaker 1: run again, you asshole.
24:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the mere act of asking him about
24:27
Speaker 3: it suggests we're taking it seriously, and their response will be, like,
24:31
Speaker 3: chill out, libs.
24:32
Speaker 1: But, yeah, I'm with you.
24:34
Speaker 3: Mock him back.
24:35
Speaker 1: You chill out when Barack Obama is the nominee against him.
24:38
Speaker 2: I do like thinking about the scenario where, like, J.D.
24:40
Speaker 2: Vance has just won and been elected president of the
24:42
Speaker 2: United States, and it's now, like, kind of the deal
24:45
Speaker 2: is that he's supposed to resign.
24:48
Speaker 5: Right.
24:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.
24:49
Speaker 3: Good luck. And like, yeah.
24:51
Speaker 2: What are we talking about here?
24:52
Speaker 1: He's like, no, no. My loyalty is to the guy
24:54
Speaker 1: that I once called Hitler. That's no, I'm sorry, sir.
24:57
Speaker 1: I got to I got to I got to stay
24:59
Speaker 1: here and go be, you know, take go take over Greenland.
25:02
Speaker 2: And presumably, unlike some of the reporting we've seen, unlike Biden,
25:04
Speaker 2: Trump believes his vice president's actually up for it.
25:07
Speaker 3: Well.
25:08
Speaker 1: He was asked, is he the heir apparent? Remember, like
25:10
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, a month ago?
25:12
Speaker 2: He was like, a lot of heirs, a lot of heirs.
25:14
Speaker 2: He could be, couldn't be.
25:16
Speaker 1: So maybe more like Biden than we think. So as
25:18
Speaker 1: we were saying, Trump's already in his dictator era. One
25:21
Speaker 1: sign of that is the administration is seeking to dictate
25:24
Speaker 1: which media outlets get to cover the president and how.
25:27
Speaker 1: On Sunday, Axios' Mike Allen wrote that the White House
25:29
Speaker 1: plans to hijack the White House briefing room seating chart
25:32
Speaker 1: from the White House Correspondents Association in the coming weeks.
25:34
Speaker 1: Back in February, of course, they took control of the
25:36
Speaker 1: press pool. another historical prerogative of the Correspondents Association. And separately,
25:41
Speaker 1: they barred the AP from the pool and from covering
25:44
Speaker 1: White House events, which the AP is now in court over.
25:47
Speaker 1: Seating chart, big deal, not a big deal. Tommy, what
25:49
Speaker 1: do you think?
25:50
Speaker 3: Much like a wedding, it matters. It sounds silly. We're
25:54
Speaker 3: literally talking about where reporters sit in the White House
25:55
Speaker 3: briefing room, which sounds silly, but it matters for a
25:57
Speaker 3: couple of reasons because the seating is supposed to reflect
26:01
Speaker 3: a pecking order in terms of which outlets get to
26:03
Speaker 3: ask questions and when. It's traditionally it has gone. The
26:06
Speaker 3: Associated Press, major TV networks, other wire services up in
26:11
Speaker 3: the front two rows, followed by big newspapers and so on.
26:13
Speaker 3: Press secretary gets to jump around, but like that's how
26:15
Speaker 3: it's supposed to go. So the most influential outlets that
26:17
Speaker 3: are the most serious traditionally get to ask the question.
26:21
Speaker 3: The Trump people want like Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend whose
26:24
Speaker 3: name I can never remember. There's a bunch of them,
26:26
Speaker 3: I bet.
26:27
Speaker 1: They're all Marjorie Taylor Greene's.
26:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, they want to stack the briefing room full of
26:31
Speaker 3: right wing propaganda sycophants. And make sure that more of
26:35
Speaker 3: the briefing room is eaten up by sycophantic questions. And
26:40
Speaker 3: that like lets them get off, you know, get out
26:43
Speaker 3: of the briefing without making a mistake, but also lets
26:45
Speaker 3: them own the media. And I do think like the
26:47
Speaker 3: things you mentioned at the top, the bigger picture is
26:50
Speaker 3: they just want to control the press. And when you
26:52
Speaker 3: combine this step with kicking the AP out of the
26:55
Speaker 3: pooled press rotation, which for folks who don't know, the
26:58
Speaker 3: press pool is the group of reporters who go with
27:00
Speaker 3: the president into smaller venues or rooms into the Oval Office, etc.,
27:04
Speaker 3: And then the White House dictating which non-wire service news
27:08
Speaker 3: outlets rotate as part of the print pool. So instead
27:12
Speaker 3: of the Washington Post, you have some right-wing YouTuber shouting
27:16
Speaker 3: questions at Trump. That really matters. It's a significant erosion
27:19
Speaker 3: of press freedom. And I will say at the same time,
27:22
Speaker 3: Trump is taking way more questions from the press than
27:25
Speaker 3: Biden did or past president to ask. So I don't
27:27
Speaker 3: want to sound hyperbolic here, but the press core writ
27:31
Speaker 3: large is dealing with industry disruption and and a collective
27:34
Speaker 3: action problem that we're seeing everywhere else. And they just
27:37
Speaker 3: do not know how to fight back. They're fighting back
27:38
Speaker 3: by like wearing a pin and they're doing it individually.
27:42
Speaker 1: Canceling Amber Ruffin. Canceling the comedian at the correspondence center.
27:46
Speaker 2: Fascism is rising.
27:47
Speaker 3: No jokes.
27:47
Speaker 2: But the, the, the, like the, like the one impact
27:50
Speaker 2: of this is, you know, we're used to like, sometimes
27:54
Speaker 2: the questions are funny. There are famous, like, you know,
27:56
Speaker 2: reporters shouting questions like, what about your gaps? But like,
27:59
Speaker 2: when questions were shouted at the president, they would be
28:03
Speaker 2: substantive questions about, and now some of the questions coming
28:06
Speaker 2: from these people, they're like, how long have you been
28:09
Speaker 2: this handsome? What are we gonna do to stop these
28:11
Speaker 2: liberals from stopping you from protecting our citizens from immigrants?
28:14
Speaker 3: Zelensky, why aren't you wearing a suit?
28:15
Speaker 2: Right, Zelensky, why aren't you wearing a suit?
28:17
Speaker 1: And you still get, at least at this stage, you're
28:20
Speaker 1: still getting some tough questions here and there. But you
28:23
Speaker 1: can already tell that the balance between the softballs and
28:26
Speaker 1: the ridiculous ones and the tough questions is way off
28:29
Speaker 1: at this point.
28:30
Speaker 2: And the question, right, is who owns that briefing room?
28:33
Speaker 2: Who owns that space? And Trump wants to control it.
28:36
Speaker 2: He wants to own, it's what he's doing with Doge.
28:39
Speaker 2: It's what he's doing to colleges, what he's doing to
28:41
Speaker 2: law firms. He's exerting control. And it starts with seating
28:44
Speaker 2: charts and who fucking cares about seating charts? But it
28:46
Speaker 2: ultimately ends with like, you know, you see, you know,
28:49
Speaker 2: AP is having to fight to get their way back in.
28:52
Speaker 2: You slowly but surely have fewer and fewer major outlets
28:55
Speaker 2: with access and with regular frequent ability to ask questions
28:58
Speaker 2: of the White House, of the press secretary, the president.
29:00
Speaker 2: And then now that briefing room is just another kind
29:05
Speaker 2: of another place controlled by Donald Trump.
29:07
Speaker 3: I think what about your gas was a great question.
29:09
Speaker 1: I agree.
29:09
Speaker 3: Shut up, Ashley Parker.
29:11
Speaker 1: Next thing you know, we're going to have like NBC
29:14
Speaker 1: and CNN sitting in Greenland asking questions.
29:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, just fully kicked out of the White House complex.
29:18
Speaker 1: Did you guys see, by the way, did you catch J.D.
29:20
Speaker 1: Vance's speech in Greenland?
29:22
Speaker 2: I saw the photo of him standing sadly in front
29:25
Speaker 2: of a group of people that have to be there
29:26
Speaker 2: because it's an order.
29:28
Speaker 1: And he was sort of, he had like a little
29:31
Speaker 1: Zelensky outfit on kind of.
29:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, he did.
29:33
Speaker 1: But the creepiest thing that he said, because someone someone
29:36
Speaker 1: asked him a question like what what are you doing
29:39
Speaker 1: saying that we're gonna you're gonna take over greenland like
29:41
Speaker 1: what's going on and he goes we can't just ignore
29:43
Speaker 1: the president's desires it's real uh real fascism also just
29:48
Speaker 1: like creepy and weird we can't ignore the president's desires
29:52
Speaker 1: that's why we're in greenland today talking about taking it over.
29:55
Speaker 2: It's really strange, right? It's, it's what he's saying, right?
29:57
Speaker 2: Is that like, I am a representative of the president.
29:59
Speaker 2: This is the policy of the president. I'm not going
30:01
Speaker 2: to ignore that, but it's this deep, the, the, the
30:05
Speaker 2: way in which it's all revolves around Donald Trump's psychology.
30:08
Speaker 3: Also, the trip started as Usha Vance going, doing a
30:11
Speaker 3: bunch of cultural stops and it evolved to JD Vance,
30:14
Speaker 3: like big footing the trip. And then they never left
30:16
Speaker 3: the U S military base. Cause everyone hates them.
30:18
Speaker 4: Yeah.
30:19
Speaker 1: They couldn't, they couldn't find a person who wanted to
30:20
Speaker 1: talk to Usha Vance.
30:21
Speaker 2: Did you see, uh, did you see JD Vance with
30:23
Speaker 2: his tray? getting a meal with the service members there.
30:28
Speaker 2: And you can just feel him having no place to
30:31
Speaker 2: sit at lunch in high school. You just see it
30:33
Speaker 2: in his face. I related to him.
30:35
Speaker 3: I felt it. I felt it.
30:37
Speaker 1: I was just trying to make sure he listens to
30:38
Speaker 1: the president's desires. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace
30:51
Speaker 1: is the all in one website platform designed to elevate
30:53
Speaker 1: your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all
30:56
Speaker 1: the tools you need to promote and get paid for
30:58
Speaker 1: your services in one platform. Create a professional website to
31:01
Speaker 1: showcase your offerings and attract clients. Whether you offer consultations,
31:05
Speaker 1: events or other experiences, Squarespace can help you grow your business.
31:09
Speaker 1: Squarespace offers a complete library of professionally designed and award
31:12
Speaker 1: winning website templates with options for every use and category.
31:16
Speaker 1: Every dream needs a domain. Squarespace domains make it easy
31:19
Speaker 1: to find the best name for your business at one fair,
31:21
Speaker 1: all-inclusive price. No hidden fees or add-ons required. Every Squarespace
31:25
Speaker 1: domain comes with advanced privacy and security tools included to
31:28
Speaker 1: ensure your domain remains online and protected. Plus, Squarespace provides
31:32
Speaker 1: everything you need to bring more of your dream to life,
31:35
Speaker 1: whether that means building a website or adding a professional
31:37
Speaker 1: email service. Don't wait to claim your name. Invest in
31:40
Speaker 1: your dream domain today. Head to squarespace.com for a free
31:43
Speaker 1: trial today. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com
31:45
Speaker 1: slash crooked to save 10% off your first purchase of
31:47
Speaker 1: a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked. One more
31:56
Speaker 1: update on our budding dictatorship. After the D.C. Court of
31:58
Speaker 1: Appeals ruled that Trump can't just ship people to El
32:01
Speaker 1: Salvador's torture dungeon without due process, one of the judges
32:04
Speaker 1: actually said that, quote, Nazis got better treatment under the
32:07
Speaker 1: Alien Enemies Act. The administration asked the Supreme Court to
32:10
Speaker 1: settle the matter.
32:11
Speaker 2: Should see what happens when they visit Mar-a-Lago.
32:13
Speaker 3: Get a full meal.
32:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, get a shrimp cocktail.
32:15
Speaker 3: Get to meet Kanye. It's great.
32:16
Speaker 1: If you've been following this, you might have come across
32:18
Speaker 1: the heartbreaking story of Andre Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup
32:23
Speaker 1: artist who came to the U.S. legally to seek asylum,
32:25
Speaker 1: but is currently being held in that Salvadoran prison after
32:28
Speaker 1: the government decided he's Tren de Aragua. Well, we know
32:32
Speaker 1: from court filings that the government's only evidence are tattoos
32:36
Speaker 1: of crowns on his wrists, one with the word mom
32:39
Speaker 1: under it and the other with the word dad. which
32:42
Speaker 1: a random ICE officer decided were Tren de Aragua tattoos,
32:46
Speaker 1: even though Hernandez-Romero repeatedly denied any affiliation with the gang.
32:50
Speaker 1: We also learned from this about the existence of the
32:52
Speaker 1: so-called Alien Enemy Validation Guide, which is a checklist that
32:57
Speaker 1: ICE agents use to assess whether someone is a TDA member,
33:01
Speaker 1: which includes whether the person's friends say they're in the gang.
33:04
Speaker 1: whether they're thought to associate with known members of the gang,
33:07
Speaker 1: and of course, whether the person has tattoos that could
33:10
Speaker 1: indicate gang membership. I think what's most alarming about the
33:13
Speaker 1: story is how hard the administration is also fighting judges
33:19
Speaker 1: who are merely asking for evidence and due process here.
33:23
Speaker 1: Nothing more at this stage. Stephen Miller posted a fucking
33:26
Speaker 1: hysterical rant over the weekend. Part of it said, quote,
33:30
Speaker 1: America voted for liberation. If every foreign trespasser gets to
33:33
Speaker 1: have their own federal trial prior to removal, then there
33:36
Speaker 1: is no liberation. There is no restoration. The invasion will
33:40
Speaker 1: be made complete. What do you guys make of all this?
33:44
Speaker 1: And why do you think it isn't a bigger story
33:46
Speaker 1: right now? Why aren't like more elected Democrats talking about this?
33:50
Speaker 3: I would like to just quickly start with the dumb part,
33:52
Speaker 3: which is hysterical is the right way to describe that
33:54
Speaker 3: Stephen Miller tweet. The guys are such drama queens. Like
33:58
Speaker 3: We were invaded and occupied. Entire neighborhoods were conquered. Entire
34:01
Speaker 3: towns were subjugated. Our treasury was plundered.
34:04
Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
34:06
Speaker 2: What country do you live in, Stephen?
34:08
Speaker 3: Where is that? Join a community theater troupe.
34:11
Speaker 2: The actual specifics in the documentation, it's so paltry and
34:15
Speaker 2: so pathetic and so damning. And you look at this guy, Andre,
34:20
Speaker 2: who did truly nothing wrong. He applied for asylum at
34:24
Speaker 2: a port of entry, seized, not deported.
34:26
Speaker 1: Legally showed up at the port of entry like you're
34:28
Speaker 1: supposed to.
34:29
Speaker 2: Another there's another report out of Miami of a Venezuelan
34:32
Speaker 2: who has been going to his appointments, had an appointment
34:36
Speaker 2: on February 25th. It got moved up, gets grabbed, was
34:40
Speaker 2: showing up, was doing what you're supposed to do. Applied
34:42
Speaker 2: for asylum was was was and then seized because he
34:45
Speaker 2: had a tattoo, that tattoo, that tattoo he got with
34:48
Speaker 2: his ex-girlfriend. Again, a crown. Then you look at some
34:51
Speaker 2: of the documentation that ICE has used, at least in
34:53
Speaker 2: the past, one in the. The symbols are just random
34:55
Speaker 2: tattoos taken from what looks like a Google image source,
34:57
Speaker 2: including a known gang symbol being Jumpman. Jumpman being the
35:03
Speaker 2: Air Jordan symbol with the 23 above it.
35:04
Speaker 3: Pretty popular guy.
35:05
Speaker 2: Which means a lot of kids in my middle school
35:07
Speaker 2: were in Trend de Aragua.
35:08
Speaker 3: Yes. Where are they now? Based on their shoes and t-shirts.
35:11
Speaker 2: They didn't have the tattoos. The Jewish mothers would never
35:14
Speaker 2: allow it. But nevertheless, yeah, where are those guys? And
35:17
Speaker 2: then you see all, I think, look, look, obviously this
35:19
Speaker 2: is horrible on its own. But then you see Republicans refusing.
35:25
Speaker 2: You know, they go right to the politics. Democrats are
35:27
Speaker 2: defending gang members, which, of course, not what's going on.
35:30
Speaker 2: They go right to these sort of Kafkaesque evasions, which
35:34
Speaker 2: is there can't be due process for invaders. Well, first
35:39
Speaker 2: of all, that's ridiculous. But also, how do you know
35:41
Speaker 2: they're fucking invaders without the due process? That's the whole point.
35:43
Speaker 1: Victoria Sparks, who's a congresswoman from Indiana, had a couple
35:47
Speaker 1: of rowdy town halls over the weekend where people were
35:49
Speaker 1: just yelling at her the whole time. they were complaining
35:52
Speaker 1: about this and asking her about this. And she yells
35:54
Speaker 1: at one point, you violated the law. So you're not
35:57
Speaker 1: entitled to due process.
35:59
Speaker 3: That's it.
35:59
Speaker 2: That's when due process. No, that's how it works.
36:01
Speaker 1: That is, well, that's the opposite there. You missed something.
36:05
Speaker 3: I do look, I, to your question of why isn't,
36:07
Speaker 3: aren't more Democrats talking about this? I do think in
36:09
Speaker 3: the very beginning, the stated objective by the Trump administration
36:13
Speaker 3: is like, we're going to get the worst of the
36:14
Speaker 3: worst and we're going to send them out of here. Right.
36:16
Speaker 3: And so no one wanted to be seen as supporting
36:19
Speaker 3: a Venezuelan murderer or gang member or whatever. But clearly,
36:23
Speaker 3: the implementation of the policy is anything but getting rid
36:26
Speaker 3: of the worst of the worst. And this was easy
36:29
Speaker 3: to anticipate because hardened gang members and criminals go to ground.
36:33
Speaker 3: They're hard to find. It's the people who are here
36:35
Speaker 3: legally who brush up against the system, who let the
36:38
Speaker 3: authorities know where they are. They're the ones getting swept up.
36:41
Speaker 3: And I do think that as these individual specific cases increase,
36:45
Speaker 3: gets surfaced, there has been a lot more coverage of this.
36:48
Speaker 3: I mean, Andre's story is so shocking. A mom and
36:53
Speaker 3: a dad tattoo gets you deported. If the outcome wasn't
36:57
Speaker 3: so evil, it would almost be funny. But he's far
37:00
Speaker 3: from the only one. There was a guy deported because
37:03
Speaker 3: he had a tattoo of a Rolex logo. There's the
37:05
Speaker 3: Michael Jordan Jumpman logo you talked about. I love it.
37:08
Speaker 3: There was a guy with an autism awareness tattoo.
37:11
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so sad too, because it's like in honor
37:13
Speaker 1: of his brother.
37:14
Speaker 3: Yeah.
37:14
Speaker 1: And there's like videos of him like helping kids swimming
37:17
Speaker 1: and everything.
37:18
Speaker 3: It's just like.
37:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:18
Speaker 3: And this, you know, clearly ICE Googled these tattoos and
37:25
Speaker 3: put that in their lookbook. And that somehow got swept
37:28
Speaker 3: into this absolutely evil bureaucratic process where you get points
37:33
Speaker 3: for various gang affiliations. So if you had a roommate
37:36
Speaker 3: in Turin de Aragua, you could get two points for
37:39
Speaker 3: Against you for living with him, two for closely associating
37:41
Speaker 3: with him, two for being in a group photo, two
37:44
Speaker 3: for social media posts where you're both in the same post.
37:48
Speaker 3: And just with that, you're sent to rot in hell
37:51
Speaker 3: in a prison in El Salvador.
37:52
Speaker 2: So what's also like these are meant like we're really conflating.
37:57
Speaker 2: The news is conflated to like deporting someone versus rendering
38:00
Speaker 2: them to a foreign jail.
38:02
Speaker 3: Right.
38:02
Speaker 4: Like.
38:03
Speaker 2: Some of the people that I'm sure the Trump administration,
38:05
Speaker 2: maybe they will, maybe they won't. They don't tell us
38:07
Speaker 2: fucking anything. Some of these people were already in detention, right,
38:10
Speaker 2: for crimes, what have you. Those people were sent to
38:12
Speaker 2: a jail. But some of these people showed up for appointments.
38:15
Speaker 2: They were not in prison.
38:16
Speaker 5: They were free.
38:16
Speaker 3: They were living. They were doing their jobs. They were
38:18
Speaker 3: showing up for their appointments.
38:19
Speaker 2: They are going. They are free. They're not being deported.
38:21
Speaker 2: Like Andre told his family that he thought he was
38:23
Speaker 2: going to be deported. This guy in Miami thought he
38:25
Speaker 2: was going to be deported.
38:26
Speaker 3: Right.
38:27
Speaker 2: Next thing you know, they're not sent back to Venezuela.
38:29
Speaker 2: They're sent to a prison.
38:30
Speaker 5: They have no sentence.
38:31
Speaker 2: They've not been charged with anything. I mean, there may
38:33
Speaker 2: be some there may be some charges coming related to
38:35
Speaker 2: undocumented immigration.
38:36
Speaker 1: We have no idea.
38:37
Speaker 2: But we have no idea. But as of right now,
38:38
Speaker 2: these people haven't been certainly publicly charged with any crime,
38:41
Speaker 2: convicted any crime that would warrant them being in prison
38:43
Speaker 2: in the United States, let alone being sent to a
38:45
Speaker 2: gulag in El Salvador without any time frame. Like, how
38:48
Speaker 2: long is this person meant to be there?
38:50
Speaker 1: And the rationale in the first place for the El
38:52
Speaker 1: Salvador prison and for Gitmo again is for some of
38:56
Speaker 1: these deportees is that you can't send them back to
39:00
Speaker 1: some countries, their own country, some of them, because they're
39:02
Speaker 1: not accepting flights, deportation flights. So for a while, Venezuela
39:06
Speaker 1: was saying like, no, you can't send people back here.
39:09
Speaker 1: And so then basically the Trump administration justification is, okay,
39:12
Speaker 1: so if you have this dangerous terrorist, a criminal gang
39:17
Speaker 1: member who has a bad criminal background, has murdered people, whatever,
39:20
Speaker 1: and we are overcrowded in our detention centers here, Then
39:24
Speaker 1: we're going to use Guantanamo and we're going to have
39:25
Speaker 1: this deal with El Salvador to do that, which is
39:27
Speaker 1: like maybe for the worst of the worst, you can
39:29
Speaker 1: like make an argument. for it. But now, now when
39:32
Speaker 1: you are just like, there's people have picked up with
39:34
Speaker 1: no due process and don't have a background and they're
39:36
Speaker 1: making mistakes all the time. Now we're just shipping them to.
39:38
Speaker 5: A fucking prison.
39:39
Speaker 2: They're free the day before another country. The other part
39:41
Speaker 2: of this too, is I really like, I, it was, I,
39:45
Speaker 2: you know, things are bad enough. And it's, I think,
39:48
Speaker 2: sometimes not valuable to live in even worse hypotheticals. But
39:52
Speaker 2: I do think it's worth noting that they are calling
39:55
Speaker 2: Tariff Day Liberation Day. They're referring to going after immigrants
39:59
Speaker 2: as a kind of liberation. They're putting these things together.
40:03
Speaker 2: Right now, we don't know what their plans are. But
40:06
Speaker 2: I don't believe, obviously, the Trump administration is not planning
40:08
Speaker 2: to ramp down deportations. They want to ramp this up.
40:11
Speaker 2: Does anyone believe that the number of errors or mistakes,
40:15
Speaker 2: they seem quite purposeful at times, are going to go
40:18
Speaker 2: down as they do this more? Does anyone think that
40:21
Speaker 2: legal permanent residents aren't going to get swept up in this?
40:24
Speaker 2: Does anyone think citizens aren't going to get swept up
40:26
Speaker 2: in this? That is what's coming. That's what they want.
40:31
Speaker 2: Trump likes a circus. He likes the circus of these deportations,
40:36
Speaker 2: when this ramps up and they do it on a
40:37
Speaker 2: broader scale, there's going to be a circus too.
40:39
Speaker 3: They're going to.
40:41
Speaker 2: Look for the worst of the worst to make them
40:43
Speaker 2: the face of it. Then there's going to be all
40:45
Speaker 2: these harrowing stories and all these examples. And that's what
40:48
Speaker 2: we're heading towards. And so if we're not fighting for
40:50
Speaker 2: the due process of people like Andres, of people like
40:52
Speaker 2: these Venezuelans who applied for asylum, did what we told
40:55
Speaker 2: them to do, then watch as this happens and gets
40:58
Speaker 2: closer and closer to affecting more and more legal permanent residents, citizens,
41:02
Speaker 2: more and more people.
41:03
Speaker 3: The one silver lining is that you're seeing some like
41:05
Speaker 3: really fringy, even far right conservatives say this is crazy.
41:09
Speaker 3: We shouldn't be doing this. But the thing that really
41:11
Speaker 3: worries me is that. So you've got Rubio and Bukele,
41:15
Speaker 3: Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, saying that these
41:18
Speaker 3: individuals sent down to El Salvador are going to get
41:21
Speaker 3: a one year sentence and it's renewable. On what legal
41:25
Speaker 3: authority are they being held? How long are they going
41:28
Speaker 3: to be locked in prison for being accused of a crime?
41:30
Speaker 3: And even more scary to me. Let's say a judge says,
41:33
Speaker 3: this is effed up. You got to get him back.
41:36
Speaker 3: Trump administration. Bukele is just going to say no. Like,
41:41
Speaker 3: F you to the judiciary. Like, come invade my country.
41:44
Speaker 3: And Stephen Miller and Rubio and all the gang in
41:47
Speaker 3: the administration are going to cackle and love it.
41:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, he could say no.
41:51
Speaker 1: Because Rubio was like, hey, you can say no if
41:53
Speaker 1: you want. I don't care.
41:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want the problem.
41:55
Speaker 1: Supreme Court can't touch you.
41:57
Speaker 2: Well, we've already seen that, right? He's the secretary of
42:00
Speaker 2: state for the United States. A judge ruled that these
42:03
Speaker 2: flights had to be turned around. The president of El
42:06
Speaker 2: Salvador says, ha ha, oops, too late. And Rubio doesn't say,
42:10
Speaker 2: excuse me, how dare you on behalf of the United States.
42:14
Speaker 2: He reposts it.
42:15
Speaker 5: He loves it.
42:16
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about the Democrats issue just
42:19
Speaker 1: before we move on, because I ask Ruben Gallego about this.
42:23
Speaker 1: You'll hear in the interview. And it was a bit
42:26
Speaker 1: of a frustrating exchange, I would say. Like on one hand, Gallego,
42:31
Speaker 1: so he started off by basically saying like, no, we
42:34
Speaker 1: shouldn't fight. I was like, why aren't more Democrats talking
42:36
Speaker 1: about this? And he's like, well, we shouldn't walk into
42:38
Speaker 1: the trap he set for us. And he was like,
42:41
Speaker 1: and then he said, he was like, we should talk about,
42:44
Speaker 1: you know, the people who were getting deported without due
42:46
Speaker 1: process and all this kind of stuff. I'm like, well,
42:48
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. I was like, I actually haven't
42:50
Speaker 1: heard a bunch of Democrats just condemn deportations as just
42:54
Speaker 1: writ large, right? Like people are making these specific stories
42:57
Speaker 1: and I feel like we should, he's like, yeah, it's
42:59
Speaker 1: just that they, they want us to do. And so
43:01
Speaker 1: it's like a political sort of Democrats are going to
43:05
Speaker 1: get in, you know, get stuck in a trap on
43:06
Speaker 1: immigration for arguing. And I just, I understand where he's
43:11
Speaker 1: coming from. And like I said to him, like, I've
43:13
Speaker 1: been critical of Democrats on immigration as well. But if like,
43:17
Speaker 1: if we go back to the first term, When he
43:19
Speaker 1: was separating children from their families, there was a huge outcry,
43:23
Speaker 1: so big, that he had to reverse course on that, mostly, right?
43:27
Speaker 1: And he had to stop it. And, like, I just
43:29
Speaker 1: think that if you're a Democratic politician right now, you
43:32
Speaker 1: just have to have the confidence to know that you
43:34
Speaker 1: can make a case that, yes, you can deport criminals
43:38
Speaker 1: and gang members, but don't deport or don't rendition someone
43:42
Speaker 1: without due process to a foreign prison. I feel like
43:45
Speaker 1: that's an easy case to make.
43:46
Speaker 2: Also, like, okay. Let's say it is a trap. Let's
43:50
Speaker 2: say it's bad politics.
43:51
Speaker 1: The U.S.
43:51
Speaker 2: Government is kidnapping people. That guy, he doesn't know that
43:55
Speaker 2: there's people fighting for his freedom right now. He doesn't
43:57
Speaker 2: know that. He thought he was being deported. Next thing
44:00
Speaker 2: you know, he's on this flight to El Salvador. He's
44:02
Speaker 2: in a waking nightmare. He's been there for, what, two weeks?
44:05
Speaker 2: Hadn't spoke to a soul?
44:07
Speaker 1: Many of them now.
44:07
Speaker 5: Many of them?
44:08
Speaker 1: How many stories?
44:09
Speaker 3: Well, most people in that prison, their families haven't heard
44:11
Speaker 3: from them in years.
44:12
Speaker 2: And this guy, it's not his country, right? I'm sure
44:18
Speaker 2: all Latinos are the same to them. It's not his country.
44:21
Speaker 2: He's in a foreign country. He has no idea how
44:23
Speaker 2: long it will last. Who knows what he's being told?
44:26
Speaker 2: This man's being tortured. This is torture.
44:30
Speaker 1: If we're not... The politics... I think the politics are good.
44:36
Speaker 1: I think due process is something everyone should care about
44:39
Speaker 1: and want.
44:39
Speaker 2: We should make it something people care about.
44:42
Speaker 1: That's why I want more. I want more Democrats out
44:45
Speaker 1: there just yelling about this because.
44:47
Speaker 2: So tariffs, people came to learn, people learn through these debates.
44:49
Speaker 2: They really do. Maybe not as well as they used to.
44:52
Speaker 2: Maybe it's all fucked up by a lot of noise
44:53
Speaker 2: and misinformation. But if we don't have the debate, we
44:56
Speaker 2: will lose on due process and watch as this gets
44:58
Speaker 2: worse and worse.
44:59
Speaker 1: Before we go, we want to talk about some important
45:00
Speaker 1: elections taking place on Tuesday. Maybe as you're listening to
45:03
Speaker 1: this in Florida, there are two special elections for the
45:05
Speaker 1: House seats vacated by Matt Gaetz and signal enthusiast Mike Waltz.
45:09
Speaker 1: Gaetz's seat is widely seen as being safely Republican. But
45:13
Speaker 1: the race for Waltz's seat, which he won by 33
45:15
Speaker 1: points just in November, is making Republicans quite nervous. A
45:19
Speaker 1: poll from last week showed Republican State Senator Randy Fine
45:22
Speaker 1: ahead of Democrat Josh Wheal by only four points. Again,
45:25
Speaker 1: this is in a district that Waltz won just four
45:27
Speaker 1: months ago by 33 points. The other election, a swing
45:32
Speaker 1: seat on Wisconsin Supreme Court, which we've talked about a
45:34
Speaker 1: lot before, has turned into the most expensive judicial race
45:38
Speaker 1: in U.S.
45:38
Speaker 3: History.
45:39
Speaker 1: Over $ 90 million has been spent, $ 20 million by Elon
45:43
Speaker 1: Musk alone, who held a town hall in Green Bay
45:46
Speaker 1: Sunday night where he gave away two legally questionable million-dollar
45:50
Speaker 1: checks to voters who signed a petition against, quote, activist judges.
45:54
Speaker 1: Here's what else Elon had to say. I feel like
45:56
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that may not seem...
46:00
Speaker 1: That is going to affect the entire destiny of humanity,
46:03
Speaker 1: but I think it will.
46:04
Speaker 5: I mean, it was inevitable that at least a few
46:07
Speaker 5: Soros operatives would be in the audience. Give my regards
46:14
Speaker 5: to George.
46:15
Speaker 1: Say hi to George for.
46:18
Speaker 2: Me.
46:19
Speaker 3: The richest man in the world demagoguing George Soros. I'm sorry, buddy.
46:22
Speaker 3: It just doesn't work.
46:23
Speaker 1: Is he? as he goes to pay people for votes.
46:26
Speaker 3: A million dollars.
46:27
Speaker 2: George Soros is a great man. He's a great man.
46:32
Speaker 1: A couple operatives right here. Also, he's so hyperbolic.
46:37
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if it's the space race or a
46:39
Speaker 3: Wisconsin judicial race. The future of humanity is always at stake.
46:43
Speaker 3: Come on.
46:43
Speaker 1: Big race in Wisconsin. We've been saying that.
46:45
Speaker 4: It's very important.
46:46
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's civilizational.
46:47
Speaker 3: A little much there.
46:48
Speaker 1: A little much there. I don't know if it's civilizational.
46:50
Speaker 2: This is not the most important point about this, but
46:52
Speaker 2: like he... The idea that like anyone who's opposed to
46:57
Speaker 2: him is a Soros operative. Everyone who's against him is evil.
47:01
Speaker 2: This race is civilizational. Everything has become like Manichean, this
47:05
Speaker 2: sort of good versus evil struggle.
47:07
Speaker 1: It's almost like he's taken on the personality of the
47:09
Speaker 1: social media app he bought.
47:10
Speaker 5: Well, yes.
47:11
Speaker 2: And well, and he's taking on the politics of someone
47:13
Speaker 2: who just found out about politics. He's talking about it
47:15
Speaker 2: like a 13 year old who's doing their first like
47:17
Speaker 2: debate tournament. And like he goes on these tirades about
47:22
Speaker 2: like liberals don't under, they're only doing this because they
47:25
Speaker 2: want undocumented people to get social security and also vote.
47:30
Speaker 2: It's all just like this bullshit. And then he's confused
47:32
Speaker 2: why people aren't like, he acts as though there's no
47:36
Speaker 2: legitimate criticism that could possibly exist of what he's doing.
47:39
Speaker 2: Dismissing half the country and then wonders why he's not
47:41
Speaker 2: more beloved and why these protests are all popping up.
47:45
Speaker 2: I found it very frustrating.
47:47
Speaker 1: By Monday, he's offering $ 20 to literally anyone willing to
47:51
Speaker 1: get a Wisconsin resident to hold up a picture of
47:54
Speaker 1: Brad Schimel, who's the Republican candidate for the court, and
47:57
Speaker 1: the thumbs up sign. The Wisconsin Attorney General, Josh Kahl,
48:01
Speaker 1: tried to get the Wisconsin Supreme Court to shut down
48:04
Speaker 1: the million dollar checks, but they declined to take the case. And,
48:09
Speaker 1: you know, I guess last minute, Musk tried to make
48:13
Speaker 1: the whole contest legal. less legally questionable maybe by saying
48:17
Speaker 1: that it was an appreciation. He originally said the million
48:20
Speaker 1: dollar checks would go to people who, in appreciation for
48:23
Speaker 1: taking the time to vote, but you're not supposed to
48:24
Speaker 1: do that because you're not supposed to induce anyone or
48:26
Speaker 1: reward anyone for voting. Can't buy votes.
48:28
Speaker 2: Pretty bedrock principle.
48:29
Speaker 1: He reframed it, the giveaway, to focus on the petition.
48:34
Speaker 1: And so that's that. But I don't know. It still
48:36
Speaker 1: seems a little shady.
48:39
Speaker 5: Yeah.
48:39
Speaker 2: Look, I think Elon Musk has now made himself the
48:42
Speaker 2: main character of this race. And I think like a
48:46
Speaker 2: lot of people assume, oh, that must backfire, right? Because everybody,
48:49
Speaker 2: I mean, Elon Musk is not a popular figure and
48:52
Speaker 2: I want that to be true. I think there's a
48:54
Speaker 2: little bit of method to the madness, which is Republicans
48:59
Speaker 2: are doing the math and saying in this lower turnout
49:03
Speaker 2: off cycle election, if they get 60% of their Trump vote,
49:07
Speaker 2: they can win. And they're begging on the fact that
49:09
Speaker 2: the hardcore Democrats are already pretty well motivated, which they are.
49:13
Speaker 1: I was there.
49:13
Speaker 3: They're motivated. That's exciting.
49:14
Speaker 2: That's great. They know that we have this sort of post.
49:17
Speaker 2: We have this midterm advantage, this hyper engaged advantage. And
49:20
Speaker 2: so they're assuming that Elon Musk, as much as it
49:22
Speaker 2: does damage for him to be in Wisconsin to them,
49:24
Speaker 2: which I think it does, that they need him there
49:27
Speaker 2: to make this a Trump referendum, because that's their only
49:30
Speaker 2: hope of getting enough of the Trump people out. And
49:32
Speaker 2: when you look at what the Republicans are putting on
49:34
Speaker 2: doors in Wisconsin, The Democratic flyers, the pro-Crawford flyers are
49:41
Speaker 2: Crawford and Schimel in their two sets of positions. The
49:44
Speaker 2: Republican flyers are the big old picture of Trump. And
49:46
Speaker 2: it just said that Trump is winning for America and
49:50
Speaker 2: radical judges are trying to stop him.
49:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, they need the Trump voters. They usually only vote
49:55
Speaker 1: in presidentials.
49:56
Speaker 3: Base versus base turnout election. Maybe Elon going there will
49:59
Speaker 3: help motivate some significant number of people to turn out
50:03
Speaker 3: who wouldn't otherwise have known about the election and voted.
50:05
Speaker 3: So we'll see. I do think Elon, he claims the
50:08
Speaker 3: spending is about free speech. It's a disgusting perversion of democracy.
50:13
Speaker 3: So I don't know. Ben Wickler was saying he might
50:16
Speaker 3: have spent up to $ 26 million at this point. He
50:18
Speaker 3: has made himself the face of this campaign. If they win,
50:21
Speaker 3: that sucks and I'll be very sad. And if they lose,
50:25
Speaker 3: we need to tie it around Elon Musk's neck, make
50:28
Speaker 3: this an argument that there's a political cost to everything
50:31
Speaker 3: he does of being associated with him, of even his money.
50:35
Speaker 3: because that's a pretty significant check on his political strength
50:40
Speaker 3: early on.
50:40
Speaker 1: I think that's right. You see, one of the million
50:42
Speaker 1: dollar checks went to the chairman of the Wisconsin College Republicans. Nice.
50:49
Speaker 1: He was a Turning Points USA ballot chase representative in 2024.
50:52
Speaker 2: Well, everybody's talked about the illegality around buying votes, but
50:56
Speaker 2: in the run up to the election in November, There
51:00
Speaker 2: were questions about whether this was a true random drawing,
51:03
Speaker 2: and it's clear that it wasn't. This is why the
51:06
Speaker 2: joke is like, oh, liberals, sign up, sign up. No,
51:08
Speaker 2: they're not choosing at random. You can't win. They're going
51:10
Speaker 2: through and finding ideal candidates to give this money to,
51:13
Speaker 2: which again feels completely ridiculous. The image of a billionaire
51:18
Speaker 2: who is also one of the most powerful figures in
51:21
Speaker 2: the government flying in on a private jet to throw
51:25
Speaker 2: shekels down in front of people to come crawl and
51:28
Speaker 2: grab them to get votes for people is so fundamentally un-American.
51:33
Speaker 2: It's so disgusting to see this guy who's basically now
51:36
Speaker 2: acting as like the grand vizier to the sultan. And,
51:41
Speaker 2: you know, we just, if you have a friend in Wisconsin,
51:44
Speaker 2: text them. If you like, you can go to votesofamerica.com
51:48
Speaker 2: slash Wisconsin. They still need some cash. They still need
51:50
Speaker 2: people to make calls. But I do think right now,
51:52
Speaker 2: the most important thing, if you're in Wisconsin, if you're
51:54
Speaker 2: near Wisconsin, text friends, text people in that state. We
51:56
Speaker 2: got to get every last vote out because it will
51:58
Speaker 2: be a lower turnout election. Um, and it's just, this
52:01
Speaker 2: has to be stopped.
52:03
Speaker 4: Yeah.
52:03
Speaker 1: What do you guys, I mean, while, while we still
52:06
Speaker 1: don't know the results of any of these races, uh,
52:08
Speaker 1: what do you think they will say about, uh, how
52:11
Speaker 1: people are feeling about Trump 2.0 and Republicans? If, uh,
52:15
Speaker 1: do you think like, uh, are you, what are your expectations?
52:19
Speaker 2: Oh, I, I'm like so afraid So we went through
52:22
Speaker 2: this cycle and Judge Janet Protasewicz beat the Republican.
52:27
Speaker 1: Crushing that name now.
52:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a Protasewicz. It takes a Protasewicz to say Protasewicz.
52:32
Speaker 2: But I think what's interesting, right, is that we're already
52:35
Speaker 2: seeing the impact. Elise Stefanik is not going to be
52:40
Speaker 2: ambassador to the UN because even in her deep red district,
52:43
Speaker 2: they're not sure they can hold it.
52:45
Speaker 3: Right? That makes me so happy.
52:46
Speaker 2: It makes me so sure to get her farewell tour.
52:48
Speaker 3: She had so many meetings.
52:49
Speaker 1: It's awesome.
52:50
Speaker 3: So many boring, boring briefings.
52:52
Speaker 2: She gave up her leadership job. She gave up her leadership.
52:55
Speaker 3: That job has been, uh, she went apartment. I guess
52:58
Speaker 3: they have an apartment for you, but she went shopping
53:01
Speaker 3: for furniture in New York. Nope.
53:03
Speaker 1: I will say if we lose, if we lose Wisconsin,
53:06
Speaker 1: I think it will rightly be quite bad for us.
53:08
Speaker 2: Oh no, absolutely.
53:10
Speaker 1: This is all politics substantively. Very bad, obviously.
53:13
Speaker 4: Right.
53:14
Speaker 1: But like not like we should win this. But, you know,
53:17
Speaker 1: and if if if the margin is like the same
53:19
Speaker 1: as 2024, then it's going to be like the general
53:22
Speaker 1: election in 2024. Then it's just fucking frustrating, you know.
53:25
Speaker 1: But if you know, if everything that's happened over the
53:27
Speaker 1: last couple of months and then we get that result, Wisconsin.
53:30
Speaker 3: I think pretty devastating. Yeah.
53:31
Speaker 2: It also just would tell us about the Trump base
53:35
Speaker 2: and their willingness to do what they're told.
53:37
Speaker 3: Right.
53:37
Speaker 2: And to show up, which would be make them more
53:40
Speaker 2: formidable than we thought.
53:41
Speaker 1: And I will say if we win and we win by,
53:43
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of points here and there, like
53:45
Speaker 1: Elon Musk going there and then dumping $ 26 million and
53:49
Speaker 1: then coming up short, uh, is then we should feel
53:52
Speaker 1: pretty good, you know? And then I'll be looking at
53:54
Speaker 1: the margin in, uh, in that Florida race too, to
53:56
Speaker 1: see if, uh, you know, if, if, look, if a
53:59
Speaker 1: 33 point, uh, district and he only loses by like
54:03
Speaker 1: four or five, that's fucking, that should be a.
54:07
Speaker 3: Huge siren for all Republicans going into the midterms. Also,
54:10
Speaker 3: just bigger picture, $ 81 million have been spent on a
54:14
Speaker 3: Wisconsin Supreme Court race. That is disgusting. Citizens United was
54:19
Speaker 3: such a disaster. Our campaign finance system is such a disaster.
54:23
Speaker 3: I don't know how we can fix it at this
54:24
Speaker 3: point with this Congress, with these courts, with these judges,
54:26
Speaker 3: but this is just a terrible way to run a railroad.
54:28
Speaker 1: I will say, too, that the timing of these races,
54:33
Speaker 1: the week that they are going to be debating this
54:35
Speaker 1: tax bill in Congress, so if it is bad for
54:38
Speaker 1: Republicans and you know, Randy Fine barely squeaks it out
54:41
Speaker 1: or whatever. You're going to see like the Mike Lawlers
54:44
Speaker 1: and some of these Republicans in swing districts in the House.
54:48
Speaker 1: Like they're going to be thinking twice about how many Medicaid,
54:50
Speaker 1: you know, how much in Medicaid cuts you want, what
54:53
Speaker 1: to do about the tax hikes, what to do about
54:55
Speaker 1: some other budget cuts. Like they're going to be thinking
54:57
Speaker 1: about that.
54:57
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Look, I mean, yeah, if in the same week
54:59
Speaker 2: they learn that Republicans have lost like 10, 15 or
55:02
Speaker 2: more points in the generic ballot and they learn that
55:04
Speaker 2: Elon Musk's money can't protect them if they vote for
55:06
Speaker 2: Medicaid cuts, tax cuts for the rich.
55:08
Speaker 3: That's pretty damning.
55:10
Speaker 5: All right.
55:10
Speaker 1: When we come back from the break, you'll hear my
55:11
Speaker 1: interview with Senator Ruben Gallego. But first, one big announcement.
55:15
Speaker 1: For the month of April, we're offering a 30-day free
55:18
Speaker 1: trial for if you want to subscribe to our Friends
55:21
Speaker 1: of the Pod community. As you hear us say all
55:23
Speaker 1: the time, joining Friends of the Pod is the best
55:25
Speaker 1: way to support our work here at Crooked Media. And
55:28
Speaker 1: we just made the experience even better. You can now
55:30
Speaker 1: enjoy offline and love it or leave it ad-free in
55:34
Speaker 1: addition to the ad-free versions of Pod Save America and
55:36
Speaker 1: Pod Save the World.
55:37
Speaker 4: Wow.
55:37
Speaker 1: We're not going to let Tommy have all the the
55:39
Speaker 1: ad-free fun, you know?
55:40
Speaker 3: You still got to record them, guys. Bad news for you.
55:44
Speaker 1: You'll also get exclusive content like Polar Coaster with Dan,
55:47
Speaker 1: and you'll get access to our amazing Discord community where
55:49
Speaker 1: you can process the news with other people who feel
55:51
Speaker 1: as crazy as you do when you read the news.
55:53
Speaker 1: Sign up today at cricket.com slash friends or through Apple
55:56
Speaker 1: Podcasts to start your 30-day free trial. When we come back,
56:00
Speaker 1: Ruben Gallego. Pod Save America is brought to you by Helix.
56:13
Speaker 1: We love Helix mattresses. I've got a couple in my house.
56:15
Speaker 1: Charlie's got one.
56:16
Speaker 3: Very comfortable.
56:17
Speaker 1: I know you have a guest Helix mattress.
56:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, our guest room's got a Helix mattress. Everybody raves
56:21
Speaker 3: about it.
56:21
Speaker 1: So how will you know which Helix mattress works for
56:23
Speaker 1: you and your body? Take the Helix sleep quiz and
56:25
Speaker 1: find your perfect mattress in under two minutes. The Helix
56:28
Speaker 1: lineup offers 20 unique mattresses, including the award-winning Luxe and
56:31
Speaker 1: Ultra Premium Elite Collections, Helix Plus, a mattress designed for
56:35
Speaker 1: big and tall sleepers, Helix Kids, and a mattress designed
56:38
Speaker 1: for growing bodies endorsed by child sleep experts. Helix knows
56:41
Speaker 1: there's no better way to test out a new mattress
56:43
Speaker 1: than by sleeping on it in your own home. That's
56:46
Speaker 1: why they offer a 100-night trial and a 10-15 year
56:48
Speaker 1: warranty to try out your new Helix mattress. Plus, your
56:52
Speaker 1: personalized mattress is shipped straight to your door free of charge.
56:56
Speaker 1: Go to helixsleep.com slash crooked for 20% off site wide.
56:58
Speaker 1: That's helixsleep.com slash crooked for 20% off site wide. helixsleep.com
57:04
Speaker 1: slash crooked. Ruben Gallego, welcome back to the show. First
57:10
Speaker 1: time on since I've been able to call you senator.
57:13
Speaker 5: It feels good.
57:14
Speaker 1: Considering how Trump's second term is unfolding so far, would
57:17
Speaker 1: you say your win was more of a blessing or
57:20
Speaker 1: a curse?
57:21
Speaker 5: Look, it's always a blessing, man.
57:23
Speaker 4: Like that.
57:23
Speaker 5: Yeah. You know, it's a hard situation, but I get
57:26
Speaker 5: to say that I'm a U.S. senator. And if you
57:29
Speaker 5: kind of look at where I started in life, all
57:31
Speaker 5: things aside, and I never even ended up, you know,
57:34
Speaker 5: being in Congress. And the fact that I get to
57:36
Speaker 5: be the first Latino U.S. Senator from Arizona is pretty cool.
57:39
Speaker 1: How does what we've seen from Trump in the last
57:43
Speaker 1: few months match up with your expectations for what a
57:47
Speaker 1: second term would bring? Are you more alarmed, less alarmed,
57:51
Speaker 1: or is it about what you expected?
57:53
Speaker 5: I'm more alarmed. Look, I kind of saw some of
57:56
Speaker 5: the like autocratic bullshit that he's doing ahead of time,
58:02
Speaker 5: but not at the level that he's doing it now.
58:04
Speaker 5: I kind of foresaw some of the stuff when it
58:07
Speaker 5: comes to the government cuts, firing of these workers, but
58:11
Speaker 5: not the way they're doing it right now. And then
58:13
Speaker 5: some of the stuff, I'm just like, what the hell
58:15
Speaker 5: is going on here? Like the cuts to federal, to
58:17
Speaker 5: the VA, cuts to firing all these veterans. Like this
58:20
Speaker 5: is the kind of stuff that like makes no logical sense,
58:23
Speaker 5: makes no political sense, and just tells me like, you know,
58:26
Speaker 5: he might be out to lunch when it comes to
58:27
Speaker 5: a lot of this stuff.
58:29
Speaker 1: I mean, what's most alarmed me in the last month
58:32
Speaker 1: has been, what they're doing on immigration. And like, you know,
58:36
Speaker 1: I'm good with deporting criminals. I get that any president
58:39
Speaker 1: has quite a bit of power over immigration and deportations,
58:43
Speaker 1: even if I don't agree with the policy. But they
58:45
Speaker 1: are grabbing students off the streets, detaining legal residents, jailing
58:50
Speaker 1: people in this foreign prison in El Salvador with no
58:53
Speaker 1: due process, no trial, in some cases based on, you know,
58:56
Speaker 1: guessing what tattoos might mean. And then when a judge
58:59
Speaker 1: asks for evidence... They are threatening him with impeachment. Mike
59:03
Speaker 1: Johnson's talking about eliminating district courts. And I guess I'm
59:07
Speaker 1: just wondering, like, why more Democrats... aren't hair on fire
59:11
Speaker 1: about this?
59:12
Speaker 5: Well, because most Americans are actually agree with what the
59:15
Speaker 5: president's doing on immigration. And it's just like, you know,
59:18
Speaker 5: that's actually one area where he's still pulling well, he's
59:20
Speaker 5: still like at 54 to 55%. And one of the
59:23
Speaker 5: things that, you know, we have to focus on our
59:25
Speaker 5: and I've talked about this all the time. It's like,
59:27
Speaker 5: When we fight on the grounds of immigration, let's fight smartly, right?
59:30
Speaker 5: So we should talk about the fact that we have,
59:33
Speaker 5: for example, a stylist who has no contact with criminal
59:37
Speaker 5: world that was deported without due process, right? That's a
59:40
Speaker 5: really good example. But to overall argue that we shouldn't
59:43
Speaker 5: be deporting criminals to El Salvador, I think it's a
59:46
Speaker 5: very dumb argument that will politically, it's not going to win.
59:50
Speaker 5: Because if you talk to a lot of people and
59:51
Speaker 5: you tell them like, hey, should we be deporting these
59:54
Speaker 5: hardcore criminals to another country since we can't hold them
59:57
Speaker 5: in jail here anymore, a lot of people are going
59:59
Speaker 5: to say, absolutely. Now, if you add, can we do
1:00:01
Speaker 5: that without due process? That's when people understand, like, no,
1:00:03
Speaker 5: obviously we need to have due process. Due process is important, obviously,
1:00:06
Speaker 5: not just for the immigrants. It's also important for United
1:00:09
Speaker 5: States citizens because you will see, unfortunately, from my experience,
1:00:12
Speaker 5: you'll see U.S. citizens get wrapped up in this kind
1:00:15
Speaker 5: of stuff without due process. So we have to be
1:00:17
Speaker 5: very smart about how we fight when it comes to
1:00:19
Speaker 5: issues of immigration and border security. I think a lot
1:00:22
Speaker 5: of what we want to do will sound very good
1:00:26
Speaker 5: on a little circle and bubble. But when you get
1:00:28
Speaker 5: out and talk to real America, including Latinos, they're going
1:00:32
Speaker 5: to agree a lot with what Donald Trump is doing.
1:00:34
Speaker 5: And we have to figure out a way to kind
1:00:35
Speaker 5: of get in there with a precision strike of a
1:00:38
Speaker 5: good argument that kind of keeps our morals together, but
1:00:42
Speaker 5: also allows us to have some type of ability to
1:00:45
Speaker 5: bring these voters back to us.
1:00:47
Speaker 1: So I get that. And I It was one person who,
1:00:51
Speaker 1: after the election, has been fairly critical of Democrats' position
1:00:56
Speaker 1: on immigration and letting people know, by the way, most
1:01:00
Speaker 1: people in this country want people to come here legally.
1:01:02
Speaker 1: They don't want people to come here illegally. They are
1:01:06
Speaker 1: more likely to be in favor of deportations than not.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: It just, this to me feels like something so much
1:01:11
Speaker 1: different than just deportation.
1:01:15
Speaker 5: It's designed to be different. It's designed for you to
1:01:17
Speaker 5: get into this fight with him instead of focusing on
1:01:21
Speaker 5: the fact that he's deporting mothers and children. The fact
1:01:24
Speaker 5: that he is, you know, causing, you know, some of them,
1:01:27
Speaker 5: a lot of, you know, foreign students that usually are
1:01:30
Speaker 5: great contributors to our economy to be missing. He wants
1:01:34
Speaker 5: you to fight him on this. There's a reason why
1:01:36
Speaker 5: this is all happening right now. He wants us to
1:01:38
Speaker 5: be talking about, you know, these majority of them Venezuelan
1:01:42
Speaker 5: gang members that got sent over there. And he wants
1:01:44
Speaker 5: us to get into his nitty gritty. So we have
1:01:46
Speaker 5: to have arguments in public about due process, knowing that
1:01:49
Speaker 5: the American public understands almost zero of it, right? Don't
1:01:53
Speaker 5: get into the trap. This is like, you know, if
1:01:56
Speaker 5: you see an ambush coming, you have no responsibility to
1:01:59
Speaker 5: actually walk into that ambush, right? And this is just
1:02:01
Speaker 5: my personal advice to Democrats. Fight your fight. Talk about dreamers.
1:02:05
Speaker 5: Talk about the fact that there's this Colombian couple that's
1:02:08
Speaker 5: been here for 30 years that was recently deported who
1:02:12
Speaker 5: had no criminal history whatsoever. Talk about green card holders.
1:02:15
Speaker 5: But don't jump into the fight where they want you
1:02:17
Speaker 5: to fight. They're doing this on purpose. They're doing this
1:02:20
Speaker 5: on purpose.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: But do you think there's... I haven't seen... I've been
1:02:24
Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised. I have not seen a lot of Democrats
1:02:26
Speaker 1: in the last couple of weeks sort of just be
1:02:29
Speaker 1: fighting the deportations in general. I actually think that the
1:02:31
Speaker 1: people who have raised alarms have been over these specific
1:02:35
Speaker 1: cases where people just aren't getting any due process. And
1:02:37
Speaker 1: I guess one of the things I worry about, and
1:02:39
Speaker 1: I do think this would be appealing to a much
1:02:41
Speaker 1: broader part of the electorate, is now it's, you know,
1:02:44
Speaker 1: Venezuelans that they think are gang members and a foreign
1:02:49
Speaker 1: student who they say, you know, was participating in pro-Hamas protests.
1:02:53
Speaker 1: But like, if there's no due process, where does it end?
1:02:56
Speaker 1: How do we even know someone's a non-citizen that they're
1:02:58
Speaker 1: rounding up?
1:02:59
Speaker 4: Exactly.
1:03:00
Speaker 5: How do you know that it's citizens that aren't being
1:03:01
Speaker 5: rounded up and taken away without Well, they shouldn't be
1:03:04
Speaker 5: taken away because it needs to stay in the United States.
1:03:08
Speaker 5: You focus on the actual case. Don't get involved in
1:03:11
Speaker 5: this bigger fight that is very popular. I'm telling you
1:03:15
Speaker 5: right now, if you get into this fight over should
1:03:17
Speaker 5: we be sending people to the south or not, you're
1:03:20
Speaker 5: giving him the ground that he wants. Fight for the
1:03:22
Speaker 5: individual cases. Fight for the actual stylists that we're talking about.
1:03:25
Speaker 5: But if you try to get into this bigger argument,
1:03:28
Speaker 5: you're losing. And that's where they want you to be.
1:03:30
Speaker 5: They want you to be on that losing ground. Because
1:03:32
Speaker 5: then we have to explain due process. We have to
1:03:34
Speaker 5: explain why it's different for these gang members versus non-gang members.
1:03:40
Speaker 5: It's just not smart. We need to figure out how
1:03:42
Speaker 5: to fight so we can win, so we can stop
1:03:44
Speaker 5: this shit.
1:03:45
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:03:46
Speaker 1: We're talking at the beginning of a week where Republicans
1:03:48
Speaker 1: in Congress will be figuring out how to pay for
1:03:51
Speaker 1: the massive tax cut that Trump wants. senior White House
1:03:55
Speaker 1: official told Axios that they're actually discussing getting rid of
1:03:58
Speaker 1: the tax cuts for the top one percent because, quote,
1:04:01
Speaker 1: if we renew tax cuts for the rich paid for
1:04:04
Speaker 1: by throwing people off Medicaid, we're going to get fucking slaughtered.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: Do you think your Republican colleagues would ever give up
1:04:10
Speaker 1: on tax cuts for the rich and Medicaid cuts?
1:04:13
Speaker 5: I mean, they're more likely to cut Medicaid cuts than
1:04:15
Speaker 5: they are to, you know, give up on tax cuts
1:04:18
Speaker 5: to the rich. I mean, that's that's their bread and butter. That's,
1:04:21
Speaker 5: you know, the whole reason of living for the Republican Party.
1:04:25
Speaker 5: But politically speaking, I mean, I was out in rural Arizona.
1:04:29
Speaker 5: I mean, this is the part of the state where
1:04:31
Speaker 5: you have to drive hours and hours in order to
1:04:34
Speaker 5: get to some cities and they're not big cities. And
1:04:37
Speaker 5: in rural Arizona, people are worried because rural Arizona, 30%
1:04:40
Speaker 5: of rural Arizona is on Medicaid. So when you shut
1:04:42
Speaker 5: down or start throwing people off Medicaid, it's going to
1:04:45
Speaker 5: end up having huge impacts. Hospitals shut down, everything else
1:04:47
Speaker 5: like that. And And people will know that the only
1:04:51
Speaker 5: reason they're doing this is to give tax cuts to
1:04:54
Speaker 5: the rich. So what I think they're going to try
1:04:57
Speaker 5: to do is they're going to end up doing a
1:04:59
Speaker 5: couple of things. Number one, they're going to try to
1:05:01
Speaker 5: shave Medicaid, see if they can politically get away with
1:05:03
Speaker 5: it by coming up with bullshit reasons why people should
1:05:06
Speaker 5: not be on Medicaid. Number two, they're going to try
1:05:09
Speaker 5: to change the law, the rule, as we call it
1:05:12
Speaker 5: here in the Senate. and saying like, well, we don't
1:05:15
Speaker 5: actually have to justify these cuts. We actually don't have
1:05:17
Speaker 5: to find any further cuts. They're already existing in law.
1:05:19
Speaker 5: So who cares? Just keep expanding them, right? And that
1:05:21
Speaker 5: way they don't actually have to go and find somewhere
1:05:23
Speaker 5: else to cut. And then the rich get their tax cuts.
1:05:27
Speaker 5: At the end of the day, we still end up
1:05:28
Speaker 5: getting screwed if you're working class because they're going to
1:05:30
Speaker 5: end up borrowing a ton of money. It's going to
1:05:32
Speaker 5: keep inflation higher. It's going to keep interest rates higher. And,
1:05:36
Speaker 5: you know, it's not going to, I think it's probably
1:05:39
Speaker 5: going to slow down the economy even more. So, you know,
1:05:43
Speaker 5: working class America is going to end up paying one
1:05:45
Speaker 5: way or the other for the tax cuts for the rich.
1:05:48
Speaker 1: I'm not going to relitigate the politics of the shutdown fight,
1:05:51
Speaker 1: but one takeaway seemed to be that Democrats in Congress
1:05:53
Speaker 1: need to do a better job of communicating their strategy. Obviously,
1:05:57
Speaker 1: you guys don't have the votes to stop this tax
1:06:00
Speaker 1: bill from becoming law. But what are you thinking in
1:06:03
Speaker 1: terms of the strategy around this fight?
1:06:05
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, the strategy on the fight is we
1:06:06
Speaker 5: have to show why they're doing this. So you talked
1:06:08
Speaker 5: about this, right? The only reason they want to do
1:06:10
Speaker 5: this is because they want to give their rich buddies,
1:06:12
Speaker 5: Elon Musk, more money. And the only way they're going
1:06:16
Speaker 5: to do that is they're going to gut the working
1:06:17
Speaker 5: class at some point. We need to, you know, trying
1:06:20
Speaker 5: to give an oppositional view in a contradiction to that,
1:06:24
Speaker 5: something that actually people can, you know, talk about. You know,
1:06:27
Speaker 5: I think the Democrats should be talking about, you know,
1:06:29
Speaker 5: trying to bring a child tax credit instead of giving
1:06:32
Speaker 5: tax cuts to the rich. I think Democrats should be
1:06:34
Speaker 5: talking about a minimum wage that actually people can live
1:06:38
Speaker 5: on instead of giving tax cuts to the rich. This
1:06:40
Speaker 5: is the thing that we need to kind of be
1:06:42
Speaker 5: giving a viewpoint of what you can get as an alternative.
1:06:46
Speaker 5: So just being a party of no is not going
1:06:47
Speaker 5: to work. And just saying, hey, we're the party that's
1:06:50
Speaker 5: going to stand up for working class people. We don't
1:06:51
Speaker 5: actually introduce any real legislation to actually make people feel
1:06:54
Speaker 5: that that's the case is not going to be a
1:06:56
Speaker 5: winning message. And I think my lesson from the CR
1:07:01
Speaker 5: shutdown was a lot of lessons. But a lot of
1:07:05
Speaker 5: my colleagues felt uncomfortable because they felt that there was
1:07:09
Speaker 5: no messaging that could give them higher ground against the
1:07:13
Speaker 5: bully pulpit of Donald Trump. My argument to them was like, well, yeah,
1:07:17
Speaker 5: we got ourselves in this situation because we never actually
1:07:19
Speaker 5: had an affirmative oppositional view that people could actually jump
1:07:23
Speaker 5: on it and grab a hold. And I think that's
1:07:25
Speaker 5: what we need to really do when we get into
1:07:28
Speaker 5: reconciliation coming up.
1:07:30
Speaker 1: It's interesting you say that because I've talked to some
1:07:31
Speaker 1: of your colleagues, particularly your younger, newer colleagues who also
1:07:37
Speaker 1: seem a little frustrated that there's not been enough conversation
1:07:40
Speaker 1: about a, uh, uh, sort of an alternative vision and
1:07:44
Speaker 1: agenda from the democratic party. Is there, is there resistance
1:07:48
Speaker 1: to that from leadership or why haven't, that's good.
1:07:52
Speaker 5: I think a lot of us showed our frustration and
1:07:54
Speaker 5: we're very clear, uh, what, what direction the party was heading,
1:07:59
Speaker 5: unless there was, we were listened to. And I think that's, uh, uh, they're, they're,
1:08:04
Speaker 5: they're listening now.
1:08:06
Speaker 1: What do you, in terms of that alternate sort of vision, agenda,
1:08:11
Speaker 1: I know you mentioned the child tax cut, but what
1:08:13
Speaker 1: does it sound like to you? Like, what is the,
1:08:15
Speaker 1: we haven't had a lot of debate about what sort
1:08:17
Speaker 1: of that forward-looking vision in the party might sound like.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: You know, I just sat down with Ezra Klein and
1:08:22
Speaker 1: Derek Thompson.
1:08:23
Speaker 5: I know, I'm going to sound like I'm just going
1:08:25
Speaker 5: to be repeating their shit. I haven't read the book yet,
1:08:29
Speaker 5: so I can't plagiarize. I think it's very simple. Number one,
1:08:35
Speaker 5: The problem that we have is we have a lack
1:08:36
Speaker 5: of energy, right? And we need to make sure that
1:08:38
Speaker 5: when we take power, we use power. What does that
1:08:41
Speaker 5: look like? A, actually fundamentally changing people's lives for the better.
1:08:51
Speaker 5: Right away, I would do a good minimum wage increase, $ 15, $ 17,
1:08:56
Speaker 5: whatever it is. Peg it to inflation automatically, so keep growing.
1:09:00
Speaker 5: keeps growing every year. Child tax credit, as I said, $ 200,
1:09:03
Speaker 5: $ 300 per family. Everyone that's making less than, I'd say, $ 100, 000, $ 120, 000
1:09:08
Speaker 5: a year. For child care, I mean, right now it's
1:09:12
Speaker 5: more expensive for you to send your kid to child
1:09:14
Speaker 5: care than it is to pay for tuition, in-state tuition
1:09:16
Speaker 5: for most universities. Let's just give direct child care subsidies
1:09:21
Speaker 5: to families to take care of that, to take care
1:09:24
Speaker 5: of their kids. These are the kind of impactful things
1:09:26
Speaker 5: we should be doing right away. I think we should
1:09:29
Speaker 5: help do a credit buster. There's so many people right
1:09:31
Speaker 5: now that are paying off credit card debt that they
1:09:35
Speaker 5: were living off of inflation. During inflation, they basically survived
1:09:40
Speaker 5: by putting on credit card debt. Now they're carrying the
1:09:42
Speaker 5: highest amount of credit card debt in the history of
1:09:44
Speaker 5: this country. We should help. these families at least pay
1:09:48
Speaker 5: off a good chunk of their credit card debt. Now,
1:09:50
Speaker 5: that could just be a direct subsidy to them, but
1:09:53
Speaker 5: that would be a huge relief. We need to get
1:09:57
Speaker 5: Americans to understand when you elect Democrats, good shit happens
1:10:01
Speaker 5: and I feel better, right? It's that simple. And a
1:10:04
Speaker 5: lot of times we get into these very kind of
1:10:07
Speaker 5: like wonky bureaucratic process that we think we'll end up
1:10:11
Speaker 5: getting credit for and we never, ever, ever do. And,
1:10:15
Speaker 5: you know, that's the one time, you know, I can
1:10:17
Speaker 5: tell you like my family, working class family remembers, especially
1:10:22
Speaker 5: not my direct family, but my sisters and my cousins,
1:10:25
Speaker 5: they finally remember when they were all getting the child
1:10:27
Speaker 5: tax credit. And that's what they remember at Democrats as
1:10:30
Speaker 5: being good, right? So, you know, having a real focus on,
1:10:35
Speaker 5: you know, an energetic response really to the needs of
1:10:38
Speaker 5: working class America. would be huge, something that every time
1:10:41
Speaker 5: there's an election, like Democrats got me this, right?
1:10:46
Speaker 1: That's it. What lessons do you take from the Biden administration,
1:10:50
Speaker 1: which obviously passed quite a bit of significant legislation around infrastructure, climate,
1:10:58
Speaker 1: and then didn't really get much credit for any of it,
1:11:01
Speaker 1: even if you put the worries about cost of living aside,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: which was hard to put aside, but not a lot
1:11:06
Speaker 1: of people sort of felt in their lives any impact
1:11:10
Speaker 1: from the Biden administration's legislation.
1:11:13
Speaker 5: I hate to be the Cassandra here, but I was
1:11:15
Speaker 5: telling this to people in the administration from day one
1:11:18
Speaker 5: that they were too focused on, first of all, infrastructure.
1:11:22
Speaker 5: Every president runs on infrastructure. Do they pass it?
1:11:26
Speaker 2: Do they not?
1:11:26
Speaker 5: But no one ever gets credit for it. If you
1:11:29
Speaker 5: look at even the unions that benefited from infrastructure ended
1:11:34
Speaker 5: up voting for Trump. I think we have to understand
1:11:39
Speaker 5: that unless people feel it, then it's not real, right?
1:11:44
Speaker 5: You can talk all you want about the quick chargers
1:11:49
Speaker 5: for electric vehicles that run across the whole country, but
1:11:51
Speaker 5: unless somehow someone sees it and how it affects them,
1:11:55
Speaker 5: they're not going to feel it. You could talk about
1:11:56
Speaker 5: the IRA and all this kind of stuff, but until
1:11:59
Speaker 5: you actually see the results, it's not going to impact you.
1:12:04
Speaker 5: One of the things that was really messed up by
1:12:05
Speaker 5: the IRA, people forget, is that a lot of the
1:12:08
Speaker 5: stuff that really, really, really had impact, for example, the
1:12:12
Speaker 5: negotiations for Medicare prescriptions, drugs. The other one was, for example,
1:12:19
Speaker 5: like bringing down the overall costs of what people have
1:12:21
Speaker 5: to pay if you're a senior on Medicare to $ 2, 000
1:12:24
Speaker 5: a year capped. None of that started till 2026. It
1:12:29
Speaker 5: was whenever they were negotiating the stuff that would be
1:12:32
Speaker 5: actually impactful to people, I think purposely, it was put
1:12:36
Speaker 5: off so it would actually not have any real impact
1:12:39
Speaker 5: on people's lives until after the election. And when Biden
1:12:45
Speaker 5: and his administration were negotiating this, I think they were
1:12:47
Speaker 5: just happy to take the victory and walk away. And
1:12:50
Speaker 5: they should have realized that it was a whole thing,
1:12:52
Speaker 5: was one big setup because we ended up creating a
1:12:54
Speaker 5: trillion dollar bill that no one really felt the effects
1:12:57
Speaker 5: of right away. And I think that probably cost us
1:13:02
Speaker 5: a lot of the election right there.
1:13:04
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw over the weekend Gavin
1:13:05
Speaker 1: Newsom was on Bill Maher's show and said that the
1:13:08
Speaker 1: Democratic Party's brand is, quote, toxic. And then Ro Khanna
1:13:13
Speaker 1: responded and said it's not toxic and we shouldn't be
1:13:16
Speaker 1: sort of joining in the chorus of people attacking the Democrats.
1:13:19
Speaker 1: We should be unified against Trump. Where do you come
1:13:21
Speaker 1: down on that?
1:13:23
Speaker 5: I don't want to get involved in this little California
1:13:25
Speaker 5: civil war. Most people don't really care about parties like this.
1:13:31
Speaker 5: So this whole it's toxic versus not toxic. Like, that's
1:13:36
Speaker 5: like a bunch of, like, political scientists, pundits, and they're
1:13:39
Speaker 5: all talking. If you want to change the opinion that
1:13:42
Speaker 5: people have for the Democratic Party, we need to start winning.
1:13:45
Speaker 5: That's it, right? The reason we're right now clinical at
1:13:48
Speaker 5: stock is because we lost, right? And once we start
1:13:51
Speaker 5: having some wins, we start having some people actually, you know,
1:13:55
Speaker 5: I think showing, you know, what the Democratic Party is
1:13:58
Speaker 5: in a, you know, real personal way for people running
1:14:00
Speaker 5: for office, you know, the presidential candidates are coming up,
1:14:02
Speaker 5: everything else like that. Then, you know, I think we'll
1:14:05
Speaker 5: get our mojo back. But some of the stuff that
1:14:07
Speaker 5: we're doing right now is just kind of, you know,
1:14:10
Speaker 5: it's like public therapy, I guess, when we should really
1:14:13
Speaker 5: just be focusing. And I'm all for therapy. Don't get
1:14:15
Speaker 5: me wrong. But I really think we should be focusing
1:14:17
Speaker 5: on just like trying to figure out how to like
1:14:19
Speaker 5: immediately bring wins, win, wins. So just from my experience
1:14:22
Speaker 5: in Arizona, you know, in Arizona, it's always been a
1:14:25
Speaker 5: swing state. What happened in Arizona for many years when
1:14:28
Speaker 5: we started winning elections, Democrats, because we started in a
1:14:34
Speaker 5: momentum of just winning. And eventually the message in Arizona,
1:14:38
Speaker 5: especially among voters, was like, oh, damn, these Democrats, they
1:14:41
Speaker 5: know how to win in Arizona. So there was always
1:14:42
Speaker 5: this excitement. And, you know, right now we just don't
1:14:45
Speaker 5: have that. We need a couple of wins under our belts.
1:14:47
Speaker 5: We need to make sure that we're really showing who
1:14:50
Speaker 5: we're fighting for. And I think that's where we get
1:14:51
Speaker 5: our momentum back. But like these kind of like sniping
1:14:54
Speaker 5: that politicians do to each other, it's cute, but it
1:14:56
Speaker 5: doesn't really make a big.
1:14:57
Speaker 1: Difference, I think. So one story I wanted to bring up,
1:15:01
Speaker 1: I've lost track of how many stories keep popping up
1:15:03
Speaker 1: about the wildly corrupt relationship between the Trump family and
1:15:06
Speaker 1: the crypto industry. Just today, I saw that Don Jr.
1:15:09
Speaker 1: and Eric are starting a Bitcoin mining adventure. So congrats
1:15:13
Speaker 1: to them. I've always been a bit of a crypto
1:15:15
Speaker 1: skeptic since the industry is largely unregulated and seemingly rife
1:15:20
Speaker 1: with corruption. I know you're one of the more pro-crypto
1:15:23
Speaker 1: Democrats in Congress and are the ranking member of the
1:15:25
Speaker 1: Digital Assets Subcommittee. Why should I not be skeptical of
1:15:29
Speaker 1: crypto if it is better regulated than it is now?
1:15:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going to say, if it's not regulated,
1:15:35
Speaker 5: you should be skeptical of it. The fact is, crypto
1:15:38
Speaker 5: is here to stay no matter what. It's either going
1:15:41
Speaker 5: to be a US-based economy, or it's going to be overseas.
1:15:46
Speaker 5: If we could bring it here, base it here, and
1:15:48
Speaker 5: regulate it to American standards, it's going to be a
1:15:52
Speaker 5: fine asset. If we don't do that, it will be
1:15:56
Speaker 5: a bunch of rug pulls. It will be a bunch
1:15:57
Speaker 5: of pump and dump, whether it's stocks, meme coins, whatever
1:16:04
Speaker 5: it is. That's actually what's going to happen. I think
1:16:06
Speaker 5: if we could bring this here, have it regulated under
1:16:09
Speaker 5: our US systems where you could get prosecuted, you had
1:16:12
Speaker 5: to have transparency, you had to have consumer protection, I
1:16:16
Speaker 5: think that's the better way to go. Are we there yet?
1:16:21
Speaker 3: No.
1:16:21
Speaker 5: This is what Congress is really working on to make
1:16:24
Speaker 5: sure we get to that point. But it is better
1:16:27
Speaker 5: than what is going to exist right now. Because right now,
1:16:31
Speaker 5: it runs the gamut. It can be legitimate. you know,
1:16:35
Speaker 5: Bitcoins down to, you know, meme coins that are being
1:16:38
Speaker 5: like hawked by anybody just to kind of do a
1:16:41
Speaker 5: quick sale and get out. So I would rather have
1:16:44
Speaker 5: it regulated under U.S. systems than not. But right now
1:16:48
Speaker 5: it's really not. And it's only going to get worse
1:16:50
Speaker 5: if we don't bring it into, I think, U.S.
1:16:52
Speaker 3: Compliance.
1:16:54
Speaker 1: So last question. Last time Democrats were completely shut out
1:16:58
Speaker 1: of power in D.C., which was after the 2004 election,
1:17:01
Speaker 1: One of the party's only new senators went on to
1:17:04
Speaker 1: become a history-making president after just a few years in office.
1:17:07
Speaker 1: How are you thinking about your role in the Democratic
1:17:10
Speaker 1: Party right now in your future?
1:17:14
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, for me, I feel like my role
1:17:17
Speaker 5: right now is to kind of bring some hard truths
1:17:19
Speaker 5: to the party, right? And look, I won a very
1:17:22
Speaker 5: hard race. And Latinos started moving away from the party.
1:17:27
Speaker 5: Latino males started moving into the party. And what I
1:17:31
Speaker 5: saw in past campaigns is that a lot of times
1:17:34
Speaker 5: people just kind of want to whistle past a graveyard.
1:17:37
Speaker 5: And I want to make sure the Democrats have a
1:17:40
Speaker 5: fighting chance. Our only fighting chance is two. Number one,
1:17:44
Speaker 5: we need to bring Latinos back into our fold. And
1:17:47
Speaker 5: as the numbers we said before, and we have to
1:17:48
Speaker 5: have a fighting chance with men, right? Not that we're
1:17:51
Speaker 5: going to win it, but we have to do better
1:17:53
Speaker 5: and stop sliding away. I think like my role right
1:17:56
Speaker 5: now is to be that person that is unafraid, and
1:17:59
Speaker 5: willing to have conversations with fellow Democrats and be honest about,
1:18:03
Speaker 5: you know, do we want to win or do we
1:18:05
Speaker 5: want to feel good? Because sometimes they don't align. And
1:18:09
Speaker 5: for me, I want to win to make sure that
1:18:10
Speaker 5: we could protect, you know, our families, our most vulnerable communities,
1:18:14
Speaker 5: you know, our standing in the world. And sometimes that
1:18:17
Speaker 5: means we're gonna have to piss off people within our tent,
1:18:19
Speaker 5: not on purpose, but in order for us to win.
1:18:22
Speaker 5: And I think we have to, my job right now
1:18:25
Speaker 5: is to kind of have those conversations. And if anybody
1:18:28
Speaker 5: that wants to run for president Wants to talk to
1:18:30
Speaker 5: me about that. I'm gladly sit down. I'll talk to
1:18:32
Speaker 5: you from my perspective. I'm here. I'm a good Democrat.
1:18:35
Speaker 5: I want to make sure Democrats win in four years.
1:18:37
Speaker 5: And that's going to be my focus.
1:18:39
Speaker 1: I know it's early, but how are those conversations going
1:18:41
Speaker 1: so far? Are you feeling more hopeful or are you
1:18:44
Speaker 1: feeling more frustrated?
1:18:46
Speaker 5: Well, no one's talked to me yet.
1:18:48
Speaker 1: Not just vote president. not just about president, but just
1:18:51
Speaker 1: the conversations you're having with people about what's wrong with
1:18:54
Speaker 1: the democratic party and where, where we need to go.
1:18:57
Speaker 5: I mean, this is gonna, it's kind of a loaded
1:18:58
Speaker 5: question for those that want to see a path forward. They're,
1:19:01
Speaker 5: they're keeping their minds open and come in and talk
1:19:03
Speaker 5: to me. I think, you know, I've, I've, I have
1:19:05
Speaker 5: ruffled some feathers to be honest. You know, if, uh,
1:19:09
Speaker 5: I know I did something wrong or I did something
1:19:11
Speaker 5: right because sometimes when I do something, I'll get it
1:19:14
Speaker 5: both from the left and the right on Twitter and
1:19:17
Speaker 5: social media. And I think there are some people from
1:19:21
Speaker 5: a more liberal bent that are mad at me. And again,
1:19:26
Speaker 5: I do this all with love. I want us to win.
1:19:30
Speaker 5: I want Democrats to be competitive. And some of that,
1:19:34
Speaker 5: we have to have a very realistic view of what
1:19:36
Speaker 5: the world looks like and what these voters want. And,
1:19:40
Speaker 5: you know, sometimes it doesn't align. You know, our primary
1:19:42
Speaker 5: voter is very different from a general election voter. And
1:19:46
Speaker 5: it's very easy for us to make our primary voter
1:19:48
Speaker 5: happy and then lose the general election. I just don't
1:19:51
Speaker 5: want to see us doing that again. And this is
1:19:52
Speaker 5: why and because it has consequences. What happens when we lose?
1:19:57
Speaker 5: And I think it's not going to get any better.
1:19:58
Speaker 5: You know, the next Republican that wins will do just
1:20:02
Speaker 5: exactly what Donald Trump is doing. And so we have
1:20:05
Speaker 5: to win elections from here on out. And that means that,
1:20:07
Speaker 5: you know, if I have to guide some of my
1:20:10
Speaker 5: friends in a way that makes sure we win general elections.
1:20:12
Speaker 5: I'm going to do it. And that may tick off
1:20:14
Speaker 5: some people, but we have to win. You know, we
1:20:16
Speaker 5: don't win. Not winning has really bad consequences on this country,
1:20:19
Speaker 5: as we can tell.
1:20:20
Speaker 1: Sure does. Winning is much better. Ruben Gallego, thank you,
1:20:24
Speaker 1: as always, for joining Pod Save America. And come visit
1:20:27
Speaker 1: us next time you're in LA.
1:20:28
Speaker 3: I will.
1:20:29
Speaker 4: Adios.
1:20:34
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Ruben Gallego for
1:20:36
Speaker 1: coming on. Dan and I are both off later this week,
1:20:39
Speaker 1: but fear not. Tommy's going to have a new show
1:20:41
Speaker 1: for you on Friday.
1:20:42
Speaker 4: What?
1:20:44
Speaker 3: Oh, sorry.
1:20:44
Speaker 1: This is the way we tell you about those things.
1:20:46
Speaker 3: I mean, Jesus, you'd sit in an office with somebody.
1:20:50
Speaker 1: Thanks, everyone. If you want to listen to Pod Save
1:20:53
Speaker 1: America ad-free or get access to our subscriber Discord and
1:20:56
Speaker 1: exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the Pod community
1:21:00
Speaker 1: at cricket.com slash friends. or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly
1:21:03
Speaker 1: from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to
1:21:06
Speaker 1: follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube
1:21:09
Speaker 1: for full episodes, bonus content, and more. And before you
1:21:13
Speaker 1: hit that next button, you can help boost this episode
1:21:15
Speaker 1: by leaving us a review and by sharing it with
1:21:17
Speaker 1: friends and family. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
1:21:21
Speaker 1: Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin. Our associate
1:21:24
Speaker 1: producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our executive editor,
1:21:28
Speaker 1: and Adrienne Hill is our executive producer. The show is
1:21:31
Speaker 1: mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our
1:21:34
Speaker 1: sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis.
1:21:38
Speaker 1: Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt
1:21:40
Speaker 1: DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our
1:21:43
Speaker 1: executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones,
1:21:47
Speaker 1: Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel, Kirill Pelleviv, and David Tolles.
1:21:52
Speaker 1: Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild
1:21:54
Speaker 1: of America East.