Latest / Pod Save America / The Bruised Hand in the Cookie Jar
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- 2:21Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
- 2:23Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Detour.
- 2:24Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to break down the new
- 2:26Speaker 1: gold standard New York Times poll that shows Democrats opening
- 2:29Speaker 1: an 11-point lead in the midterms. Let's have that election today, huh?
- 2:34Speaker 3: Please, hurry it up.
- 2:35Speaker 1: We'll also talk about how Trump's revenge tour came for
- 2:37Speaker 1: Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and is coming for Congressman Thomas
- 2:41Speaker 1: Massey in Tuesday's Kentucky primary. There's also some fresh new
- 2:44Speaker 1: corruption to discuss. Trump's new taxpayer-funded $ 2 billion slush fund
- 2:48Speaker 1: he'll use to reward his favorite criminals. And revelations that
- 2:51Speaker 1: he's basically been day trading in his spare time 3,700
- 2:54Speaker 1: stock trades in just three months.
- 2:57Speaker 3: That's so many trades.
- 2:59Speaker 1: So many trades.
- 2:59Speaker 3: Just bad advice. Just put it in an index fund.
- 3:01Speaker 3: Just kidding.
- 3:02Speaker 1: We also got a new Iran taco brewing and renewed
- 3:06Speaker 1: interest in Cuba and Greenland, which is just one of
- 3:09Speaker 1: the reasons we'll also dive into the latest debate over
- 3:11Speaker 1: how much Democrats and commentators should be talking about old
- 3:15Speaker 1: man Trump losing his marbles.
- 3:17Speaker 3: Speaking of old man.
- 3:19Speaker 2: Check out Fora's over here. He's going to sit here
- 3:23Speaker 2: with this guy who's got his fucking nerds got his
- 3:25Speaker 2: glasses on.
- 3:25Speaker 3: I was waiting for you to do it.
- 3:27Speaker 1: Sorry, I scratched my eye. Don't get used to it, everyone, hopefully.
- 3:32Speaker 1: But first, before we start, tickets for CrookedCon 2026 are
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- 4:32Speaker 5: All right.
- 4:33Speaker 1: Donald Trump and the Republican Party have been shitting the
- 4:35Speaker 1: bed in nearly every poll for the last few months.
- 4:38Speaker 1: But now, Nate Cohn and the New York Times have
- 4:41Speaker 1: come down from the mountaintop with a stone tablet. that
- 4:44Speaker 1: confirms how screwed they are. Trump's approval is at 37%
- 4:48Speaker 1: in their new poll. That is a record low for
- 4:51Speaker 1: him for both terms in all New York Times Siena polls.
- 4:56Speaker 1: And midterm voters also favor Democrats by 11 points, 50
- 5:00Speaker 1: to 39% over Republicans. The president's biggest liability in the
- 5:06Speaker 1: poll remains his handling of the cost of living, which
- 5:09Speaker 1: his political strategists keep hoping he'll pretend to care about.
- 5:13Speaker 1: as evidenced by Monday's White House event on his discount
- 5:16Speaker 1: drug website, TrumpRx. Let's see how it went.
- 5:20Speaker 5: I think outside of maybe a cure itself, it's the
- 5:23Speaker 5: biggest thing to happen to healthcare and everything having to
- 5:26Speaker 5: do with medical in any way, shape, or form. There's
- 5:30Speaker 5: never been anything like this.
- 5:32Speaker 1: Really sold it, huh?
- 5:33Speaker 3: What?
- 5:34Speaker 1: What does that even mean? Really sold it. TrumpRx is
- 5:36Speaker 1: the biggest thing in medical.
- 5:37Speaker 3: It's the biggest thing in medical. Biggest thing in medical.
- 5:39Speaker 3: You can tell because there's a doctor here. You could
- 5:43Speaker 3: tell he didn't like the event because he cut it
- 5:44Speaker 3: really short.
- 5:44Speaker 1: Because it kind of looked like.
- 5:46Speaker 3: Where were they? It looked like TEDxToledo or something. It
- 5:48Speaker 3: was just like Joe Gebbia in front of a giant screen.
- 5:50Speaker 1: The whole thing was embarrassing. Mark Cuban was there. TrumpRx,
- 5:54Speaker 1: by the way, it's not a platform for buying medications.
- 5:57Speaker 1: Do you know that? It's a facilitator. You go to
- 5:59Speaker 1: the website. It directs you to the other websites to
- 6:02Speaker 1: buy the drugs. And sometimes it gives you coupons.
- 6:05Speaker 3: Just redirects you?
- 6:06Speaker 1: Yeah, basically. And then Amazon and Cuban's thing. What's his
- 6:10Speaker 1: thing called?
- 6:11Speaker 3: Cost Plus Drugs.
- 6:12Speaker 1: Cost Plus Drugs. Um, you know, they work with the
- 6:14Speaker 1: federal government to have some discounts on some extra drugs,
- 6:17Speaker 1: but also if you have insurance doesn't help you, meaning
- 6:19Speaker 1: it's cheaper to buy the drugs if you have insurance
- 6:20Speaker 1: because the insurance covers the drugs. So really it's for
- 6:23Speaker 1: people who don't have insurance sometimes get some discounts on
- 6:25Speaker 1: some drugs. So it's not a bad thing, but it's
- 6:29Speaker 1: not a, it's not weird. It's not, it's certainly not
- 6:31Speaker 1: the biggest thing since medical.
- 6:32Speaker 4: No.
- 6:33Speaker 1: Um, what stood out to you guys in the New
- 6:36Speaker 1: York times poll?
- 6:38Speaker 2: So whenever we're talking about a poll that looks good
- 6:40Speaker 2: for Democrats, you got to go down and find the
- 6:41Speaker 2: part where it's terrible for Democrats.
- 6:43Speaker 3: And this was a new one, I think.
- 6:46Speaker 2: They said, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the Democratic Party?
- 6:50Speaker 2: And I'm used to seeing that voters may be really
- 6:52Speaker 2: unhappy with Republicans and planning to vote for Democrats, but
- 6:54Speaker 2: then are ultimately not super satisfied with Democrats either.
- 6:57Speaker 3: I was surprised to see that.
- 7:00Speaker 2: 70% of people say they are dissatisfied with the Democratic
- 7:03Speaker 2: Party and only 5% are very satisfied, which is a
- 7:08Speaker 2: third of the number of people that are very satisfied
- 7:10Speaker 2: with Trump.
- 7:10Speaker 3: And I get being, look, Republicans are in power.
- 7:13Speaker 2: This is representing people that hate Democrats. It's represented by
- 7:16Speaker 2: people that wish Democrats would fight more. It's represented by Democrat.
- 7:19Speaker 2: Everyone who has a criticism of the Democrats is represented
- 7:21Speaker 2: in that number.
- 7:22Speaker 1: But the fact that- Where would you be in that
- 7:24Speaker 1: when someone asks you? I would be- I would be unsatisfied.
- 7:27Speaker 3: I'm unsatisfied, baby.
- 7:29Speaker 1: I'm unsatisfied. But then when they gave me the generic
- 7:32Speaker 1: ballot thing, I'd be right there. I'd be right there.
- 7:35Speaker 2: But just the fact that like right now, if this
- 7:38Speaker 2: whole big, beautiful country of ours, there's only 5% of
- 7:40Speaker 2: people that just love the democratic party.
- 7:42Speaker 3: Like we talk a lot about the base. It's like,
- 7:44Speaker 3: we don't really have, you know, the Trump has a
- 7:47Speaker 3: base that is, who are those people?
- 7:49Speaker 1: Right.
- 7:49Speaker 3: Who are those 5%? I love everything they're doing. Can't
- 7:53Speaker 3: wait to see him on tour.
- 7:54Speaker 1: Like some of the, some of the staffers, maybe.
- 7:56Speaker 3: I don't know.
- 7:58Speaker 1: Relatives, a couple of folks on blue sky. I don't know. Um,
- 8:02Speaker 1: so anyway, that was, that's what stood out to you.
- 8:04Speaker 3: That stood out to me.
- 8:04Speaker 2: And then there was, uh, uh, There was a number
- 8:08Speaker 2: on AI that I thought was just interesting that only
- 8:10Speaker 2: 16% of people think AI is more good than bad.
- 8:13Speaker 2: The vast majority are either undecided or think it's more
- 8:16Speaker 2: bad than good.
- 8:17Speaker 3: And it comes in a weekend where there's all these
- 8:19Speaker 3: commencement addresses where students are booing the mere mention of
- 8:22Speaker 3: AI by the speakers.
- 8:22Speaker 1: Yeah, which I love.
- 8:23Speaker 3: You can tell there's something afoot there.
- 8:25Speaker 1: Yes, there is. Yes, there is. Tommy, what did you think?
- 8:28Speaker 1: I liked that.
- 8:29Speaker 3: I noticed that 64% in the Times poll said, They
- 8:33Speaker 3: think that going to war with Iran was the wrong decision,
- 8:35Speaker 3: including 73% of independents. That is pretty clear cut. And
- 8:40Speaker 3: it's not going to get better as this thing kind
- 8:42Speaker 3: of drags out and the straightover moves remains closed and
- 8:44Speaker 3: the price of gas goes up. 76% rate economic conditions
- 8:48Speaker 3: today is only fair or poor. That is quite bad.
- 8:52Speaker 3: And then, you know, the glass half full thing of
- 8:54Speaker 3: the Democratic Party was 50% say they will vote Democrat,
- 8:57Speaker 3: 39% say they will vote Republican in the midterms. So
- 9:00Speaker 3: it's one of the better numbers today. of that nature
- 9:03Speaker 3: I think we've seen in a while.
- 9:05Speaker 1: We've been saying Trump bad for so long now that
- 9:08Speaker 1: when there's a poll this bad, it's almost like there's
- 9:12Speaker 1: a crying wolf thing.
- 9:13Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
- 9:14Speaker 1: Or like, you know, not Trump's, I mean, Trump's always
- 9:16Speaker 1: been bad, but like, this is it for Trump. The
- 9:18Speaker 1: walls are closing in. But Nate Cohn points out in
- 9:21Speaker 1: his write-up of the poll, no president's approval rating has
- 9:24Speaker 1: been under 38% for more than a few days in
- 9:27Speaker 1: the last 17 years, according to our average. Now we've
- 9:30Speaker 1: got Donald Trump. And then he realized 17 years is
- 9:33Speaker 1: George W. Bush, which just makes us really old. But
- 9:36Speaker 1: that is the last president to be this unpopular for
- 9:40Speaker 1: this long. The fact that this is worse than January
- 9:45Speaker 1: 6th now for him.
- 9:46Speaker 3: Well, the economic indicators are just so bad. I mean,
- 9:48Speaker 3: 76% say they're concerned about their personal finances, the CBS poll.
- 9:53Speaker 3: 67% say they're stressed. Both of those have been ticked
- 9:56Speaker 3: up at the last year. Only 29% in the CBS,
- 9:59Speaker 3: recent CBS poll said the economy is good. 77% say
- 10:02Speaker 3: their income is not keeping up with inflation. So like
- 10:04Speaker 3: gas prices are just killing everybody. Yeah.
- 10:07Speaker 2: To me, like you look at it too, what's hidden
- 10:09Speaker 2: is just how many people have just, they're done, right?
- 10:12Speaker 2: You get, look at this poll and it's, basically almost half,
- 10:15Speaker 2: not quite half the country. They don't approve on Iran.
- 10:18Speaker 2: They don't approve on the economy. They don't approve on
- 10:19Speaker 2: cost of living. They don't approve on immigration.
- 10:21Speaker 1: They are done.
- 10:22Speaker 2: And the number of people who now say Trump has
- 10:24Speaker 2: personally made their economic circumstances worse, 44%, which has gone
- 10:29Speaker 2: up by like eight points since the last time. Like,
- 10:31Speaker 2: so it's gone up from out of the third of
- 10:33Speaker 2: the country. It's rising up to nearly half are no
- 10:34Speaker 2: longer saying just, I don't just disapprove. Like I'm feeling
- 10:37Speaker 2: personally that he's not doing what he said he was
- 10:39Speaker 2: going to do. So that to me was, uh, uh,
- 10:43Speaker 2: stood out. One other thing that stood out just about
- 10:45Speaker 2: what's happening with Iran, that we had a lot of
- 10:48Speaker 2: internet debates about the anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and the Democrats'
- 10:55Speaker 2: position on Israel. Meanwhile, opposition to economic and military support
- 10:58Speaker 2: to Israel has gone from 38% to 57% over the
- 11:02Speaker 2: last two and a half to three years. Support has
- 11:04Speaker 2: gone from 54% to 37%. Same number as Trump's approval.
- 11:06Speaker 2: Support for Israel, financial aid, support for.
- 11:07Speaker 1: Israel is the is just about as popular as Donald
- 11:14Speaker 1: Trump in this country.
- 11:14Speaker 2: And so, look, this is not an argument that's being
- 11:18Speaker 2: lost on the margins, and it's not an argument that's
- 11:20Speaker 2: being lost based on who gets platformed and who doesn't.
- 11:23Speaker 2: There's a huge shift that has happened. I think you
- 11:26Speaker 2: can lay that at the feet of Benjamin Netanyahu and
- 11:29Speaker 2: Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But the sooner people make
- 11:32Speaker 2: this less about the specific individuals they dislike, often with
- 11:36Speaker 2: good reason, and more about the deeper shift that is happening...
- 11:40Speaker 2: I think the sooner people can actually reckon with what
- 11:42Speaker 2: is a real and lasting damage that has happened to
- 11:46Speaker 2: America's relationship with Israel.
- 11:48Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Axios wrote a story this morning about
- 11:50Speaker 1: just the horrific anti-Semitism being directed towards members of Congress
- 11:55Speaker 1: and voicemails and threats and all that. And it's horrible.
- 12:00Speaker 1: And I would just say that I do think it's
- 12:02Speaker 1: important to separate virulent anti-Semitism from people who are pro-Israel
- 12:10Speaker 1: and making the case for supporting Israel. I think we
- 12:12Speaker 1: talked about this last week, but Josh Gottheimer's op-ed about
- 12:16Speaker 1: anti-Semitism and my party has a problem too. It starts
- 12:19Speaker 1: with talking about actual anti-Semitism and then halfway through it
- 12:22Speaker 1: suddenly veers into, oh, and also Democrats are voting against
- 12:25Speaker 1: funding military aid to Israel.
- 12:28Speaker 3: Which is now a majority position.
- 12:29Speaker 1: That should not be in the same op-ed.
- 12:31Speaker 3: Well, Netanyahu says that he wants to wean off military
- 12:34Speaker 3: support for Israel, so yeah. Right.
- 12:36Speaker 1: I would say the only other thing that stood out
- 12:38Speaker 1: to me is on the generic ballot, there's real movement
- 12:41Speaker 1: just within the Times poll, right? Because every poll is
- 12:44Speaker 1: a single poll, snapshot in time, but you take a
- 12:46Speaker 1: poll over time and it was D plus two to
- 12:49Speaker 1: D plus five for the beginning part of Trump's term,
- 12:54Speaker 1: second term in the Times-Siena polls. And now it's D
- 12:56Speaker 1: plus 11. It's a big shift. And then when they
- 13:00Speaker 1: take it to only almost certain or very likely voters,
- 13:03Speaker 1: it's D plus 14. So- even that D plus 11
- 13:06Speaker 1: is like, may not be what we ultimately see because,
- 13:10Speaker 1: you know, the most motivated voters end up turning out
- 13:13Speaker 1: in a midterm more so than in a general election.
- 13:15Speaker 1: So that's, it's pretty big. And it's late May, you know,
- 13:20Speaker 1: not a ton of time left.
- 13:21Speaker 3: Knock on wood.
- 13:22Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 13:22Speaker 3: Well, I mean, look, Trump still has time to become
- 13:24Speaker 3: a different person.
- 13:27Speaker 1: The bigger news from the White House on Monday was
- 13:28Speaker 1: the announcement that President Trump's Justice Department is settling Donald
- 13:31Speaker 1: Trump's lawsuit against the IRS for $ 1. 776 billion. Get it?
- 13:37Speaker 1: Get it? Get it? That is money that will be
- 13:40Speaker 1: taken directly from taxpayers and funneled into a slush fund
- 13:44Speaker 1: that apparently exists to pay Trump supporters who were investigated
- 13:48Speaker 1: or indicted or convicted... during the Biden administration, or I
- 13:52Speaker 1: guess none of those things, because there's really no guardrails whatsoever.
- 13:56Speaker 1: It seems like they did this so Trump wouldn't be
- 13:57Speaker 1: attacked for directly pocketing taxpayer dollars, but I'm not sure
- 14:01Speaker 1: this move is as clever as they think. What about
- 14:03Speaker 1: you guys?
- 14:05Speaker 3: Trump's second term is a political smash and grab job,
- 14:08Speaker 3: where he and his family and the people around him,
- 14:11Speaker 3: people who do his bidding, just take what they want,
- 14:14Speaker 3: get rewarded. They take it from taxpayers, they trade on polymarket,
- 14:18Speaker 3: they front run the stock market, and I think the
- 14:20Speaker 3: fact that Trump is doing this before the midterms just
- 14:23Speaker 3: shows that he doesn't give a shit about politics anymore.
- 14:25Speaker 3: It's all about money and it's all about building monuments
- 14:27Speaker 3: to himself and ingratiating, you know, enriching himself. And they
- 14:31Speaker 3: made an end run around the judge in this case
- 14:33Speaker 3: and they just cut a deal with another political appointee
- 14:35Speaker 3: that he had named to create the slush fund. And
- 14:39Speaker 3: do you think they thought it was cute saying it
- 14:41Speaker 3: was 1.776? Doesn't that just make the whole thing feel
- 14:45Speaker 3: like made up and arbitrary? More than anything else?
- 14:48Speaker 1: They think it's like, oh, we've got patriotism and America's
- 14:50Speaker 1: 250 is coming up. And so if we call it
- 14:52Speaker 1: a patriotic fund for patriots, then no one will get
- 14:55Speaker 1: mad at us.
- 14:56Speaker 3: Shouldn't a fund to pay out restitution to people harmed
- 14:59Speaker 3: be based on like metrics.
- 15:01Speaker 2: And not an anniversary? Where's the number coming from? How
- 15:06Speaker 2: much earnings did you lose when you were at the
- 15:08Speaker 2: Capitol on January 6th?
- 15:09Speaker 1: I will say.
- 15:10Speaker 3: Congress passed a law.
- 15:15Speaker 1: To give the Department of Justice basically an unlimited fund
- 15:18Speaker 1: for restitution for anyone who sues the federal government. And
- 15:21Speaker 1: so that's how they ended up doing this. So it's like,
- 15:23Speaker 1: it is a, one of those technically legal, but extremely
- 15:27Speaker 1: corrupt things that we have because of a stupid law
- 15:29Speaker 1: that was passed that no one, no one thought to themselves,
- 15:32Speaker 1: maybe there'll be an administration that just has the fund
- 15:34Speaker 1: being unlimited because the president will sue himself. We'll see
- 15:37Speaker 1: what's on.
- 15:37Speaker 2: Well, in fairness to people that wrote that law, you
- 15:40Speaker 2: would also assume that if it were to be so
- 15:43Speaker 2: completely and obviously and brazenly abused by a president, who's
- 15:45Speaker 2: basically just going into the treasury and stuffing his pockets
- 15:48Speaker 2: and leaving that there might be a Congress that would
- 15:50Speaker 2: care about that, uh, which we, we don't have just
- 15:53Speaker 2: like to Tommy's point, the judge was like, Hey, before
- 15:56Speaker 2: this lawsuit by Trump against his own administration, which is unprecedented,
- 16:01Speaker 2: that's being administered by his, uh, personal attorney, former personal
- 16:05Speaker 2: attorney at the department of justice. I want you to
- 16:07Speaker 2: come in and explain to me how you're actually parties
- 16:10Speaker 2: in opposition, how you're not on the same side of
- 16:11Speaker 2: this thing.
- 16:12Speaker 1: And they're like, Oh, the deadline's May 20th. That's when
- 16:15Speaker 1: now it's May 18th.
- 16:16Speaker 2: And so basically proving the point that the judge was
- 16:20Speaker 2: worried about, uh, they have decided to reach a, reach
- 16:23Speaker 2: a deal beforehand. Now the justice department If it was
- 16:27Speaker 2: actually advocating on behalf of taxpayers, the American people, which
- 16:30Speaker 2: is what it's supposed to do, it would fight this
- 16:31Speaker 2: thing to the bitter end or at the very least
- 16:34Speaker 2: settle for $ 0, which has happened in not exactly similar,
- 16:38Speaker 2: but cases that are akin to this in the past.
- 16:41Speaker 2: But instead they're doing this.
- 16:42Speaker 1: Ken Griffin.
- 16:42Speaker 3: Yeah, doing this.
- 16:43Speaker 1: He settled the same case. His taxpayer info was leaked
- 16:46Speaker 1: and he settled it for $ 0.
- 16:47Speaker 3: For $ 0.
- 16:47Speaker 1: He's got a public apology from the IRS.
- 16:49Speaker 2: Because he didn't pay. And that is something that could
- 16:52Speaker 2: have come of this. But it said, no, they are
- 16:53Speaker 2: proving that they are in cahoots here. by doing this
- 16:56Speaker 2: kind of a settlement. They're using a ridiculous justification based
- 17:00Speaker 2: on something that happened in the Obama administration, which even
- 17:03Speaker 2: conservative legal scholars have batted down because that had actual
- 17:08Speaker 2: specific people who were harmed by an actual specific policy
- 17:12Speaker 2: unlike this. My pitch is James Comey, Tish James, LaMonica McIver,
- 17:17Speaker 2: Lisa Cook, Jerome Powell, they should all be submitting when
- 17:20Speaker 2: this thing comes out. They should put their names in
- 17:22Speaker 2: to get money from this fund. And if they do
- 17:24Speaker 2: not receive a fair hearing, they should sue the federal government.
- 17:27Speaker 2: Like there are people that are being politically prosecuted by
- 17:30Speaker 2: the government. As far as we know publicly, nobody on
- 17:32Speaker 2: that list would not be kind of at least potentially
- 17:38Speaker 2: included in the people hurt that could receive from this 1776.
- 17:43Speaker 1: My pitch is no one gets it. Give us the
- 17:45Speaker 1: fucking money back. That's our money.
- 17:48Speaker 2: To be clear, I don't think James Comey should get
- 17:50Speaker 2: money from the federal government, but I think we should
- 17:52Speaker 2: put this thing through its paces.
- 17:55Speaker 1: Trump appoints the board. It's five people. He gets to
- 17:57Speaker 1: hire and fire the board. It's going to be five
- 17:59Speaker 1: cronies dishing out money. This thing doesn't even have to
- 18:02Speaker 1: be like, oh, and here was my case, and it
- 18:05Speaker 1: was tried incorrectly. Someone just can go to fucking whoever
- 18:08Speaker 1: Todd Blanche puts on the commission and be like, hey,
- 18:10Speaker 1: I want $ 10, 000 because I donated to the president. And
- 18:13Speaker 1: I'm mad that Joe Biden sent the FBI after me.
- 18:16Speaker 1: Do you have proof of that? No, but I just
- 18:17Speaker 1: know they were watching me.
- 18:19Speaker 3: It's crazy. They're at the point where they're just saying,
- 18:25Speaker 3: we're going to take money from the treasury.
- 18:27Speaker 1: Give it to whoever we want.
- 18:28Speaker 3: And give it to our friends.
- 18:29Speaker 1: Particularly people who are maybe criminals. To let everyone else
- 18:32Speaker 1: know that if you commit a crime on Trump's behalf,
- 18:34Speaker 1: not only do you not go to jail, but perhaps
- 18:36Speaker 1: you might get some compensation for it.
- 18:38Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was asked at the press conference today,
- 18:40Speaker 2: could this potentially go to people who committed violence on
- 18:42Speaker 2: January 6th? He said, oh, it's going to be up
- 18:44Speaker 2: to the committee. Absolutely, those people would be eligible, could
- 18:46Speaker 2: totally receive money from this fund.
- 18:48Speaker 3: He pretends he doesn't know about it.
- 18:50Speaker 1: Okay. Also, it's a danger going forward, too, as we're
- 18:53Speaker 1: heading into 2028 and Donald Trump and J.D. Vance or
- 18:55Speaker 1: whoever the fuck it is tries to stay in the
- 18:57Speaker 1: White House after they lose an election and a bunch
- 18:59Speaker 1: of people do their bidding for them to help them out.
- 19:01Speaker 1: What do you think they're going to think? They're going
- 19:03Speaker 1: to be like, well, if he stays in there and
- 19:04Speaker 1: I help him out, I'm going to be okay. I'm
- 19:07Speaker 1: going to get a pardon, might get paid. Great.
- 19:09Speaker 3: You guys don't like my idea that James Comey tries
- 19:10Speaker 3: to get into that fund? Come on. Yeah, I mean,
- 19:12Speaker 3: I see what you're saying. I think he should write
- 19:14Speaker 3: out the amount he wants. In shells. Yeah. Any shell-based
- 19:18Speaker 3: crime should apply.
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- 21:45Speaker 1: Speaking of Trump allies getting away with crimes, what do
- 21:48Speaker 1: you guys make of Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, Democrat,
- 21:51Speaker 1: commuting the prison sentence of election denier Tina Peters? She
- 21:56Speaker 1: is the former county clerk from Mesa County, Colorado. She
- 22:01Speaker 1: was in jail for orchestrating a security breach of her
- 22:03Speaker 1: county's voting system. Trump has been publicly and privately pressuring
- 22:10Speaker 1: Polis to pardon her completely. They also tried to transfer
- 22:14Speaker 1: her from state prison to federal prison so that Trump
- 22:17Speaker 1: could pardon her. Didn't do that. But now Polis has
- 22:21Speaker 1: commuted her sentence. She was sentenced to nine years. He
- 22:24Speaker 1: cut it to four and a half years with parole
- 22:26Speaker 1: next month.
- 22:27Speaker 3: I have to be honest. I know this is not
- 22:29Speaker 3: a great answer for the purposes of a talk show.
- 22:31Speaker 3: I just couldn't give less of a shit. I know
- 22:33Speaker 3: people are like outraged about this. I read JBL's long
- 22:35Speaker 3: piece on this. I don't give a shit.
- 22:37Speaker 1: I don't care.
- 22:38Speaker 3: I have so much to be outraged or to worry about.
- 22:40Speaker 3: I just can't even get myself to engage with this person.
- 22:42Speaker 1: I may even go a step further. I think Poulos
- 22:45Speaker 1: might've done the right thing.
- 22:46Speaker 3: By cutting your sentence down? Wow. I gotta go. Excuse me, boys.
- 22:54Speaker 3: If you need me, I'll be at the fucking bulwark.
- 22:58Speaker 3: Where the real libs are now.
- 23:00Speaker 1: Go on. I'm not, I don't feel strongly. I'm, I'm
- 23:03Speaker 1: more into, I'm closer to Tommy's camp, but like, here's
- 23:05Speaker 1: the thing. Um, she was sentenced to nine years, right? She's,
- 23:10Speaker 1: so she's a nonviolent first time offender and, uh, three
- 23:15Speaker 1: appellate judges who were appointed by a Democrat. They were
- 23:18Speaker 1: democratic judges. They all just ruled that they threw out
- 23:21Speaker 1: the sentence, the nine year sentence. So that was never
- 23:23Speaker 1: going to happen. And the reason they threw it out
- 23:25Speaker 1: is because they thought that the judge, um, basically in
- 23:28Speaker 1: giving her a nine year sentence as opposed to a
- 23:30Speaker 1: smaller sentence, violated her free speech rights because the judge
- 23:33Speaker 1: basically said the reason I'm making your sentence longer is
- 23:35Speaker 1: because you spouted election conspiracy theories. Which is a horrible
- 23:39Speaker 1: thing to do, spouting election conspiracy theories, but that is
- 23:41Speaker 1: protected First Amendment speech. I thought we have to be consistent.
- 23:45Speaker 1: But anyway.
- 23:45Speaker 3: But hold on, hold on.
- 23:46Speaker 2: I appreciate that, but we understand that if someone were
- 23:49Speaker 2: to say, hit somebody with their car, and then publicly say,
- 23:53Speaker 2: that bitch deserved it, that is free speech. You have
- 23:55Speaker 2: the right to say that, but it does, Potentially inform
- 23:57Speaker 2: the sentence.
- 23:58Speaker 3: Sorry.
- 23:59Speaker 1: Does it?
- 24:00Speaker 3: Of course it does.
- 24:01Speaker 2: Of course we allow remorse in people's motivations and feelings
- 24:06Speaker 2: about the crimes they committed, what they've learned from it.
- 24:08Speaker 1: That's the. Well, she was she was I mean, but
- 24:10Speaker 1: the no remorse thing was already factored in because she
- 24:12Speaker 1: didn't she she was not remorseful. Right. She was sentenced.
- 24:15Speaker 1: But he didn't say you didn't show remorse. He said
- 24:17Speaker 1: it's because you have these theories.
- 24:19Speaker 2: I'm just saying that we take people's motivations and expressions.
- 24:25Speaker 2: I agree that people have the right to believe elections
- 24:27Speaker 2: are stolen. I'm just saying it's a little bit more
- 24:28Speaker 2: than just the first.
- 24:28Speaker 3: Continue, sorry.
- 24:29Speaker 1: I guess I'm saying if we believe that there is
- 24:33Speaker 1: an incarceration problem in this country and that people are
- 24:36Speaker 1: incarcerated for too long and that prison is a deterrent,
- 24:40Speaker 1: and yes, people should be jailed and they should be
- 24:42Speaker 1: kept from society, but that unusually long sentences... are bad,
- 24:46Speaker 1: especially for first-time nonviolent offenders, don't we have to extend
- 24:50Speaker 1: that belief to people whose political beliefs we detest?
- 24:54Speaker 2: So I would say the answer is we should allow
- 24:57Speaker 2: a process to play out. She would have been resentenced.
- 25:01Speaker 2: Why did this become a big public controversy? It is
- 25:02Speaker 2: because the president of the United States is publicly pressuring
- 25:05Speaker 2: the governor of Colorado to commute Tina Peters' sentence. Now, look,
- 25:09Speaker 2: I am sure Jared Polis would say that the pressure
- 25:11Speaker 2: had nothing to do with it. Obviously, the fact that
- 25:15Speaker 2: Donald Trump was threatening Colorado unless he did something. Donald
- 25:18Speaker 2: Trump was saying this woman should be pardoned. He is
- 25:20Speaker 2: saying it's some kind of pushback against Trump, that it's
- 25:23Speaker 2: only a commutation. She has kind of done the bare
- 25:28Speaker 2: minimum of acknowledging that what she did was wrong. But
- 25:31Speaker 2: if you go to her Twitter feed, her allies were saying,
- 25:33Speaker 2: as recently as I believe last week, I have to
- 25:35Speaker 2: go look at the exact timing, that if Trump... that
- 25:38Speaker 2: if Tina Peters isn't released, Trump should invade the state
- 25:41Speaker 2: of Colorado. It is a nonviolent offense.
- 25:43Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't think that should happen.
- 25:45Speaker 2: Well, right, but it just, it goes to, like, the
- 25:48Speaker 2: reason somebody who even commits a, look, there are a
- 25:50Speaker 2: lot of first-time offenders who do something that are part
- 25:53Speaker 2: of a, that are part of something so dangerous that
- 25:56Speaker 2: you have to say, wait a second, yes, it's a
- 25:58Speaker 2: nonviolent offense, but it goes to the core of what
- 26:00Speaker 2: we are as a society, the safety of our democracy.
- 26:02Speaker 2: And so he has given into that pressure from Trump
- 26:05Speaker 2: rather than.
- 26:06Speaker 1: Let the process happen. play out.
- 26:08Speaker 2: So that, I think, is a huge problem. I don't
- 26:12Speaker 2: know that we'd be having this conversation if Donald Trump
- 26:15Speaker 2: hadn't personally intervened to try to get the governor to
- 26:18Speaker 2: do something.
- 26:18Speaker 3: And then it seems as though he did it. After
- 26:20Speaker 3: listening to this thoughtful debate, I still don't give a shit.
- 26:23Speaker 3: I might care less, actually, than when we said he's kidding.
- 26:27Speaker 1: It is interesting. I would say that it's more interesting
- 26:30Speaker 1: to me in that I think he might have been
- 26:33Speaker 1: the right thing. I do think I would like to
- 26:35Speaker 1: hear Jared Polis answer the question why didn't you just
- 26:37Speaker 1: wait for the resentencing of the three appellate judges? Like,
- 26:41Speaker 1: what made you not want to just wait for their
- 26:43Speaker 1: decision if they were going to throw out the sentence anyway?
- 26:45Speaker 1: I would like to know that question.
- 26:46Speaker 2: I'd also say, too, that the Republican prosecutor was against
- 26:50Speaker 2: this and said that you should talk to the people
- 26:52Speaker 2: that were impacted by Tina Peter's schemes before you'd make
- 26:55Speaker 2: this decision.
- 26:55Speaker 1: He's also a prosecutor. Well, sure. That's how prosecutors are.
- 26:58Speaker 3: But community.
- 26:59Speaker 1: There's also a defendant who pled guilty to almost the
- 27:03Speaker 1: same charges in the Georgia Rico case.
- 27:05Speaker 2: And.
- 27:06Speaker 1: was sentenced no time and probation.
- 27:09Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, there's all kinds of unfairnesses and
- 27:12Speaker 2: unequal application of sentences all across the country all the time.
- 27:18Speaker 2: If that were the case, you'd go and say, oh, well,
- 27:20Speaker 2: there's somebody else who was given less. You can commute
- 27:22Speaker 2: most sentences that way.
- 27:25Speaker 3: But I think, look, in this one case.
- 27:26Speaker 1: And he commuted it. It wasn't just her. He commuted
- 27:28Speaker 1: like 35 or 50 commutations or something like that in
- 27:30Speaker 1: the same day.
- 27:32Speaker 2: I think he has to answer for whether or not
- 27:34Speaker 2: he gave in to Trump's political pressure. And we are
- 27:36Speaker 2: in a moment where, like, Donald Trump is threatening elections again. Like,
- 27:40Speaker 2: this is a grave threat to the republic. Why does
- 27:42Speaker 2: our generosity, our sense of justice, our empathy turn for
- 27:48Speaker 2: Tina Peters when there are so many others who deserve it?
- 27:51Speaker 1: That's all. And I don't think it should. I don't
- 27:53Speaker 1: think it should. I don't think we should be generous
- 27:55Speaker 1: or empathetic at all. I think we should just be like,
- 27:57Speaker 1: what is the standard? Like, is there a process to
- 28:00Speaker 1: reach the decision? Did it meet a standard? I do
- 28:02Speaker 1: think that like criticizing polls for it is completely fine.
- 28:05Speaker 1: Like you can criticize them for it. You can say
- 28:07Speaker 1: it's fine. Some people are, and people who I like
- 28:10Speaker 1: in politics too and support are like calling for his
- 28:13Speaker 1: impeachment over this. And I'm like, I don't, I just,
- 28:16Speaker 1: I do not think it rises to the level of it.
- 28:18Speaker 3: Everybody's at a nine all the time these days.
- 28:21Speaker 1: I can't get there. I can get there. I can get,
- 28:22Speaker 1: I can get to like your criticism for sure. I
- 28:24Speaker 1: can't get to, he should be impeached over this. I
- 28:28Speaker 1: don't know if you guys saw that, uh, Trump's latest
- 28:30Speaker 1: financial disclosures show that he and or his financial advisors
- 28:33Speaker 1: made more than 3,700 stock trades in the first quarter
- 28:37Speaker 1: of this year, uh, bought $ 1 million each in companies
- 28:40Speaker 1: with business before his administration, like Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft, Boeing,
- 28:45Speaker 1: and Palantir, which he bought right before he praised the
- 28:48Speaker 1: company on truth social in a post that if you recall,
- 28:52Speaker 1: even included the company's ticker symbol. Um, Now, I know
- 28:57Speaker 1: this may look suspicious, but the White House did say
- 28:59Speaker 1: that Trump's assets are in a blind trust managed by
- 29:02Speaker 1: his children. So there are, quote, no conflicts of interest.
- 29:06Speaker 1: Seems fine, right?
- 29:07Speaker 3: This is, did they really? I thought there was no
- 29:09Speaker 3: blind trust. I thought they'd already previously said there wasn't
- 29:12Speaker 3: a blind trust.
- 29:12Speaker 1: Either way, managed by your children. It's a blind trust management.
- 29:14Speaker 3: That doesn't make any sense. Again, this is part of
- 29:18Speaker 3: the political smash and grab job. I mean, they're making
- 29:20Speaker 3: money everywhere.
- 29:21Speaker 1: This is crazy.
- 29:23Speaker 3: So Bloomberg reported Trump had trades that involved, Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Visa, Citi, Boeing, Qualcomm,
- 29:30Speaker 3: and GE, top executives from all of those companies were
- 29:34Speaker 3: on his trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President
- 29:37Speaker 3: Xi Jinping. So you don't think he's getting insider information?
- 29:41Speaker 3: Having that access, talking to them, cutting deals with them.
- 29:44Speaker 3: Some of the stock trades included up to 680 grand
- 29:47Speaker 3: worth of Eli Lilly right as the administration was preparing
- 29:51Speaker 3: policies that would benefit their GLP-1 business. He took a
- 29:55Speaker 3: couple of huge positions in NVIDIA right before they announced
- 29:58Speaker 3: major news. There was a $ 1 to $ 5 million position
- 30:01Speaker 3: a week before they announced a partnership with Meta. Then
- 30:04Speaker 3: there was a half a million to a million dollar
- 30:05Speaker 3: position a week before the Commerce Department announced some determinations
- 30:11Speaker 3: to do with NVIDIA. They're buying and selling Intel stock,
- 30:14Speaker 3: which the US government took a 10% stake in the company.
- 30:17Speaker 3: This is insanity.
- 30:19Speaker 1: This is such a coincidence.
- 30:20Speaker 3: Paul Pelosi somewhere is like, what the fuck, man? I
- 30:23Speaker 3: could have been doing this so much better. We're sort
- 30:25Speaker 3: of past. Every single... Well, Jesus. I'm like Jim Cramer now.
- 30:30Speaker 3: Did you see the clip of Jim Cramer? He just
- 30:31Speaker 3: glitched out for six weeks.
- 30:32Speaker 1: Can we drop it in here? Let's drop in the
- 30:34Speaker 1: Jim Cramer clip.
- 30:35Speaker 3: The president's been trading some intel in the quarter.
- 30:37Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 30:38Speaker 3: Yeah. He's trading.
- 30:42Speaker 1: Got nothing to say about it?
- 30:43Speaker 4: But....
- 30:46Speaker 1: Yeah. All right. Don't worry.
- 30:51Speaker 3: We're not having technical difficulties here, everybody.
- 30:53Speaker 2: What's funny about the Jim Cramer clip is that it's
- 30:56Speaker 2: like people are like, oh, wow, he's so he's stammering
- 30:58Speaker 2: because he can't figure out what to say about this.
- 31:00Speaker 2: But when I was watching, I was like, is he
- 31:02Speaker 2: stammering because he can't figure out what to say about this?
- 31:03Speaker 2: Or is he making a joke about how it's so
- 31:05Speaker 2: beyond the pale, but he doesn't want to be critical
- 31:07Speaker 2: of Trump in this moment?
- 31:08Speaker 3: Like, I didn't know.
- 31:08Speaker 2: What what are we what are we what why is
- 31:11Speaker 2: he stammering?
- 31:11Speaker 3: He knows what's going on, but get in Jim Cramer's head.
- 31:13Speaker 3: But we're just no.
- 31:15Speaker 2: Don't live and run free inside of Jim Cramer's head.
- 31:17Speaker 2: But the, the, like the, we're at a new level
- 31:20Speaker 2: of brazen corruption because every step along the way, nobody
- 31:23Speaker 2: has stopped him to get to this point.
- 31:24Speaker 1: Right?
- 31:25Speaker 2: Like he can't, the thing that I find stunning about
- 31:27Speaker 2: all this is that there's no, um, like the level
- 31:30Speaker 2: of brazenness is going up, but the dollar amount isn't always,
- 31:33Speaker 2: it's like, why are we doing 500 grand stock trades?
- 31:37Speaker 2: billion dollar crypto theft and the watches.
- 31:39Speaker 1: Like why?
- 31:40Speaker 3: Like why? You know what I mean?
- 31:42Speaker 1: Like, it just, it's just all of it's like leftover
- 31:44Speaker 1: from the old world. Right. You had to just do corruption. Well,
- 31:47Speaker 1: like the watches, the hotel rooms, we're getting you the
- 31:49Speaker 1: Trump phones, but they're not coming. Yeah.
- 31:51Speaker 3: That part doesn't make sense. But the aggregate stock trades
- 31:53Speaker 3: was a range between 211 and $ 687 million. So that's
- 31:58Speaker 3: a pretty good quarter.
- 31:59Speaker 1: It's also like the, just the volume of trading. Bloomberg
- 32:02Speaker 1: interviewed this guy, Eric Dighton, who's the president manager director
- 32:05Speaker 1: at the Wealth Alliance. And he said, I'm baffled. In
- 32:08Speaker 1: the 40 plus years of my time on Wall Street,
- 32:10Speaker 1: this is an unusual amount of trading by any standards.
- 32:12Speaker 1: We need to see the actual trades to try and
- 32:13Speaker 1: understand why anyone would want to do that much trading.
- 32:17Speaker 2: It's just like, what's happening? Like the practical way in
- 32:21Speaker 2: which this is being done. Like, is there a team
- 32:23Speaker 2: that is doing this? Is it Suns through their, like,
- 32:26Speaker 2: it feels like they've got like, like Christopher Moltisanti trying
- 32:30Speaker 2: to like push Webistics. Like he's got like some fucking
- 32:32Speaker 2: back office in New Jersey somewhere with computers.
- 32:34Speaker 3: No, it's just Baron Trump in the outer oval with
- 32:37Speaker 3: a shitload of Adderall.
- 32:38Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 32:39Speaker 3: Just like minority reporting it. Like I can see the future.
- 32:41Speaker 3: I know what's going to happen at the commerce meeting
- 32:43Speaker 3: next week. I know that I have the BLS data.
- 32:44Speaker 1: That's just because he's got the briefing book.
- 32:48Speaker 3: They took like seven transactions related to Boeing. One was
- 32:52Speaker 3: between one to $ 5 million. Like the biggest deliverable of
- 32:55Speaker 3: the China trip was to get the Chinese to buy
- 32:58Speaker 3: a bunch of Boeing planes. And by the way, the
- 33:00Speaker 3: announcement was so underwhelming that the stock went down because
- 33:03Speaker 3: they did a shitty job.
- 33:04Speaker 1: Which still uses proof that, see, it wasn't a good announcement.
- 33:07Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, you thought it was. You tried to
- 33:09Speaker 3: trade on inside information. It just turns out you suck
- 33:11Speaker 3: at diplomacy. That was the problem.
- 33:14Speaker 1: You're good at the crimes. You're bad at diplomacy. Got
- 33:16Speaker 1: to deliver on that shit. All right. So Trump's also
- 33:20Speaker 1: doing his best to drag the Republican Party down with him.
- 33:23Speaker 1: On Saturday, he sent yet another message that dissent will
- 33:26Speaker 1: not be tolerated when his chosen primary challenger, Congresswoman Julia Letlow,
- 33:30Speaker 1: took out Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, whose sin was voting
- 33:33Speaker 1: to convict Trump in the January 6th impeachment trial. Cassidy
- 33:36Speaker 1: went down in flames. He got third in Louisiana's primary,
- 33:39Speaker 1: the first time an incumbent senator has come in lower
- 33:41Speaker 1: than second place since 1944. Trump's next target is Thomas Massey,
- 33:45Speaker 1: who's trying to unseat in Tuesday's Kentucky primary. Massey has
- 33:48Speaker 1: been the strongest and kind of the only Republican in
- 33:51Speaker 1: the House breaking with Trump on Epstein, Iran, and the
- 33:55Speaker 1: big beautiful bill. Trump has been posting about Massey nonstop.
- 33:59Speaker 1: I think right before he recorded, he did like a
- 34:01Speaker 1: video from the Oval, which is very legal and normal.
- 34:06Speaker 1: to just tell people to vote against Thomas Massey.
- 34:09Speaker 3: We're going to run the midterms on the Hatch Act,
- 34:11Speaker 3: I assume.
- 34:11Speaker 1: Right, yeah. He's grabbing the $ 2 billion for his slush
- 34:15Speaker 1: fund and then trading on NVIDIA and Boeing.
- 34:18Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth was doing an event in Kentucky today.
- 34:21Speaker 1: His personal capacity. His personal capacity.
- 34:23Speaker 3: And then Trump announces that he's delayed an imminent military
- 34:27Speaker 3: assault on Iran that.
- 34:28Speaker 1: Was supposed to happen tomorrow. Yeah, what was Pete going
- 34:30Speaker 1: to do?
- 34:30Speaker 3: That seems like bad timing. Feels like you need him
- 34:32Speaker 3: for that. Yeah. Maybe you don't. Maybe you don't. Who's
- 34:35Speaker 3: going to drink the booze?
- 34:37Speaker 1: Too early to say what will happen in the Massey race,
- 34:39Speaker 1: but it certainly seems like Massey himself is staying loose.
- 34:42Speaker 1: Here he is on Sunday doing his best Trump impression.
- 34:44Speaker 4: Whenever I call him, I got to schedule a minute
- 34:47Speaker 4: for the first thing he tells me every time I
- 34:48Speaker 4: call him. Massey, you're a sharp cookie. You went to MIT.
- 34:53Speaker 4: You know my professor was... My uncle was Professor John G. Trump.
- 35:00Speaker 4: He was at MIT 41 years. It's a record. And,
- 35:07Speaker 4: you know, I went to Wharton, which is basically the
- 35:10Speaker 4: hardest school in the world to get into. So I've
- 35:13Speaker 4: got even better genetics than you.
- 35:15Speaker 1: I kind of want him to lose now. I was
- 35:20Speaker 1: rooting for him until just then.
- 35:21Speaker 3: He's going for it, you know.
- 35:24Speaker 1: You've got to be wary of the Trump impression. Don't
- 35:27Speaker 1: do it unless you really feel good about it.
- 35:29Speaker 2: There's just too many people doing it and it's too
- 35:32Speaker 2: big a target.
- 35:33Speaker 1: Anyone have thoughts on the primary? How big of a
- 35:36Speaker 1: deal this is?
- 35:36Speaker 3: On Bill Cassidy, fuck that guy. He thought he could
- 35:42Speaker 3: appease MAGA by voting for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and
- 35:45Speaker 3: end up selling his soul and his credentials as a
- 35:48Speaker 3: doctor and being worst of all worlds. And he knew better,
- 35:51Speaker 3: and we know it because he told us as much
- 35:53Speaker 3: before he flip-flopped. And so would I rather have him
- 35:56Speaker 3: in the Senate than his replacement? Yes, I would. But ultimately,
- 35:59Speaker 3: I don't think it'll make a big difference. Thomas Massey
- 36:01Speaker 3: is a different story. He's the reason we have the
- 36:03Speaker 3: Epstein files, because he worked with Ro Khanna to get
- 36:05Speaker 3: him released. He's a principled vote against wars and militarism
- 36:09Speaker 3: and lots of other things. I don't agree with him
- 36:11Speaker 3: on everything. We don't share the same worldview. I don't
- 36:15Speaker 3: send out Christmas cards with me and my kids with
- 36:18Speaker 3: machine guns like I think he did one time. But, um, yeah,
- 36:21Speaker 3: you know, it would be a big loss. And I
- 36:23Speaker 3: think it tells you everything you need to know about
- 36:24Speaker 3: Donald Trump's political worldview, that he will not lift a
- 36:27Speaker 3: finger to help his party build, but he will take
- 36:30Speaker 3: down anyone who criticizes him. It was all about punishing
- 36:33Speaker 3: his own critics and the cult of personality and protecting
- 36:36Speaker 3: his personal power and not about the party or doing anything.
- 36:39Speaker 5: Right.
- 36:39Speaker 2: I think he's far more passionate about defeating his enemies
- 36:42Speaker 2: than he is about helping his friends. Yeah. With Cassidy,
- 36:45Speaker 2: you go back to that, to him, uh, uh, approving
- 36:49Speaker 2: RFK Jr. and accepting his fake assurances in his private meetings,
- 36:55Speaker 2: pretending that RFK didn't believe what he obviously believed.
- 36:57Speaker 3: And like, no, you can't, you can't sell half your soul.
- 37:00Speaker 2: He doesn't work like that. They're not divisible in that way.
- 37:04Speaker 2: And so these guys that end up being reluctantly for Trump,
- 37:09Speaker 2: they don't, they're not better politicians.
- 37:11Speaker 3: They're just worse whores, you know? So our, you know,
- 37:15Speaker 3: Good riddance, I suppose.
- 37:16Speaker 1: I will say there's a lot being made because we
- 37:18Speaker 1: had Indiana and then Cassidy and then Massey. But this
- 37:22Speaker 1: is sort of the last gasp of this forever. I mean,
- 37:25Speaker 1: it's Louisiana, too. What do you expect is going to happen?
- 37:27Speaker 1: This is Trump's last midterms.
- 37:28Speaker 3: Right.
- 37:29Speaker 1: And do we think he's going to be spending time
- 37:32Speaker 1: in 28 going around doing primary challenges? I mean, maybe.
- 37:36Speaker 1: But also, does it lose its force at some point?
- 37:39Speaker 1: I don't know. He's already a lame duck. He clearly
- 37:42Speaker 1: has the juice to do it now. but as we
- 37:44Speaker 1: get to 28 and then beyond that, like what is,
- 37:47Speaker 1: this is, it's a, what did we, what did we
- 37:49Speaker 1: learn from that?
- 37:49Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
- 37:50Speaker 3: That he's a vindictive prick who only cares about himself and,
- 37:52Speaker 3: you know.
- 37:53Speaker 1: And I think we also learned that like, you know,
- 37:56Speaker 1: nothing's breaking the fever in the Republican party. The party's
- 37:59Speaker 1: broken and you've got to massively, you've just got to
- 38:01Speaker 1: defeat them at every level because all the ones who
- 38:04Speaker 1: are left are completely loyal to dear leader. And that's
- 38:07Speaker 1: about that. And I do think also he might've, he
- 38:12Speaker 1: might've fucked himself a little cause now you got, angry Cassidy,
- 38:15Speaker 1: who's still got votes left to take between now and
- 38:18Speaker 1: the end of the year. Massey loses. Tillis has already
- 38:21Speaker 1: been doing it. And so they can make his life
- 38:24Speaker 1: more difficult. And I do wonder now, between now and November,
- 38:28Speaker 1: if this makes it harder for Republicans to break away
- 38:35Speaker 1: from Trump, even though primaries are over, because they worry
- 38:39Speaker 1: that they're going to get punished. I don't know.
- 38:41Speaker 2: It's just it look it remains sort of extraordinary right
- 38:44Speaker 2: bill Cassidy like Could not persuade his own voters He
- 38:49Speaker 2: would have voted for him multiple times in the past
- 38:51Speaker 2: to stick with him once Trump turned right like it
- 38:53Speaker 2: just tells you something about the the voter showing up
- 38:56Speaker 2: in these Republican primaries and what they What they want
- 38:59Speaker 2: and there was no the fact that Cassidy was a
- 39:02Speaker 2: vote for impeachment and that Trump had fully turned against
- 39:04Speaker 2: him There was nothing he could do to convince them
- 39:07Speaker 2: that he was worth saving nothing.
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- 41:02Speaker 1: It's been a bit since we talked about the stalemate
- 41:04Speaker 1: in Iran. Trump posted on Sunday that, quote, the clock
- 41:07Speaker 1: is ticking for Iran to make a deal. But by Monday,
- 41:10Speaker 1: the clock apparently restarted. Trump posted that the U.S., quote,
- 41:13Speaker 1: will not be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow, a.k.a. Tuesday,
- 41:16Speaker 1: the day you're listening to this, because the leaders of Qatar,
- 41:19Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, and the UAE asked him to hold off
- 41:22Speaker 1: due to serious negotiations that are now taking place. Trump
- 41:27Speaker 1: did add that the U.S. is prepared to attack Iran, quote,
- 41:29Speaker 1: on a moment's notice, in the event that an acceptable
- 41:31Speaker 1: deal is not reached. On Monday, it was also reported
- 41:34Speaker 1: that Iran sent its latest peace proposal through Pakistan to
- 41:36Speaker 1: the U.S., which the White House seems likely to reject,
- 41:39Speaker 1: even as the Pentagon and Israel are, quote, engaged in
- 41:41Speaker 1: intense preparations, the largest since the ceasefire took effect for
- 41:45Speaker 1: the possible resumption of attacks against Iran, according to the
- 41:48Speaker 1: New York Times. What do you make of the back
- 41:49Speaker 1: and forth here, Tommy? Like, any chance that Trump's latest
- 41:53Speaker 1: threat to destroy Iran got them closer to a deal,
- 41:55Speaker 1: scared them into it?
- 41:57Speaker 3: I don't think so, but can we just talk about
- 41:59Speaker 3: these statements where he name checks a bunch of autocrats?
- 42:01Speaker 1: They're so weird.
- 42:02Speaker 3: You don't have to do that, but he's always like,
- 42:05Speaker 3: on behalf of the great and highly respected field marshal
- 42:08Speaker 3: Asim Mounir, I've decided not to exterminate Iran.
- 42:13Speaker 1: The delivery date for that plane was supposed to be
- 42:16Speaker 1: the 4th, but he moved up for his birthday. So
- 42:18Speaker 1: he wants the Qataris to get that plane there fast.
- 42:21Speaker 3: It's the same way that he does the....
- 42:24Speaker 2: Uh, personality stuff with G like he enjoys the idea
- 42:28Speaker 2: that governing doesn't involve anyone except the people in the room.
- 42:32Speaker 3: Like there's no people deciding, right.
- 42:34Speaker 2: They're just great men making big decisions together at a
- 42:37Speaker 2: collaboration and friendship. And so he's not doing it for
- 42:39Speaker 2: the good of the country. He's doing it because he
- 42:41Speaker 2: was He has this great rapport with these leaders.
- 42:45Speaker 3: The Pakistanis in particular, they cut a big crypto deal
- 42:47Speaker 3: with the World Liberty Financial, so that's why he likes them.
- 42:49Speaker 3: But you do five seconds of research into the great
- 42:52Speaker 3: and respected Field Marshal, and you find the UK authorities
- 42:54Speaker 3: have charged him with torture and crimes against humanity. That's
- 42:56Speaker 3: the guy he's name-checking.
- 42:58Speaker 1: But regardless, big picture. Sounds like a guy you'd like.
- 43:00Speaker 1: Of course.
- 43:01Speaker 3: I don't think they're any closer to a deal.
- 43:03Speaker 1: I don't know.
- 43:04Speaker 3: I assume we're in the same place. Iran thinks they
- 43:06Speaker 3: have a lot of leverage because they can close straight
- 43:08Speaker 3: over Moose. They know Trump is weakened politically. They know
- 43:10Speaker 3: that he wants out of this. He doesn't want to
- 43:12Speaker 3: go back to war. And so they're going to wait
- 43:14Speaker 3: for the United States to walk back some of the
- 43:16Speaker 3: more maximalist positions or just get sick of the shit
- 43:18Speaker 3: and move on.
- 43:20Speaker 2: Just imagine some sort of Iranian underling kind of going
- 43:25Speaker 2: down the stairs into the bunker where the. where the
- 43:29Speaker 2: recuperating Ayatollah is pointing at the Siena numbers and saying, look, look.
- 43:33Speaker 3: We got them. We got them right where we want them.
- 43:34Speaker 3: We got Nekom. Diving into the crosstabs. Iran, there's all
- 43:37Speaker 3: these leaks still. Iran reportedly has up to 75% of
- 43:41Speaker 3: its missile stockpile. Almost all of its infrastructure along the
- 43:45Speaker 3: Strait of Hormuz is operational for them to shut it down.
- 43:48Speaker 3: They could always make things worse.
- 43:49Speaker 1: The Strait of Hormuz also now has its own Twitter account.
- 43:52Speaker 1: Does it? Yeah.
- 43:53Speaker 3: Like Carl the Fog in San Francisco? Yeah.
- 43:55Speaker 1: No, they're calling it something more official, but it's like
- 43:58Speaker 1: the Iranian government. Oh, it's the Iranian government doing it? Yeah, yeah.
- 44:00Speaker 1: Are we doing it in Lego? No, they just made
- 44:03Speaker 1: an official Twitter account so we can get updates from
- 44:05Speaker 1: the straight.
- 44:06Speaker 3: Just personifying the straight.
- 44:08Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of cool.
- 44:09Speaker 3: Like sort of red, green, yellow.
- 44:12Speaker 1: A lot of red.
- 44:14Speaker 2: Like sort of when you get the like sig alerts
- 44:16Speaker 2: in like California traffic, it's like, oh my God, the
- 44:18Speaker 2: straighter moves is red today.
- 44:20Speaker 1: Fuck.
- 44:20Speaker 3: I'm going to be late. Honey, I'm going to be late.
- 44:22Speaker 1: You're going to have traffic helicopters over it. reporting on
- 44:25Speaker 1: the nines and fives uh nbc reported last week that
- 44:28Speaker 1: the administration is considering changing the name of the war
- 44:30Speaker 1: from operation epic fury to operation sledgehammer we have to
- 44:34Speaker 1: get a little more phallic again uh or something else
- 44:37Speaker 1: entirely in order to quote effectively restart the clock with
- 44:39Speaker 1: congress is that how it works new operation name now
- 44:43Speaker 1: they can't get you no now you can do whatever
- 44:45Speaker 1: wars you want like it's i love.
- 44:47Speaker 3: This idea that you know the War Powers Act is
- 44:51Speaker 3: such a weak piece of legislation that you can just
- 44:53Speaker 3: do like a bureaucratic tweak and get around it. I mean,
- 44:55Speaker 3: it's just crazy. It's obviously the same conflict, like changing
- 44:58Speaker 3: the name doesn't matter. Every president since Nixon has claimed
- 45:01Speaker 3: the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. They all hate it,
- 45:04Speaker 3: but it was enacted over Nixon's veto in 1973. And
- 45:07Speaker 3: so Congress has leverage here if they want to use it.
- 45:10Speaker 3: Republicans refuse to use it. Maybe they'll man up now,
- 45:14Speaker 3: but we'll see.
- 45:15Speaker 1: Trump also wants us to know that he's not just
- 45:17Speaker 1: focused on Wars far away from home. He's focused on
- 45:20Speaker 1: wars right in our own backyard still. There have been
- 45:23Speaker 1: a bunch of rumblings about the long-rumored regime change move
- 45:26Speaker 1: in Cuba. Sources told the AP last week that the
- 45:28Speaker 1: administration is looking to indict former Cuban President Raul Castro,
- 45:31Speaker 1: brother of Fidel, even though he's no longer in power.
- 45:34Speaker 1: Then over the weekend, Marco Puto reported that according to
- 45:37Speaker 1: classified U.S. intel, Cuba has over 300 drones and has
- 45:40Speaker 1: recently considered launching them against U.S. military targets in even
- 45:43Speaker 1: Key West, Florida. which could serve as a handy pretext
- 45:46Speaker 1: for an invasion. Cuba's current president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, responded on
- 45:50Speaker 1: social media on Monday, writing the quote, Cuba poses no threat,
- 45:53Speaker 1: nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country,
- 45:56Speaker 1: including the U.S., and that a U.S. attack would, quote,
- 45:58Speaker 1: trigger a bloodbath. What do you make of the Cuba stuff?
- 46:02Speaker 1: It seems like he's gearing up. You want to kick
- 46:05Speaker 1: us off on Cuba?
- 46:06Speaker 2: I don't think we should go to war with Cuba
- 46:08Speaker 2: right now. In the Times poll, there was a question
- 46:11Speaker 2: that was something like, when do you believe the U.S.,
- 46:13Speaker 2: should launch a war against countries that have not attacked us.
- 46:17Speaker 2: And it was like 70% are like, don't do that.
- 46:20Speaker 3: Never. Don't do that. Unless someone has attacked us, we
- 46:22Speaker 3: shouldn't go to war.
- 46:23Speaker 1: I don't think it's a good idea.
- 46:24Speaker 2: Whatever Trump had come to believe about killing Soleimani, getting
- 46:28Speaker 2: Maduro out of Venezuela, and how fun that was, he
- 46:32Speaker 2: sees the polls showing how unpopular the war in Iran is.
- 46:35Speaker 2: I hope that that has at the very least chastened
- 46:37Speaker 2: them from their kind of idea that they can be
- 46:40Speaker 2: regime topplers without it kind of consuming their politics.
- 46:43Speaker 3: But it's terrifying.
- 46:43Speaker 2: It's terrifying to imagine that they were going to see
- 46:45Speaker 2: what they're doing in the Middle East and decide that
- 46:48Speaker 2: it needs to be brought closer down.
- 46:50Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, I read the story. It was
- 46:52Speaker 3: such an obvious pretext to me. But I mean, look,
- 46:55Speaker 3: I don't doubt the intel. Like, is Cuba acquiring drones? Well,
- 46:59Speaker 3: it's 2026 and every military has or is acquiring drones.
- 47:03Speaker 3: It would be like not getting rifles or, you know,
- 47:05Speaker 3: machine guns in World War I. So it also says
- 47:08Speaker 3: like the intelligence suggests the Cubans would respond to a U.S.
- 47:11Speaker 3: attack with drones.
- 47:13Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say this Axios story, you
- 47:15Speaker 1: have to get way down to reality check, which is
- 47:18Speaker 1: three paragraphs, four paragraphs from the bottom till you find
- 47:20Speaker 1: out that. Oh, by the way, the intel is that
- 47:22Speaker 1: it's retaliatory.
- 47:23Speaker 3: This is not a preemptive strike on Miami. This is
- 47:27Speaker 3: what they would do if we attacked them, because we
- 47:28Speaker 3: all know if they did a preemptive strike on Miami,
- 47:30Speaker 3: that would be suicidal, because it would fucking flatten the country.
- 47:33Speaker 2: I also just would like to think that if we
- 47:35Speaker 2: are on the verge of going to war with another country,
- 47:37Speaker 2: that the evidence would not be laundered through anonymous sources
- 47:40Speaker 2: into a daily tip sheet, that perhaps there'd be more information.
- 47:42Speaker 1: Well, I have bad news for you. Judy Miller would
- 47:44Speaker 1: like a word with you, pal.
- 47:46Speaker 3: But that was the New York Times.
- 47:47Speaker 1: Sorry, you're right, you're right.
- 47:48Speaker 3: I do think, though, every indicator light is flashing... when
- 47:51Speaker 3: it comes to possible regime change operations, because there's this leak,
- 47:53Speaker 3: which creates the pretext of this being an imminent threat.
- 47:56Speaker 3: There was CIA director John Ratcliffe just went to Cuba
- 47:58Speaker 3: and had this message from Trump. There is the indictment,
- 48:01Speaker 3: the rumored indictment of Raul Castro, which was a very
- 48:03Speaker 3: important part of the case for why they had to
- 48:05Speaker 3: do what they did against Maduro, which was extract him
- 48:08Speaker 3: from Venezuela and bring him to New York for prosecution.
- 48:11Speaker 3: There's been all these reports of a huge increase of
- 48:13Speaker 3: intelligence overflights.
- 48:16Speaker 1: By the US.
- 48:17Speaker 3: So I would be very worried if I were a
- 48:18Speaker 3: Cuban official. And meanwhile, if you're a Cuban human being
- 48:21Speaker 3: or citizen, like the United States has a blockade on
- 48:25Speaker 3: that's allowed no oil and gas into your country and
- 48:27Speaker 3: people are starving to death. They have one to two
- 48:30Speaker 3: hours of electricity a day. Hospitals can't operate. What we
- 48:34Speaker 3: are doing is criminal. It is absolutely evil. You're starving
- 48:38Speaker 3: a population of people to death. And the most likely
- 48:41Speaker 3: outcome is that the government collapses and there is a
- 48:44Speaker 3: mass exodus and migration crisis to the United States, which
- 48:48Speaker 3: MAGA has told us they do not want to happen.
- 48:51Speaker 3: I don't understand what these lunatics are fucking doing here,
- 48:53Speaker 3: but it is just, it is utterly immoral, just a horrific,
- 48:58Speaker 3: horrific policy right now.
- 48:59Speaker 1: I think that the insane thought running through Donald Trump's
- 49:02Speaker 1: head is his response to launching a disastrous war in
- 49:07Speaker 1: Iran that is unpopular, that has cost us billions of dollars,
- 49:10Speaker 1: that has spiked gas prices everywhere is, I got to
- 49:13Speaker 1: launch a war that's more popular and easy. I got
- 49:15Speaker 1: to go back to the Venezuela model because they all
- 49:17Speaker 1: think that Venezuela was some big fucking success, right? And
- 49:19Speaker 1: so it's like- that was an easy one, so I
- 49:21Speaker 1: got to get my mojo back by going to invade
- 49:23Speaker 1: Cuba now that Iran's a big fucking mess, which is insane.
- 49:25Speaker 3: Did you see Rubio in his Maduro tracksuits?
- 49:30Speaker 2: Yes.
- 49:31Speaker 3: Like, it's all just a game. It's all just trolling.
- 49:33Speaker 3: It's all content.
- 49:34Speaker 1: I don't think it was that flattering.
- 49:35Speaker 2: No, I think it was, I talked about this and
- 49:37Speaker 2: I'll never leave it, but I do think... maduro wore
- 49:40Speaker 2: it better but the uh i'm not even joking like
- 49:42Speaker 2: it just looked more comfortable like rubio looked like the
- 49:45Speaker 2: suit was wearing him but i was looking at that
- 49:47Speaker 2: like why are you doing this i forget like.
- 49:48Speaker 1: He was a little posed too it wasn't like there was.
- 49:51Speaker 2: A lot of pose a lot of pose but but
- 49:53Speaker 2: like i was looking at what what are we supposed
- 49:56Speaker 2: to okay look what is this meant to but boy
- 49:58Speaker 2: you're tough you're wearing the same clothes like who what
- 50:02Speaker 2: what what was the message and i i now i'm
- 50:04Speaker 2: like oh was this about how how we'll do this again.
- 50:07Speaker 3: We're going to do this. Is it a Cuba thing?
- 50:09Speaker 3: What the fuck was the outfit? What am I meant
- 50:11Speaker 3: to take from this photo, Stephen Chung? Yeah, that's a
- 50:12Speaker 3: good question. I agree with you. I do think Trump
- 50:15Speaker 3: wants to change the channel and get us onto a
- 50:17Speaker 3: new topic that isn't Iran that makes him sound tough again.
- 50:21Speaker 3: I do think, though, that Cuba falls in the Venezuela-Iran-Cuba
- 50:25Speaker 3: axis of evil bucket of neocons telling him, sir, you'll
- 50:28Speaker 3: be a historic figure, sir, if you make big changes here.
- 50:32Speaker 1: And he's down, it will gargle your balls.
- 50:34Speaker 3: Uh, well, I mean, you don't need to do something
- 50:36Speaker 3: else to get that, that that's already happening. That's priced in,
- 50:39Speaker 3: but you know, he's also in Florida surrounded by a
- 50:42Speaker 3: bunch of very like rich hard line, you know, Miami
- 50:45Speaker 3: Cubans who, you know, have been waiting for this for
- 50:48Speaker 3: a long time and, you know, want their real estate
- 50:50Speaker 3: assets back on the Island. So I don't, I hope
- 50:53Speaker 3: I'm wrong. Maybe he'll fucking Cubano or like whatever Wall
- 50:56Speaker 3: Street will make up a new term for it. It's
- 50:58Speaker 3: not going to be stupid, but, It does seem like
- 51:02Speaker 3: it's nerve wracking.
- 51:05Speaker 1: Well, if he doesn't do Cuba, then there's always Greenland.
- 51:09Speaker 1: Remember the critical national security issue of Greenland? A quick
- 51:12Speaker 1: refresher that back in January, after threatening to invade, Trump
- 51:15Speaker 1: did a taco and announced the, quote, framework of a
- 51:18Speaker 1: future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the
- 51:21Speaker 1: entire Arctic region. Well, the New York Times is now
- 51:23Speaker 1: reporting that the negotiations around that framework have Greenlandic officials, quote, worried.
- 51:28Speaker 1: as U.S. proposals, quote, amount to a major imposition on
- 51:31Speaker 1: Greenland's sovereignty. Yeah, I bet. Greenland's specifically concerned about Trump's
- 51:35Speaker 1: June 14th birthday and July 4th as upcoming dates where
- 51:38Speaker 1: Trump's attention could swing back around to them as he
- 51:40Speaker 1: starts thinking about his legacy. Un-fucking-real. What do you think?
- 51:44Speaker 1: Are those concerns well-founded? What do you think about the
- 51:48Speaker 1: Greenlandic concerns expressed in the New York Times piece?
- 51:51Speaker 2: Let's just pause and sit in the idea that... The
- 51:54Speaker 2: Danes are concerned that Trump will get more bellicose around
- 51:59Speaker 2: his birthday.
- 52:01Speaker 3: That's where we're at.
- 52:02Speaker 1: That's what we do. He's turning 80. You never know.
- 52:05Speaker 1: America's turning 250. They're not going to be content with
- 52:10Speaker 1: just the fireworks.
- 52:11Speaker 2: No, no.
- 52:12Speaker 3: You're going to want to get some.
- 52:12Speaker 1: No, they want Greenland.
- 52:13Speaker 2: Somebody's got to give him a little. Look, he wants
- 52:16Speaker 2: the great at the end of his name. He knows
- 52:18Speaker 2: that when the Russians got more territory, they got to
- 52:21Speaker 2: be the great. So we just got to find some fucking...
- 52:24Speaker 2: Chunk of land somewhere.
- 52:25Speaker 1: Get me Cuba. Get me Greenland.
- 52:27Speaker 3: Just somewhere.
- 52:27Speaker 1: Make Venezuela the 51st state.
- 52:29Speaker 3: Something. We got to expand the map. I can't believe
- 52:32Speaker 3: we're talking about this again. This sucks. It sucks. It's
- 52:34Speaker 3: so crazy. It's like, do you guys see the Tim
- 52:38Speaker 3: Dillon bit? We said we're not the high school bully anymore.
- 52:40Speaker 3: We're the weird kid who may or may not have
- 52:41Speaker 3: a gun. Yes. We're not the quarterback. We're not the jock.
- 52:45Speaker 3: We're the college kid who keeps going to high school parties.
- 52:48Speaker 1: Might be a pedophile. Freaked out by us. And has
- 52:50Speaker 1: a gun. That is us.
- 52:51Speaker 3: That is the country.
- 52:52Speaker 1: Good work, everybody. That is it. That is it.
- 52:54Speaker 3: I think we made a mistake electing this guy.
- 52:55Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 52:56Speaker 1: Yeah, well.
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- 54:14Speaker 1: Now that we just talked about Trump potentially trying to
- 54:16Speaker 1: conquer several additional nations, possibly because it would look cool
- 54:19Speaker 1: on a map, it's probably a good time to mention
- 54:20Speaker 1: that there's been a revival of the debate about Trump's
- 54:23Speaker 1: age and fitness for the job and whether Democrats should
- 54:27Speaker 1: be making a bigger deal about it. Lauren Egan at
- 54:29Speaker 1: the Bulwark and Jonathan Lemire at the Atlantic are both
- 54:32Speaker 1: out with big pieces, arguing that it's time for Democrats
- 54:34Speaker 1: to make it a bigger issue. We get subscriber questions
- 54:38Speaker 1: about this a lot. We also see a lot of
- 54:39Speaker 1: folks on social media making the argument that if you're
- 54:41Speaker 1: not making as big of a deal about Trump's age
- 54:43Speaker 1: as you were about Biden's, You're being hypocritical. So in
- 54:46Speaker 1: the spirit of open dialogue, I guess we're going to
- 54:49Speaker 1: debate it.
- 54:49Speaker 3: Let's debate it.
- 54:50Speaker 1: Let's debate.
- 54:52Speaker 3: It.
- 54:52Speaker 1: Austin, Austin's bringing out a Vote Save America mug with
- 54:55Speaker 1: three positions in it.
- 54:56Speaker 3: So I'm not going to, I'm not going to look
- 54:58Speaker 3: till we all, let's all open at the same time.
- 54:59Speaker 1: Pro, meaning it's something we should talk about more. Anti,
- 55:03Speaker 1: you can guess what that means. And moderator.
- 55:05Speaker 3: Okay, great. Ugh.
- 55:09Speaker 1: I am the moderator.
- 55:10Speaker 3: I am anti.
- 55:10Speaker 1: Fuck. Wow. I'm pro.
- 55:12Speaker 3: Let's go, bitch. Okay. It's fucking owned. Can I get
- 55:16Speaker 3: a little like NBC music tonight? All right.
- 55:23Speaker 2: I'll be moderating this debate. John, you will be arguing
- 55:27Speaker 2: that Democrats must make a greater issue out of Donald
- 55:30Speaker 2: Trump's age. Tommy will take the con. You have the
- 55:33Speaker 2: opening statement of 30 seconds.
- 55:36Speaker 1: Did Joe Biden lose the last election or have to
- 55:40Speaker 1: drop out of the last election because he was too old?
- 55:42Speaker 3: Yes.
- 55:42Speaker 5: Yes.
- 55:44Speaker 1: Was it the biggest concern of every voter everywhere because
- 55:47Speaker 1: everyone made a big issue and Republicans made a big
- 55:49Speaker 1: issue of his age?
- 55:50Speaker 3: Yes.
- 55:50Speaker 1: Yep. So Donald Trump's hands are falling off right now.
- 55:55Speaker 1: He looks like, he looks like it was like a
- 55:57Speaker 1: fucking bad, uh, morgue job on his hands before he
- 56:00Speaker 1: got in the casket.
- 56:01Speaker 3: Sure.
- 56:01Speaker 1: He's basically melting before our eyes. He's got all kinds
- 56:04Speaker 1: of bruises all over the place. Aaron Ruppar's feeds full.
- 56:07Speaker 3: Of it all.
- 56:08Speaker 1: It's just purple. Okay. Just all of her. And yet,
- 56:11Speaker 1: And yet Democrats are out there just talking about affordability
- 56:14Speaker 1: and not talking about the fact that the president of
- 56:16Speaker 1: the United States is decomposing before our eyes. And Democrats
- 56:19Speaker 1: won't talk about it, even though these are the same
- 56:21Speaker 1: Democrats that tried to push Joe Biden out of the race.
- 56:24Speaker 3: Wow. A powerful argument. Tommy, your counter.
- 56:28Speaker 1: John, you ignorant slut.
- 56:30Speaker 3: I don't want to get in between you and Aaron
- 56:31Speaker 3: Ruppar's feed and your little handjob issue there with the Trump.
- 56:36Speaker 3: But Trump is not running again. So none of this matters.
- 56:39Speaker 3: Democrats have zero credibility on this issue after spending years
- 56:43Speaker 3: pretending that they couldn't see Joe Biden's physical decline as
- 56:47Speaker 3: he was shuffling around in sneakers and falling over sandbags.
- 56:51Speaker 3: Every minute we spend talking about makeup on this decrepit
- 56:56Speaker 3: old man's hands is a minute we are not spending
- 56:59Speaker 3: talking about stock trades, the ballroom, Medicare cuts, things that
- 57:03Speaker 3: actually matter to people. And yeah, the napping is weird.
- 57:08Speaker 1: Admittedly.
- 57:10Speaker 3: It's also very funny when the White House says that
- 57:13Speaker 3: he blinked for 10 seconds. Yeah, long blinks. These are
- 57:16Speaker 3: long blinks.
- 57:16Speaker 1: Admittedly, that's weird.
- 57:18Speaker 3: But he still does a lot of events. He's out
- 57:19Speaker 3: there all the time. He's doing rallies. He looks vibrant.
- 57:22Speaker 3: He's a big- Looks vibrant?
- 57:24Speaker 1: What are you talking about? You can't even stand up
- 57:25Speaker 1: and do events anymore. You can't make him a martyr.
- 57:27Speaker 3: All right.
- 57:28Speaker 2: So let me just throw some questions in each of
- 57:30Speaker 2: your directions. I'll start with you, Tommy. You do notice
- 57:34Speaker 2: that there's a significant decline in how he communicates from
- 57:38Speaker 2: today to to how he communicated even four or eight
- 57:40Speaker 2: years ago. That his cadence has changed, that he's not
- 57:42Speaker 2: as clear, he is more meandering, he's posting all hours
- 57:46Speaker 2: of the night. Like these are things that are, should
- 57:48Speaker 2: be a liability.
- 57:49Speaker 1: I think he's always done these things.
- 57:50Speaker 3: I think he's always been kind of incoherent. I think
- 57:53Speaker 3: he's always posted, he's never slept. But I'm curious how
- 57:57Speaker 3: you would explain the difference, right? Like he is, yes,
- 58:00Speaker 3: you're right.
- 58:00Speaker 2: He has always been this way, but I think it's
- 58:02Speaker 2: indisputable that it is all worse.
- 58:04Speaker 3: Like he is rambling more. He is- It's the weave.
- 58:08Speaker 3: It's the weave. But the weave is getting worse. Do
- 58:10Speaker 3: you think it's getting, like, he is changing. Or better.
- 58:12Speaker 1: Depending on your perspective.
- 58:13Speaker 3: I think, like, jokes aside, I think, I don't know
- 58:17Speaker 3: that I notice him that much more rambly than he
- 58:19Speaker 3: used to be.
- 58:19Speaker 1: Because I think he's always been rambly.
- 58:21Speaker 3: Like, he does look tired. He's legitimately falling asleep in events.
- 58:25Speaker 1: It's noticeable.
- 58:25Speaker 3: The hand stuff is weird. And by the way, they're
- 58:28Speaker 3: clearly lying about the hand stuff. Because they initially said
- 58:30Speaker 3: it was his handshaking hand. And then the other hand
- 58:32Speaker 3: had the bruising too.
- 58:33Speaker 1: He also keeps going to the dentist.
- 58:35Speaker 3: Dude, how many annual dentist trips are you going to have, pal?
- 58:39Speaker 1: He's doing a lot of dentist trips. He's doing a
- 58:41Speaker 1: lot of physicals. I've gone twice in two weeks, by
- 58:42Speaker 1: the way. No one's telling us why his health is
- 58:45Speaker 1: the way it is. No one's asking questions about his health.
- 58:47Speaker 3: And there's a doctor's office in the West Wing. So
- 58:49Speaker 3: you would only go to Walter Reed or Bethesda or
- 58:51Speaker 3: wherever he's going now to get specialized equipment.
- 58:54Speaker 2: There's also the dentist's office in the White House. So
- 58:56Speaker 2: you've got to go to a special dentist. So John,
- 58:59Speaker 2: question to you. How would a Democrat... who was somebody
- 59:01Speaker 2: who defended Joe Biden's ability to run again, make this
- 59:06Speaker 2: argument without seeming like they're full of shit.
- 59:09Speaker 1: I was wrong about you. Biden. And I should have
- 59:11Speaker 1: said something earlier. And that's what I'm doing this time around,
- 59:14Speaker 1: because Donald Trump is in bad shape and he should
- 59:16Speaker 1: not be leading the country. And any Republican that still
- 59:18Speaker 1: supports him and that doesn't want to, you know, pressure
- 59:21Speaker 1: the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, then they are
- 59:24Speaker 1: just feeding into this cover up for Donald Trump's age
- 59:28Speaker 1: and his dementia and And he is just putting us
- 59:30Speaker 1: all at risk and Republicans won't do anything about it.
- 59:32Speaker 1: And so even though he's not running again, when we
- 59:35Speaker 1: go into the midterms, we know that Donald Trump's approval
- 59:38Speaker 1: rating is highly correlated with how Republicans are going to
- 59:40Speaker 1: do in the midterms. And by talking more about how
- 59:43Speaker 1: he has dementia and he is losing his marbles, then
- 59:47Speaker 1: we could get his approval even lower and the Democrats
- 59:49Speaker 1: can then do better in the midterms.
- 59:50Speaker 2: Last question for you, Tommy. Joe Biden's age and Joe
- 59:53Speaker 2: Biden's disapproval of the economy became linked. The fact that
- 59:56Speaker 2: the economy was bad was a sign he wasn't up
- 59:58Speaker 2: for the job. The fact that he was up for
- 59:59Speaker 2: the job made people doubt that he could fix the economy.
- 1:00:03Speaker 2: We're trying to make an argument that Republicans, we have
- 1:00:05Speaker 2: to win the House and the Senate, and that Republicans
- 1:00:07Speaker 2: refuse to tell the truth about Donald Trump. Shouldn't the
- 1:00:10Speaker 2: fact that Donald Trump is decomposing before our eyes, rambling
- 1:00:13Speaker 2: at all hours, falling asleep in meetings, shouldn't we be
- 1:00:17Speaker 2: saying these Republicans won't be honest about that hoot? Why
- 1:00:20Speaker 2: are they not telling the truth about this? What are
- 1:00:22Speaker 2: we not knowing about this? Shouldn't we be making this
- 1:00:24Speaker 2: one of the lines of argument that we use when
- 1:00:26Speaker 2: we try to accuse Republicans of not holding Trump accountable?
- 1:00:29Speaker 3: Yeah, so allow me to flip-flop on the issue to
- 1:00:32Speaker 3: respond to your leading question. Clearly, they're covering up something, right? Like,
- 1:00:36Speaker 3: the guys, the multiple annual doctor visits, like, this is crazy.
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: It's all pretext.
- 1:00:40Speaker 3: We should push for more information. There is muscle memory here, right? Like,
- 1:00:45Speaker 3: I think if we get people to, like, a critical
- 1:00:46Speaker 3: mass of concern about this, they can, they will care.
- 1:00:49Speaker 3: I also just, I think Trump will hate it. If
- 1:00:51Speaker 3: we call him a sad, sick old man, he would
- 1:00:53Speaker 3: hate that. So just working that in there could be fun.
- 1:00:56Speaker 3: Now you argue the other side.
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'll argue the other side because I think
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: Tommy's best point was he's not running again. Like, and
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: so what difference, as Hillary Clinton once said, what difference
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: does it make if he is decrepit, if they are
- 1:01:10Speaker 1: covering something up? He's like, the reason this was a
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: potent argument against Joe Biden is because Joe Biden was
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: asking voters for four more years in office. Donald Trump,
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: will never ask voters for four more years in office. No,
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: he won't. He might try to stay in office, but
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: he's not going to ask voters for four more years.
- 1:01:26Speaker 3: I mean, he might run for a third term.
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: That's not going to happen. He's going to try to
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: just sit there and be like, I got the military.
- 1:01:31Speaker 1: Just park? Yeah, no one's going to let him run.
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: But so he's not going to ask for it. So
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: what is the purpose of Trump? If we're trying to
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: win a midterm, what is the story we're trying to
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: tell about Donald Trump that is most true? And the
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: story that is most true is what you said at
- 1:01:45Speaker 1: the beginning of this episode, which is, This whole term
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: is a smash and grab. He wants to make as
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: much money as he can. He's a megalomaniac who thinks
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: that now he needs this legacy in history where he
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: like conquers half the globe. And he doesn't give a
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: shit about people. He doesn't give a shit about people.
- 1:01:59Speaker 1: And he's never given a shit about people. And that's
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: a consistent story through time. And whether he has dementia
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: now or he's losing his marbles or not, like doesn't
- 1:02:06Speaker 1: really matter.
- 1:02:07Speaker 2: So I think the way that I would square this is,
- 1:02:09Speaker 2: I think that's right. Democrats- when people had concerns about
- 1:02:19Speaker 2: his age, even after he dropped out, because it came
- 1:02:21Speaker 2: to be evidence that Democrats couldn't be trusted more broadly.
- 1:02:25Speaker 2: And my argument would only be, no, age should not
- 1:02:28Speaker 2: be the central argument we make against Donald Trump. But
- 1:02:30Speaker 2: if we can make the fact that Republicans refuse to
- 1:02:34Speaker 2: be honest about not just Trump's corruption and unaccountability and
- 1:02:38Speaker 2: brazen theft, but also just his rambling and crazy nonsense,
- 1:02:42Speaker 2: and you make every time he does that part of
- 1:02:44Speaker 2: a story about how he's unfit in, including because he's
- 1:02:48Speaker 2: getting old, then that's part of why these Republicans can't
- 1:02:51Speaker 2: be trusted.
- 1:02:51Speaker 3: That's the best. I'm not, that's the best I can
- 1:02:53Speaker 3: do for it.
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: Even that, as you say that, like you, you kind
- 1:02:56Speaker 1: of just like threw in corruption there, but it's like,
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: so he's, he doesn't know what he's doing. He's crazy,
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: but he's also smart enough to be out there stealing
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: all the money.
- 1:03:03Speaker 3: I just think like the incoherence is priced in like the,
- 1:03:06Speaker 3: the weave is a thing that's like a joke, but
- 1:03:08Speaker 3: it's also not a joke.
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
- 1:03:10Speaker 3: Like people know he's a goofball. He's all over the place.
- 1:03:11Speaker 3: He says weird shit. But also like he's funny. He's
- 1:03:15Speaker 3: big and imposing. He seems sharp at events a lot
- 1:03:17Speaker 3: of times. And like the hand shit is very odd.
- 1:03:20Speaker 3: But like it's also weird.
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: It's weird to make an argument that he used to
- 1:03:23Speaker 1: be sharp when we were all saying he's been fucking
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: crazy since he came on the scene in 2016. Yeah,
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: it's weird. It's weird for Democrats to be in the
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: position to be like, you know what, he's just not
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: up for the job. He used to be, but now
- 1:03:33Speaker 1: he's not up for the job.
- 1:03:35Speaker 2: I think, look, I don't think anyone should make that argument.
- 1:03:37Speaker 2: I think if you go back and look at the
- 1:03:39Speaker 2: debates with Jeb Bush versus the debate with Kamala Harris,
- 1:03:41Speaker 2: there's been a crazy decline. But even putting that aside,
- 1:03:44Speaker 2: here's the thing that I find very annoying about all this.
- 1:03:46Speaker 3: It's the same kind of.
- 1:03:47Speaker 2: Practiced obtuseness that some people on our side love to do.
- 1:03:53Speaker 3: How could you say this?
- 1:03:54Speaker 2: If you won't say the same exact thing about Trump
- 1:03:56Speaker 2: that you said about Joe Biden, then you're being a hypocrite.
- 1:03:59Speaker 2: As if we can't see the difference between the way
- 1:04:01Speaker 2: Joe Biden looked and the way Donald Trump looked. The
- 1:04:03Speaker 2: fact that Joe Biden was disappearing from the public. Look,
- 1:04:06Speaker 2: if you think Donald Trump is too old for the job,
- 1:04:09Speaker 2: I'm sure.
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: Sure.
- 1:04:10Speaker 3: I totally agree.
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: He's too old. He's too mean. He's too selfish. He's
- 1:04:13Speaker 1: too much of a fucking dictator for the job.
- 1:04:15Speaker 2: He's also the most accessible president we have ever had.
- 1:04:19Speaker 2: He is on camera every fucking day. He's answering questions
- 1:04:22Speaker 2: every day. and he seems vital. Yeah, nuts, loses the thread,
- 1:04:26Speaker 2: all the ways in which he's terrible and shouldn't be
- 1:04:28Speaker 2: in office. He should be impeached and removed immediately. I'm
- 1:04:30Speaker 2: not in charge of this. But to act as if
- 1:04:33Speaker 2: there isn't a big difference between the way Donald Trump
- 1:04:34Speaker 2: is aging and the way Joe Biden is aging is
- 1:04:36Speaker 2: to once again deny what we can see with our
- 1:04:38Speaker 2: own fucking eyes.
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: Yeah, but to me, that is all beside the point.
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: You can argue that back and forth, whoever thinks Joe
- 1:04:46Speaker 1: Biden was worse or Trump was worse, whatever. But again,
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: the question is, To what end?
- 1:04:51Speaker 3: To what end?
- 1:04:52Speaker 1: He is a second term president. If Donald Trump was
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: sitting here saying, I'm going for more years and we're
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to defeat Donald Trump.
- 1:04:58Speaker 3: The to what end answer is you try to drive
- 1:05:00Speaker 3: down his negativism or you make it an issue that
- 1:05:02Speaker 3: other Republicans need to speak to. And like suddenly they're
- 1:05:05Speaker 3: vouching for him not being senile or old or whatever.
- 1:05:08Speaker 3: I think we're a long way from here to there. Yeah.
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: And because we would. If you had a choice between
- 1:05:14Speaker 1: what Republicans need to answer for, would you rather it
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: be they're covering up for Donald Trump being too old,
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: or they're saying nothing about the fact that he's literally
- 1:05:21Speaker 1: stealing from taxpayers out of their pocket and launched a
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: war that's shot up gas prices. Hand make-up or theft.
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: I think you'd rather do that one.
- 1:05:29Speaker 3: And if he really does... Why not both?
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: Okay, well, you only have so many things that you
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: can say out of your mouth.
- 1:05:33Speaker 3: And if it was so clear, right? Like, if he
- 1:05:34Speaker 3: was real.
- 1:05:35Speaker 2: Like, look, I agree he's in decline. There's not some
- 1:05:39Speaker 2: magic words that Democrats can use to make something more...
- 1:05:42Speaker 2: They can make it more of an issue, but they
- 1:05:43Speaker 2: can't make it the issue. If Donald Trump was having
- 1:05:46Speaker 2: the kind of muttering debate that Joe Biden had, I
- 1:05:49Speaker 2: guarantee you it would be a big political issue and
- 1:05:51Speaker 2: it wouldn't be because Chuck Schumer decided it was on
- 1:05:53Speaker 2: some given day. That's a calm, sad, sick old man.
- 1:05:56Speaker 1: Let's go to town.
- 1:05:57Speaker 3: Let's go to town. Get a man.
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: Figure out if you got the right words.
- 1:06:01Speaker 3: I won.
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: Okay. Congrats. Good for you. Congrats to our winner, John Lovett.
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Dan and I will be
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: back with a new show on Friday. Pod Save America
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: Austin Fisher, Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Farah Safari, with
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: Reed Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes
- 1:06:23Speaker 1: Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellevive,
- 1:06:26Speaker 1: David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.