Latest / Pod Save America / Trump's Pump and Dump (feat. Sen. Raphael Warnock)

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Trump's Pump and Dump (feat. Sen. Raphael Warnock) · Pod Save America

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: On today's show, we're going to talk about Mike Johnson's
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: disappearing House majority that also might get rid of him.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Bibi Netanyahu's beef with Joe Biden over the U.N. ceasefire resolution.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: The internal NBC revolt over the network's decision to hire
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel. And later, Georgia Senator Raphael
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Warnock stops by the studio to talk to Lovett about
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: 2024 Gaza, TikTok and more. But first, jury selection for
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: the first ever criminal trial of a former president and
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: current nominee. will begin on April 15th. In this case,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Trump is charged with falsifying business records to cover up
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn star
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: he had an affair with.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: If you're a Pod Save America listener in line at
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: voir dire.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Stay in line. Don't wear your shirt.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: Don't wear your shirt.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Don't wear the shirt. So Trump's lawyers tried to use
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the release of new documents from federal prosecutors as an
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: excuse to delay the trial. But Judge Juan Merchan argued
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: that the defense has had plenty of time So we're
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: getting at least one Trump trial before the election.
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: At least one.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: At least one. At least one. Trump got some slightly
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: better news from a New York appeals court on Monday,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: which lowered the amount of the bond he needs to
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: post for his civil fraud verdict from $ 454 million to
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: $ 175 million within the next 10 days. He seems to
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: think he'll be able to come up with that amount.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Here he is at a press conference after the hearing.
• 1:49
  Speaker 6: Well, as they say, I have a lot of cash.
• 1:51
  Speaker 6: You know I do because you looked at my statements.
• 1:53
  Speaker 6: I mean, you've been examining my statements for a long time,
• 1:56
  Speaker 6: and I have much more than that in cash. But
• 1:59
  Speaker 6: I would also like to be able to use some
• 2:01
  Speaker 6: of my cash to get elected. They don't want me
• 2:02
  Speaker 6: to use my cash to get elected. They don't want that.
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: They don't want me taking cash out to use it
• 2:08
  Speaker 6: for the campaign. I didn't even include, like, brand value.
• 2:12
  Speaker 6: The brand value is I became president because of the brand,
• 2:15
  Speaker 6: let's say. But the brand value is, it's one of
• 2:17
  Speaker 6: the most valuable brand values. I think it's, I wouldn't
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: swap it for any other brand in the world.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Trump.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: He's got a lot of cash, plus all that Nazi
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: gold in Ivana's coffin.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I just love it at the end where he goes, Trump.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: Trump.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't trade that brand for any other brand in
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the world. Trump.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Very funny if he just walked in the courtroom and
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: was like, an IOU, 20% of my brand.
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Leverage that.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Can't buy bread with brand.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So a huge bummer that we won't get to see
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Tish James seize Trump Tower.
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: It sucks.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: We don't get anything. We don't get anything. No fun.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: I wanted that building.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: That was going to be our building. Now, Tish James,
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: who doesn't have a political bone in her body, is
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: going to get that building for us.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Trump was fundraising of the fact that she was going
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: to take the building. And now today he's fundraising off
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: the fact that he just says there's a big fundraising
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: email that just says Trump Tower still mine.
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: That sucks.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: What is that fundraising for? You already got the tower
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: back and you seemingly have plenty of cash. But we
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: will get to see Trump spend most of his spring
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: in a Manhattan courtroom. What's your take on the political
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: implications of Monday's legal news?
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, you heard it in the clip there. He
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: keeps talking about putting his own money into the campaign.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: I couldn't tell if he was trying to suggest that
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: he's going to put some of his personal funds behind
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: his election effort, which I doubt he will actually do
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: given the history or if he just now talks about
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: campaign donations like it's his own personal cash?
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I took it to mean the first part, which is
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: he hasn't done that since 2016, but he did do
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: that in 2016. And then obviously he did it in 2020.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And I wonder if he's considering it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Here's what I took it to mean. I took it
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: to mean he knows he's about to write a massive
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: check and he's going to say, I need your donations
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: because these political hacks are taking my money, not to
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: hurt me for anything I did wrong or to punish me,
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: but to stop me from being able to support my campaign.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: Will you step in to make up for what these,
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: these Jew prosecutors have done to me? It's always a
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: little bit in there.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: The other thing I thought was, you sort of referenced it.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just, it's gotta be the most distracting
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: way to possibly run a presidential campaign. You gotta remember
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: all these judges' names. You've got to read all these documents.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: You've got to spend months and months in court. You've
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: got to wage your little PR wars against Tish James
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: and Goran.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, we should get into the schedule here. So
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: it starts April 15th. That's jury selection. That'll take about
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: two weeks. And then the case will probably last, estimates
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: range now from like late May into June. So he
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: has to appear in court from 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Gets Wednesday off, though, you know, you're not traveling too
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: far if you have to get back there for Thursday.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So that's a lot of the campaign. And that's just
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: the first trial. Now, I realize he'll, like, use it
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: to raise money and he'll do his little press conference
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: outside the courtroom. But I don't know. Does that wear well?
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: It's not the primary, right? I mean, that's when we
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: had the big rally around Trump effect within the Republican Party.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I just I don't know that you can assume that
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: will happen again. at least not with swing voters.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: I also continue to think that the kind of prospect
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: of Trump being on trial will feel very different than
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Trump actually being on trial, where there's images and sounds
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: and all the machinations that go along with people's imaginations
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: and knowledge of how the criminal justice system works and
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: that will make him look very bad to normal people
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: who will just be tuning into the campaign.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Trump, like the rest of us, is just adjusting to
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: a post-pandemic hybrid work schedule.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: That's true. Oh, that's right.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Three days in, a couple days out. It's going to
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: limit his truthing at Fox.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I wonder if he's going to say that to the judge. Like,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: can I do some remote court?
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Why not? Give it a whirl.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a hard case to prove. Hard
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: case to prove. Proving falsified business records actually is the
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: easy part for Alvin Bragg, though that's just a misdemeanor
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: in New York unless you falsify business records to cover
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: up another crime. And in this case, that other crime is...
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: not reporting his hush money payment to the Federal Election Commission,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: which would be a federal crime, not a state crime,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: if it's judged a crime at all, and it's a
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: crime that DOJ declined to charge him with, right? So
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of moving pieces here. I think he
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: should be able to prove the falsified business records fairly easily,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: but it's sort of taking the next leap to covering
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: up the other crime, which clearly it was. There's some
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: complications there. Yeah, for sure.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: And I'm sure the open-minded Manhattan jury will approach this
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: and Try to try to be as fair as they
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: possibly can to Donald Trump.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: This is interesting.
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: We get nothing that we get nothing. The one thing
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: that's kind of cool is all the juries are coming
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: from D.C. and Manhattan like that.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: That's like we get one perk. Oh, I know.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Meanwhile, alien Canada and Florida is like, how can I
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: spike this thing as fast as humanly possible?
• 7:13
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: So Trump also said at the end of that sort
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: of press avail after courtroom today that he's going to
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: pay cash for the bond. That's what he says. He's
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: also a little richer on paper this week, thanks to
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: his shitty Twitter knockoff, Truth Social. The company lost $ 49
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: million last year, but it just started trading on the
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Nasdaq Monday under the stock ticker DJT, with Trump's stake
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: currently worth about $ 3 billion, though he's not allowed to
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: sell his shares for six months. Is this real? Is
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: this a Ponzi scheme? And how many shares have you
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: guys bought?
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: I reject the characterization of this as a Ponzi scheme
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: because in a Ponzi scheme, you have to pay out
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: some money to your early investors with funds from the
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: later ones. And I don't see that happening.
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: Right, right.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: A Ponzi scheme involves like a couple, there's a couple
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: rungs of the pyramid that do okay. You can just
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: have the top. That's just stealing from people. I just
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: keep thinking about that scene from The Sopranos. Where the
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: two henchmen are like beating the shit out of some
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: stockbroker saying, we're pushing Wabistics.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: That's what I picture. Just some boiler room somewhere.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: Just being like, we're pushing Trump stocks today.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: It's Trump stocks.
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is like just a way to siphon
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: cash from Trump fans, right? I think, or anyone who
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: wants to really buy influence. It's like, if you hate Trump,
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: if you hate big tech, if you hate the elites,
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: buy some shares at DJT. It's a meme stock. It's
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: a cult initiation fee. It's a securitized Trump stake. It's
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: an oligarch. I mean, you know, it's all in one.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: It's fun. But like this, the stock price here is
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: basically just rising or falling based on Trump's popularity, betting
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: on Donald Trump. It's like a bunch of his supporters
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: sort of did this. And then some other people who
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: just want to do like a pump and dump kind
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: of thing here.
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Right. Like that's, that's what this is.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, some people, some people will make money. Some
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: people will lose money. My question is like, can Trump
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: get money out of this before it collapses?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: If it collapses?
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: Like, can he start selling bits of it just to
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: get some of the money out before the reality of
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: the company not making any money comes face to face
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: with the stock price?
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I should have said it's a six-month lockup until he
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: can sell his shares, but the board can vote to
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: change that. And the board is made up of Don Jr.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: and Linda McMahon and all of his... Linda McMahon. Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: All of his goons are on the board, so, you know. Right.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Truth Social is not trading on multiple on its revenues.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: That is absolutely true.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Because the revenue was $ 3 million last year.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not Berkshire Hathaway. This is 5 billion
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: active users on Truth Social selling scammy ads to people for, like,
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: toenail fungus. What I liked, that went a little trip
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: down memory lane. the initial pitch for truth media and
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: technology group, which is a company that's merging with, uh,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: the other company, the SPAC to form DJT, was Truth Social.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: And then they had a Netflix-like streaming service, a Trump
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: streaming service. And then they had some longer term play
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: to create competitors to Google, Amazon, and Stripe. So I
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: guess e-commerce search and payments.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: So close.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: So if you're hoping to make a return, I would
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: not hold your breath until those businesses come to fruition.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: As you guys see, we also learned that the biggest
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: institutional shareholder of the Shell company that merged with Truth
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Social's parent company is Jeff Yass. You might have heard
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: that name recently because he's also a major investor in TikTok.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: He owns a bunch of ByteDance, the parent company for TikTok.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And he also happens to be a major donor to
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Club for Growth. Club for Growth is paying Kellyanne Conway
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: to lobby... against the TikTok ban, and lo and behold,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump flip-flopped on the TikTok ban. But it was
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: all just a coincidence. Nothing is connected here.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: It's just, it's his ability to sort of dance between
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: the raindrops for years and years and years. Just the
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: man doesn't get wet. Maybe he'll finally get wet.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's 91 raindrops.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let's get this guy wet.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: What the fuck, what the fuck?
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Let's get this guy wet.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: I don't want to yell click that, but I don't
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: want to.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No.
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: True social. He's got $ 3 billion in his valuation.
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Well, he's got a bunch of idiots who are just like, sure.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, you said, like, buy influence. I don't even
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: know if they're buying influence. They're just like, Donald Trump's
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: fucking Jesus Christ.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: No, I think it's both. I think mostly it's Trump
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: fans who, like, want to own a share of DJT
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: to stick it to all the elites who don't like him.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: But then if you want to siphon money to Trump,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: this is a very efficient way to do it. You
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: buy a ton of shares of his little company now.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, you could... Previously, if you were a Saudi delegation,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: you just stayed at the Trump Hotel for a month
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: longer than you needed to, and you just let the
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: room sit vacant. Or did a deal with Jared. Yeah,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: this is a new... more efficient way potentially.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: Unreal.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: One more fun Trump thing. Did you guys see that
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: he congratulated himself on Truth Social, the multi-billion dollar company,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: for winning two trophies at his own golf club? He said,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: it's my great honor to be at my golf club
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: to receive the club championship trophy and the senior club
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: championship trophy. I won both.
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: If you believe Trump is a scratch golfer. I've got
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: a stock on the NASDAQ to sell you.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Are you guys.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Surprised that he would take credit for winning a senior Open?
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Doesn't that sound beneath him?
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: I think that, yeah. I'm also just sort of like,
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: so you're at your own golf club and you get
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: in the tournament for all the customers and you're like,
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: I'm going to wipe the floor with these people.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Then you win, and then you congratulate yourself about winning
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: at your golf club, at your own golf club.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Listen, you guys are making me realize this is very
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Kim Jong-il. He shot a 38 under par, including 11
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: holes and won the first time he ever played. So
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: setting him aside, I do think Trump has won something
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: like 20 club championships, but only at clubs he owns.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, again.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: But in some cases, he didn't actually play in the tournament. Like,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: one time he ran into a dude who had just
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: won the tournament. He challenged him to, like, a nine-hole match,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: and then he beat him. Then he declared himself the co-champion.
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: Like how each side could send their best champion to
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: fight in the middle instead of having a big battle?
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's facing multiple criminal charges for cheating in
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: an election. So I can't imagine.
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: Him cheating at golf. There's that old joke about the golfer.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: You know, you're golfing with somebody, and they lose their
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: ball in the woods, and... They're looking and they're looking
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: and they can't find it. And you go over to
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: hit your golf ball. And then all of a sudden
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: you hear from the woods, I found it, I found it.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: And he hits his ball, gets it right next to
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: the tee. And the question you face is, do you
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: call the man a cheater or do you keep his
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: ball in your pocket?
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Rick Riley from Sports Illustrated wrote a whole book about
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Trump cheating at golf. It's a funny thing because it's
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: very polarizing. I think his fans find it hilarious. Like
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: they know he's lying. This is nonsense, right? But they
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: find it hilarious. Some haters despise him. I mostly just
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: have always found it confusing that people like this about him.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Cheating at sports is annoying. Constantly whining and being a
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: victim is annoying. How does this not wear worse over time?
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a good point. I don't know
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: if it does. I mean, Joe Biden, our boy Joe Biden,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: had a really funny tweet.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Great tweet.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: He quote tweeted the truth and he just said, congratulations, Donald,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: quite the accomplishment. That's the tone. That's the tone. That's
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: the humor. I love it. More of it.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I enjoyed it too.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Do it. It's great.
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: No, but I know, but Tommy, I know you mean,
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: because it's like, I feel like, but wait, weren't we
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: all taught growing up that like, that's not strength, that
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: that's weakness, right? Like that, that's not, it's whiny. It's
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: an embarrassing way to behave that like being that much
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: of a braggart is not like cool or how a
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: real kind of person, right. Who has really has faith
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: in themselves would behave.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Remember he was going to, he was going to award
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: himself the congressional medal of freedom when he was president.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: And instead he just gave it to Rush Limbaugh. Yeah.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: R.I.P.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: All right, moving on. The House of Representatives is taking
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: a well-earned two-week recess that Republicans may not want to
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: come back from. Axios says they're leaving with, quote, their
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: base enraged, their majority in tatters, and their speaker facing
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: the prospect of a humiliating ouster at the hands of
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: his own MAGA allies. I hate to see it. This
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: is mostly because Mike Johnson worked with Democrats to avoid
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: a government shutdown by passing a bill with the same
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: spending levels that cost Kevin McCarthy his job 10 months
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: ago when he made a deal with Joe Biden about
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the budget. Turns out that same deal is what we
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: just got over the weekend. This led Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to introduce a motion to vacate, though that doesn't appear
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: to be going anywhere just yet. Then Representative Mike Gallagher
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: announced that he'll be vacating his seat next month, which
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: will leave Republicans with a one seat majority. Also, James
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Comer said they won't be impeaching Joe Biden after all.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Kooks aren't too happy. about any of this. Here's Stop
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: the Steal enthusiast Andy Biggs answering some questions on Newsmax.
• 16:13
  Speaker 7: Let's just, I mean, if you want to talk performance
• 16:15
  Speaker 7: of Speaker Johnson, I'm as dismayed and disappointed as anybody.
• 16:20
  Speaker 8: In the House, Congressman, you think things are good for
• 16:22
  Speaker 8: the Republican Party?
• 16:24
  Speaker 7: I think that we get along better than most people
• 16:26
  Speaker 7: would think. I think that, look, I try to.
• 16:31
  Speaker 8: You understand why I'm asking, right? Kevin McCarthy abandoned you.
• 16:35
  Speaker 8: Ken Buck abandoned you. And Mike Gallagher just announced on
• 16:38
  Speaker 8: Friday that he's going to resign on April the 13th.
• 16:40
  Speaker 8: You got a one vote majority. What's going on in
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: the House?
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: Well, I don't know why Kevin left. And I'm not
• 16:49
  Speaker 7: sure I know why Ken or Mike are Mike left.
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: Mike's leaving. Ken left.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: When you put it that way.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Mike Johnson, welcome to the resistance.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: If you had what you had read, just sort of
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: walking through what what Johnson is facing, you could have
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: just until you referenced McCarthy, you could have just replaced
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: the word Johnson with McCarthy. And it is the exact,
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: exact same situation, exact same politics, same bills, still the
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Ukraine funding. It's exact same. We've been in the same
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: place for 10 months.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: 10 years.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: No one is happy with Republicans controlling the House, not
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: even House Republicans. It's just like they can't keep a speaker.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: They can't agree on anything as a caucus, let alone
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: a house. It's like, people want another two years of this?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: They just keep replacing speaker after speaker with more extreme
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: versions who still aren't extreme enough for the lunatic fringe
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: of their party. Investigations based on nothing that don't go anywhere.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Impeachment's going great. Impeachment's done.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Well done, guys.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: It's going to be the least productive Congress in history
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: by a lot. Basically, all they've done is barely kept
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: the government open, renamed a few post offices. They got
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: all these younger members retiring and not just retiring, but
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: then like leaving early. They can't even wait until the
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: end of their term.
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: I think there's a real game theory problem here because
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: once the majority got this low, you have to leave
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: quick because if you want to leave and take a
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: job before your term is up and if you wait
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: too long, suddenly leaving to get your whatever high paid
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: consulting job or something is turns the house over to
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: the Democrats, right? Gallagher's the last person who can leave
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: without causing them to go to what? An even split
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: fucking clusterfuck? You know there's seven other people.
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: That are like, ah, fuck.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they all want to be lobbyists. Yeah, they all
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: want to make the money.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Ken Buck's out. He already left. And he signed on
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: to the Democrats-Ukraine discharge petition right before he walked out
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: the door. So these people aren't just leaving. They're, like,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: leaving with, like, a couple fuck yous to leadership. Like,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: they didn't even get... Neither of them, Gallagher or Buck,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: neither of them gave Johnson a heads up that they
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: were leaving.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Or a gift. Or a note.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Or a gift.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Or nothing.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Even, by the way, George Santos announced he's leaving the
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Republican Party. He's running as an independent.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: I would say the party left him, John.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: So... MTG, she basically said this is like a warning shot.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: It's like a resolution to introduce the motion to vacate,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: but she hasn't triggered it yet.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Who cares? But anyway, the question is, some Democrats have said, well,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: if she files this, we might keep Mike Johnson. We
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: might vote to keep him. Do you guys see any
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: good reasons for House Democrats to save Mike Johnson from
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: being McCarthy'd?
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: The argument for it is that America is our accountability partner.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: And that we need a speaker and a Congress in
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: place to do serious things because we're serious, responsible people
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: and we fund the government.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: We're watching too much polls and.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: That too. That's the argument for it. I don't know
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: that I believe that.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: So if you go back and look at what this conversation,
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: which we've had before around McCarthy, looked like, Democrats were
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: eager for McCarthy to keep his job, to get funding
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: for Ukraine, award more federal projects in Democratic districts and
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: And some went so far as to demand that right-wing
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: Republicans be removed from the rules committee. Some wanted a
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: promise that GOP campaign committees will not spend money to
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: defeat politically vulnerable Democrats. I think that's probably a stretch.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: It's a lot. Up to including- You start from, it's
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: just a negotiating position.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: Demanding co-chairs for committees. We're now at the point where
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: people just want the Ukraine aid. And fine, fair enough.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: But I feel like what's sort of twisted about all
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: this is, because the media treats Democrats as protagonists and
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Republicans as antagonists and Republicans are just feral creatures wandering
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: the earth and Democrats are human beings with agency, it's
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: incumbent upon us to figure out how to help them
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: out of this jam. How about Mike Johnson? Throw together
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: a couple options. What does Mike Johnson want for these
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Democratic votes? Never get a proposal from the Republicans for this.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: And I have another idea. I agree that we should
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: have a functioning House of Representatives. If a few Republicans
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: want to join and make Hakeem Jeffries president, the Speaker
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: of the House, there's lots of interesting ways that they
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: can be accommodated and made to feel welcome in the big,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: beautiful Democratic coalition that would surely be happy to have them.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: That's another option.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know if any of them have enough money
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: for the private security they'll need to hire if they
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: take that vote. I think it's just, the only thing
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: they have left to do before the election, because of
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: course you can't be legislating this year.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Nothing else is going to happen. Because they all have.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Senioritis because it's an election year. So they need to
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: get Ukraine done.
• 21:34
  Speaker 9: Yep.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And the funding bill that they just passed goes to
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: September 30th. So you don't want another shutdown in October
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: right before the election. I would just say to Mike Johnson, like,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: put the Ukraine bill on the floor and let's agree
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: on spending levels for.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Through December.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, through December, whatever. And fine, take the job. The
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: House isn't doing anything anyway. Take the job.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: I guess.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: But like, so we're just.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: A little twerp. What else are we getting?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Well, here's the alternative.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: Something.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Well, the alternative is.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: That's what we're getting.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: By the way, we're getting a version of that now.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: The alternative is we lose Mike Johnson. then we get,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: you know, Andy Biggs or someone even crazier. Ukraine doesn't
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: get done. There's no Ukraine funding. And then we get
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: another shutdown.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: But maybe you also get another three weeks of disastrous
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: infighting and votes and embarrassment and humiliation from House Republicans
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: and there's some political benefit from that. I don't know
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: that that's the case.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: You get content for us and fun.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: But I will say, like, what we would be, look,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: I think the reason people want to figure out a
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: way to do this for Ukraine is because they genuinely
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: believe that we have a moral obligation to fund Ukraine. But,
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: It is also a situation in which the reason Republicans
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: would be desperate for Democrats to help them is because
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: it would once again point out that they are a
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: group of people that cannot govern the country and shouldn't
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: be trusted with this responsibility. And for the long-term health
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: of the country, we want to win the House. So
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: I think it's a little bit, it's a little tough
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: to just be like, yeah, well, that's the best we
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: could get.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: They're sitting at 11% approval ratings. So I feel like that,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I feel like the country's got the message.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: You think, yeah, maybe, maybe.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: No, I just, look, I think that, I get if
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: you're a legislator, if you're a Democratic legislator and you
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: believe that it's not just a moral obligation to fund
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Ukraine but it is in our national security interest to
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: fund Ukraine, then a couple days of Republicans looking like
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: fucking clowns is not as worthwhile as getting this done
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: and actually funding Ukraine.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: If you're a serious.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: Person– Just like, let's get the Ukraine funding, then we
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: do our own motion to vacate.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Let's trick these bastards. I'm sure there's a lot of
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: very serious people in Congress, mostly in our party, who
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: care deeply about this issue.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: There is an open question, though. If Johnson is saved
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: with a bunch of Democratic votes, how does Trump react
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: to that? He might have a meltdown. Be like, oh,
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: little Mikey, he's weak. Can't do this without the Democrats.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: You can see this going badly in a.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Couple different ways. Yeah, it'll be... It's... Trump has different
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: ways of sort of breaking off relationships. There's the like,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I'm going to blast you on Truth Social, right? I'm
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: going to bury you at my golf course. I'm going
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: to bury you at my golf course. This one's just
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: going to be like, he's going to forget that he
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: ever knew Mike Johnson kind of thing. That guy, who
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: was that guy? It was like a quick five-month thing.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: Dennis the Menace from the stage of the speech.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: He was sort of weird. What was with that Covenant
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Eyes thing? That was weird. That's what you'll be hearing
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Trump say. I like that. So there were some big
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: developments with Israel's war on Gaza on Monday. The U.N.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Security Council was able to pass a resolution calling for
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: a ceasefire after the U.S. abstained for the first time.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: This allegedly pissed off Bibi Netanyahu, who then canceled a
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: planned visit by his senior advisors to the White House.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: The Biden administration said the abstention isn't a change in
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: policy and reportedly told Israel in advance that they don't
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: see the resolution as binding. Tommy, what did you make
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: of all this? And has there been any movement in
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Washington on the effort to condition U.S. military aid to
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Israel or even the other diplomatic efforts that the U.S.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: and Israel have been engaged in with Hamas?
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: So this resolution basically just reflects the longstanding Biden policy
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: that they've been working towards for a while, which is
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: a ceasefire and a release to the hostages. It calls
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: for both. They abstained rather than vote for the resolution
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: because some issues with the wording and also because it
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: didn't condemn Hamas for the October 7th attack. So, I mean,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: I think some others, it's interesting that the administration says
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: it's not legally binding. I think others would argue it is,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: but in practice, there's no enforcement mechanism without another vote
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: by the Security Council to sanction Israel, for example, and
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: the U.S. could veto that. All that said, it's a
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: pretty big break from the norm where the U.S. has
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: vetoed a lot of U.N. resolutions over the years that
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: criticize Israel, including several similar resolutions about Gaza that called
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: for a ceasefire without demanding the release of hostages or
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: condemning Hamas. More broadly, though, like this is another step
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: in what seems like a pretty big divide between the U.S.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: and Israel. I think that Netanyahu seems to want this fight.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: And I think he's probably setting up an effort to
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: just start running against Biden. But we'll see. The question
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: of suspending aid is happening on a different track. In February,
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: the Biden team put out this memorandum saying that any
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: country that gets U.S. weapons has to use them in
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: accordance with U.S. and international law. So the countries that
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: receive these weapons, I think there's six of them, including Israel,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: submitted assurances in some written form last week. They're now
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: being reviewed. And we will hear at some point what
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: that review says. And it could result in the Biden
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: administration deciding to withhold additional arms transfers. So there are
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: 17 Democrats in the U.S. Senate who are saying these
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: assurances are bogus. Do not give them more weapons, including
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: like Durbin and Ben Holland, like some centrist Dems. Human
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: rights groups are saying these assurances are not true. They're
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: violating international law. The Israeli military is in Gaza. And
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: so we shall see.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: And this is just a determination the Biden administration can
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: make itself. And Congress doesn't necessarily have a role here.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a determination that will be made
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: by the State Department and the Defense Department in something
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: like 45 days from receiving these assurances. And then I
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: think Biden.
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: Makes a call.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Cause I noticed that, um, I saw Bernie Sanders released
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: a statement because there was 4 billion in military aid
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: for Israel as part of the spending agreement, though, I
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: would imagine that's authorized by Congress or appropriated by Congress.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: And then the administration, if it decides to make this determination,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: it could probably just not send that.
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think they could probably just find ways
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: to slow down or cut off future weapons transfers, but yeah,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: I mean that, that the big spending bill not only
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: included 3.8 billion in military support for Israel. but it
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: banned funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: which is the biggest employer in Gaza. They employ about 13,000
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: people in Gaza and provide relief. So some pretty big
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: steps were taken in that bill.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Finally, fun times at NBC News right now. After the
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: network's executives decided to hire former RNC chair and election
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: denier Ronna McDaniel as a contributor for a reported $ 300, 000
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: a year, journalists who work at NBC revolted, including an
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: on-air rebuke From the network's chief political analyst, Chuck Todd.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Chuck's Meet the Press successor, Kristen Welker, had just interviewed McDaniel,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: though Welker didn't know when she booked her that NBC
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: had already hired her.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: That's awkward.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Here's a clip of that interview and then what Chuck
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: said to Welker afterwards.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: Do you disagree with Trump saying he's going to free
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: those who've been charged?
• 28:27
  Speaker 9: I do not think people who committed violent acts on
• 28:30
  Speaker 9: January 6th should be freed.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: So you disagree with that?
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: He's been saying that for months.
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: Ronna, why not.
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: Speak out earlier?
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: Why just speak out about that now?
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: When you're the RNC chair, you kind of take one
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: for the whole team, right? Now I get to be
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: a little bit more.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Myself, right?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: This is what I believe. Look, let me deal with
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: the elephant in the room.
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 28:49
  Speaker 9: I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting
• 28:51
  Speaker 9: you in this situation because I don't know what to believe.
• 28:54
  Speaker 9: She is now a paid contributor by NBC News. I
• 28:58
  Speaker 9: have no idea whether any answer she gave to you
• 29:00
  Speaker 9: was because she didn't want to mess up her contract.
• 29:05
  Speaker 9: She wants us to believe that she was speaking for
• 29:07
  Speaker 9: the RNC when the RNC was paying for it. And look,
• 29:10
  Speaker 9: there's a reason why there's a lot of journalists at
• 29:12
  Speaker 9: NBC News uncomfortable with this because many of our professional
• 29:15
  Speaker 9: dealings with the RNC over the last six years have
• 29:18
  Speaker 9: been met with gaslighting. When NBC made the decision to
• 29:21
  Speaker 9: give her NBC News' credibility, you've got to ask yourself,
• 29:25
  Speaker 9: what does she bring NBC News? And when we make
• 29:28
  Speaker 9: deals like this, and I've been at this company a
• 29:30
  Speaker 9: long time, you're doing it for access.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Good for Chuck.
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: Way to go, Chuck.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Kristen Welker did a great job in the interview, too.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: It was a 20-minute grilling.
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: I watched it. to prep for this because I hadn't
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: actually seen the whole thing on Sunday, and I was like, wow,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: she did a really great job.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: That was a really good job.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: What did you guys think of the uproar, and what
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: do you think compelled NBC to hire her in the
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: first place?
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: So, I think it was at one point in that
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: interview with Walker, she says Biden won fair and square.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: So she's finally saying Biden won fair and square. But
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: all along, she was just saying she was doing what
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: she had to do as RNC chair.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Well, Welker played a clip of her talking to Chris
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Wallace just last year where she said, quote, I don't
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: think Biden won it fair. I don't. I'm not going
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: to say that.
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: The it's interesting how much this has sort of shifted
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: over the last decade. six, eight years, which is, I
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: actually think reflects something good, which is I think a
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: lot of journalists, especially at like big mainstream outlets that
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: were sort of kind of much more comfortable in being
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: in the role of kind of referee and sort of
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: viewing it as a match between two sides that they
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: were sort of in the middle of, I think have
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: kind of learned that their role changes when the losing
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: team tries to burn the stadium to the ground. And
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: I also think that that has been helped by the
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: fact that they have been the kind of dealt with
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: personal attacks for years. They have seen the dark side
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: of this. They have seen the anti-democratic authoritarian viciousness come
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: for them personally, affect them personally, affect their colleagues, affect
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: the way they cover the news. And it seems as
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: though that attitude, that understanding that, yes, a lot of
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: the times we are between two sides, but then there
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: are times where we as journalists are on the side
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: of democracy versus the people on the outside of it,
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: I think has been internalized by people who are covering
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: the news much more than the people who are maybe
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: further away from it. Yeah.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: I just found it to be a baffling decision. I mean,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: she just got tossed out of Trump world. She does
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: not seem well dialed into like normie Republican world. I'm
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: sure the Nikki Haley team probably does not like Ronna
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: very much. I don't know that she's dialed into the Hill.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: So per Chuck's point, you pay contributors to get access.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure what access she gets you. There's obviously
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: also the far more serious credibility problem. And I think
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: For people like Chuck, it wasn't just that they were
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: lying to him. They were brutally attacking him week after
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: week after week in those personal terms. And so I
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: guess the reason you pay her as a contributor is
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: to have a consistent pro-Trump voice on through the election
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: and to keep her from going to competitors. But who's
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: spun up to watch the Rana exclusive? At least after
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: this one.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: It does illustrate the larger problem with having a we-just-need-a-pro-Trump voice.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Because pro-Trump voices, again, they tell you that the election
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: was stolen. And you just have to draw a line somewhere. Look,
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: if NBC wants to waste its money on someone who's
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: not even a skilled propagandist, it's their right to make
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: a dumb business decision. And I do think political diversity
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: on the network news is important and have people hash
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: it out, argue it out, and stuff like that. But
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: you just have to draw a line somewhere. And the
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: line has to be, burning the stadium down. Like you said,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: the line has to be like, if you've been telling
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: lies about an attempted coup, we're going to draw the
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: line there. And if that's, and even if that represents
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the views of millions of Americans, that doesn't necessarily mean
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: that it has to be on fucking network news and
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: you have to fact check the person every time they're on.
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: It's just like a hard thing to do. Yeah.
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: I also, it does sound like just from some of
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: the kind of coverage that Ronna Romney McDaniel got sorted
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: Romney kind of interpersonally. Right.
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: Like that.
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: She's oh, she's from that tradition. So she's one of
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: the normal Republicans that we're still allowed to have on.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: And sure, she kind of had to defend Trump. But
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: but once she's on our air, she'll be a much
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: more reasonable person.
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: But people don't.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: There's no there's no it's a golf day. There's no
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: mulligan on calling for the overthrow of the government.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: For more years.
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: No.
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: I take that back.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: To your point, NBC reportedly got close with her because
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: they were negotiating to host a debate with the RNC.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: So that's how she greased this deal. But you are
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: insulting your audience by putting a known liar on TV
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: all the time and paying that person. And also, I
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: think this is what everyone hates about Washington. It's this
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: chummy nonsense is that everyone knows that everyone's doing a
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: kayfabe and it's a bit and we know she's a liar,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: but now she's mopping up afterwards and that's somehow okay.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: And again, like, you know, Alyssa Farrah Griffin, she was
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: in Trump world. She was in the Trump White House
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: till the very end. And when she left and she
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: became a contributor, you know, I think I probably criticized
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: it myself, right? Like we did, but she also sort
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: of did a mea culpa, right? Like, this was wrong.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And I've seen the, you know, like there was none
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: of that from Rana NBC. I was just like, no, no, no, no, no.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: I was taking one for the team and I was
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: sort of lying when I was there and now I'm
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: here and you kind of got to take one for
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: the team. I mean, it's just, it was.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: Take one for the team.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: There was a report.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: I think it was a Maggie Haberman story in the
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: times about, uh, about Trump trying to get the primaries
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: to be over early to kind of push Nikki Haley aside.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: And it was midway through the story, it mentions almost
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: in passing, that Trump called Ronna McDaniel and said, hey,
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: can we not only cancel the debates, but can we
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: cancel the elections altogether?
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: And she put out a statement.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: And so the idea that like, oh, you know, you know,
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: she was just being a team player. She was complicit
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: in this for years.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: By the way, that doesn't mean like have her on
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Meet the Press. Kristen Welker's interview with her was fantastic.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Just if she's a paid contributor. And again, for NBC,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: that means every time she's on the air, you have
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: to make sure she's not lying and you have to
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: like fact check her. I mean, it's just ridiculous.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: There's also just a lot of former Trump officials at
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: this point that you could go to that are more
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: compelling and have more credibility and are better dialed into
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: this world.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is also true. It's a real head-scratcher.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: It's a real just.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I don't think she'll be on Maddow tonight. What do
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: you guys think?
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: And the CIMBC is going to burn her at the stake.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: It's going to be a live town hall.
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like Nicole Walls is like nailing her demands to
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: the door of 30 Rock.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're going to drown her like a witch.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: Does Rana float?
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I guess we'll just leave it there, huh? Yeah, it's
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: a great place to end. Let's go to the interview
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: with the pastor. We're going to do a couple of
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: housekeeping items before we're going to give that to Senator
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Warnock to make sure we hook her right to him.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: We had a new episode of Inside 2024 out on Thursday.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Cal Penn joins Dan and Alyssa to talk about their
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: time in the White House together. And they're going to
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: get into just how accurate political shows like Veep and
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: The West Wing really are. To get access to this
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Friends of the Pod subscription series and others, head to crooked.com
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: slash friends now. Also, this week the Supreme Court will
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: hear oral arguments in a case that will decide the
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: right to access the abortion pill. If you want to
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: help support nationwide abortion freedom, you can pick up any
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: item from Crooked's No Trespassing collection, and a portion of
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: the proceeds will go to Vote Save America's Fuck Bans,
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: the Fight Back Fund, which currently supports abortion rights organizations
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: across Arizona, Nevada, and Florida. When we come back, Lovett
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: talks to Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: Five times, but who's counting?
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: United States Senator and pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Senator
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: Reverend Raphael Warnock. Welcome back to the pod.
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: Great to be back.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: It's good to see you. Last time I saw you,
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: I was in Atlanta. Now you're in LA.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Our turf.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: I was on your turf the last time I was
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: on your show.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: I guess that's true. How does it feel to finally
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: not be running in an election in Georgia? Do you
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: have nightmares where you wake up and you're on the
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: ballot and you forgot and you're in your underwear and
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: your teacher's there?
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: Uh, something like that.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: You do actually, you do wake up in the night
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: thinking you've forgotten you're up for reelection.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: I ran, uh, uh, three years straight. My name was
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: on the ballot five times. If you count the jungle primary,
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: which nobody remembers that when I entered the, my first race,
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: I had 20 opponents, 20 opponents. I think that's easy
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: to forget now, Democrats and Republicans. And, uh, here we are. I,
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: I am glad that I am not running this year,
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: but I'm very committed to, to making sure that we
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: maintain our majority in the Senate, hopefully expand it, flip
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: the House, and send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris back
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: to the White House.
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: Well, so one problem of you not being on the
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: ballot is we don't have your coattails. All right, Senator,
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: President Biden carried Georgia by under 12,000 votes, became the
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: first Democrat to win the state in three decades. The
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: latest polls have trumped up a couple points. What has
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: to change for Biden to win Georgia in 2024?
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: Well, listen, in this business, you pay attention to the polls,
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: but I think it's a strategic error to be obsessed
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: with the polls. I call it the polar coaster. And look,
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: it's still relatively early in the election season. I think
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: we'll see these polls go up and down. And here's
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: what we know at the end of the day, it's
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: going to be close. And since it's going to be close,
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: we've got to turn our people out. We've got to
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: help people to understand what's at stake. And I do
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: think that as we get closer to the election and
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: people recognize that at the end of the day, this
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: is a binary choice, nothing else, binary choice. And the
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: contrast could not be more stark. The consequences and the stakes,
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: in my view, could not be higher. And I think
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: that as we make that case, both about one, the
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: president has done, and it's impressive, and about the scary alternative,
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: I believe the people of Georgia are going to do
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: for Joe Biden what they did for me and sent
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: him back to the White House.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: You see these polls, and people often believe Joe Biden
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: is ineffective, in part because of age, but they also
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: have no idea how much has gotten done. Do you
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: find that when you're out there campaigning? How do we
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: get the word out about some of the achievements that
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: make Joe Biden worthy of a second term?
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, Democrats aren't always that good at talking
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: about what we've gotten done. I think we stay really,
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: really focused on getting things done. But here are the facts.
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: You know, I think about this as a senator. I
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: think about this as we consider our base. Black unemployment
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: is at a record low. We've seen a 60% increase
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: in Black wealth since before the pandemic. We've seen a
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: 30-year high in the opening up of Black businesses. We've
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: invested some $ 7 billion in historically Black colleges and universities. Um, as, uh,
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: they say, you know, in some of the neighborhoods that
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: I move around in Atlanta, uh, Joe Biden's got receipts.
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: And I think, uh, the job is ours to continue
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: to make that case. One of the things that I've
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: been doing is that as I go and talk to,
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: to rooms all across our state, uh, lately I've been
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: asking people if you or somebody, you know, has had
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: their student debt canceled.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: Or relieved. And believe it or not, in all the
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: rooms I've been going to, hands go up. And in
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: some places, as much as 60, 70% of the room.
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: And we've done $ 144 billion of student debt cancellation and
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: counting that's impacted some 4 million Americans. What does that do?
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: It closes the racial wealth gap. It gives people a
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: chance to own their own home because they don't have
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: a mortgage before they have a mortgage. It increases the
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: likelihood that young entrepreneurial people will start small businesses. This
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: is how government shows up in the lives of ordinary people.
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: And I think that at the end of the day,
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: the question is, who's working for me? Who's thinking about
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: about ordinary, hardworking people? And again, Joe Biden has receipts.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: And we'll continue to make the case.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: After the State of the Union, you compare Joe Biden
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: to the boxer Joe Louis. Is that because he was
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: feisty or because you also hope he beats the ever-loving
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: shit out of a Nazi?
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: Listen, he came out fighting. As I said that night,
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: he came out fighting and he never let up. And
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: I think he'll continue to do that. through November. You know,
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: I chastise you for your language, except that when the
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: Affordable Care Act passed, Joe Biden famously said that it
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: was a big deal.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: A big deal of some kind.
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: I won't say it the way he said it.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: I thought you were going to chastise me for calling
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: Max Schleming a Nazi when he was simply a German
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: who was forced to be a part of Nazi propaganda,
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: but we don't have to get into the history.
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: We don't have to get into the history. I.
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: I said I wouldn't get it.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: You brought up Joe Louis. I didn't bring it up.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: I think I said that night what my point was. Okay.
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: The man came out fighting. He never let up.
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: Two of the biggest black congregations in your state are
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: working together to get out the vote. You are pastor
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: at Ebenezer Baptist Church, as we discussed. What do you
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: think the role of the faith community can be? What
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: should it be in this election?
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: Oh, it's huge. And I think that's the case for
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: all of our elections today. I have often said that
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: I believe that democracy is the political enactment of a
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: spiritual idea. I really believe that, that it is born
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: of this notion that we were created in what theologians
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: call the imago Dei or the image of God. And
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: if you're not given to that kind of religious language,
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: this idea that we all have value, that we all
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: have worth as human beings. And if I have value,
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: then I ought to have a voice. And democracy enables
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: that by giving me a vote. And so I think
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: the faith community has an important role to play in
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: all times, but especially in a moment like this. It's
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: really the soul of our country, the soul of the
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: nation that is at stake. And we are once again
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: at a critical inflection point, a place where two ways meet.
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: We're somewhere between the hopes of January 5th and the
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: peril of January 6th. We're somewhere between a nation that
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: can send an African-American man who grew up in public housing,
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: the first in his family, to graduate from college to
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: the United States Senate alongside a young Jewish man, the
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: son of an immigrant, both inspired by John Lewis, or
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: that nation that says, this is only for some of us.
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: And if this diverse American electorate decides who the president is,
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: we're not going to let that happen. We'll shut it
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: down even to the point of violence. And so I
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: choose the America of January 5th. I'm aware of the
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: reality of January 6th. And I think we can't be
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: in denial about that. And there's a sense in which
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: we are both of those days. We're both of them.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: We can't say that January 6th is not who we are.
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: There's a sense in which That's who we've always been,
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: but we've also been January 5th. We're the latest generation
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: of Americans who get to choose which direction we're.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: Going to go in.
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: And I hope that the young people who are listening
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: to this podcast and others will lean in.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: So you talked about people valuing themselves, whether it's through
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: faith or just simply finding a sense of purpose, sense
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: of meaning. Church attendance is declining in 2020. Gallup found
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: that for the first time, a majority of the country
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: no longer said they are members of a church, a mosque,
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: or a synagogue. Do you see that in your own church?
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: Do you see declining membership, especially among young people? And
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: how do you explain it if you can't explain it?
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: My church is actually growing and not declining. And it's
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: generationally diverse. And to my joy, it is increasingly racially diverse.
• 46:29
  Speaker 9: Dr.
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: King used to say that the most segregated hour in
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: America was 11 o'clock Sunday morning. And I've said to
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: my church for years that if we can't figure out
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: a way to defy that in the church where Martin
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: Luther King Jr. preached, I don't know where else we
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: can do it. So we've been very intentional about that.
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: This might come as a little bit of a surprise
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: to you, but I don't know. I'm not as concerned
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: about church... attendance, even though I think it's important. I
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: think that something happens when you're part of a faith community.
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: But I think if church leaders become obsessed with putting
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: people in the seats, that's the wrong way to think
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: about it. And in my view, it's actually the opposite
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: of the gospel. Jesus said that if you seek to
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: save yourself, you'll lose yourself. But if you give yourself
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: over for my sake, if you give yourself over to
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: something larger than you, you'll save yourself in the process.
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: And so I think that there's a way in which
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: this focus on institutionalism is a good way to kill
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: an institution. The church has to give itself over to
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: what Jesus and all of the great faith traditions fought for, justice, mercy, compassion.
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: otherwise you find yourself aligned with the powers in such
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: a way that you actually lose your prophetic voice. And
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: so I have spent my time at Ebenezer long before
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: I ran for the Senate fighting for health care because
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: I believed in it. I wasn't running for anything. I
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: was running to get people health care. Fighting for criminal
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: justice reform because I think it is a deep moral
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: contradiction that the United States of America is 5% of
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: the world's population. We warehoused nearly 25% of the prison
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: population in the world. The land of the free is
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: the incarceration capital of the world. I think that the
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: church has to give itself over to fighting for creation,
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: fighting for the planet. And I think, uh, to the
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: degree that we do that and young people see a
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: genuine commitment to that, um, They may not join the church,
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: but they'll join the movement. And I think that's what
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: we had long before we had a church anyway. It
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: was actually a movement that became a church. And I
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: invite folks every week on Sunday when I preach and
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: through the work that I do to join the movement.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I talked about this with a rabbi
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: actually this weekend, Rabbi Sharon Brouse. And she talks- about
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: the fact that for the one explanation she has is
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: that there are a lot of people who feel like
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: there's like churches and synagogues and temples that do a
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: lot of ritual that feels disconnected. And then there's people
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: trying to appeal to people that are extreme, that are
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: more kind of radical and And that that pushes young
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: people away too. But that there has to be something
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: in the middle. I don't think anyone is saying, you know,
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: treat church like YouTube and try to get the numbers up.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: You know, mention Marjorie Taylor Greene a couple of times,
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: see if you can get the view count up. But
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: we do lose something when we lose these places where
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: people gather once a week and participate together. And there
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: is a cost to that. And we see that all over.
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: I agree. There is a, you know, there's an epidemic
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: of loneliness in our country. And connected to that, people
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: are feeling less happy and more depressed. And I think
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: human connection is healing. There is something that happens. And
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: so what I do say to young folks in my
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: church on Sunday morning and in other places, and I just,
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: you know, all kinds of people, is, you know, I
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: often hear folks say, I'm not religious, I'm spiritual. And
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: I understand what they're getting at, right?
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: Mm-hmm.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: And.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: Are they spiritual though? Are they spiritual?
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: Or did they watch a video?
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: Well, see, I mean, I think that spirituality is tested
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: in community. It's easy to stand up, you know, in
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: some silo and say, I'm spiritual. And I think the
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: way to see the depth of your spirituality is to
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: be in community with other folks who are on the
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: spiritual journey. Because, you know, if you really want to
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: see how deep your spirituality is, you need to be
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: with folks who are there and they're going to get
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: on your nerves, with whom you're going to disagree, whom
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: you're going to find irksome. And that's where spirituality is tested,
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: is tested in community. And that's part of what church
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: or the synagogue or the temple provides for us, and
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: it's a community of accountability.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's sort of what's interesting to me about
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: it too, because You know, people, it's a joke, right?
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: Oh, we got to get up.
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: We got to go to church on Sunday. Or I
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: don't want to go to temple today.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: It's boring.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: I don't want to go to this service. But there's
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: something that happens when you do these rituals, even when
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: you don't want to do them. And part of it
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: is just that we are in a society now where
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: we are constantly stimulated in ways that don't require us
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: to do the work that would normally have had to
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: be done.
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: The rituals signify that not only are you part of
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: this living community, but a community that was there before you,
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: a great cloud of witnesses who passed on that this
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: work of truth-telling and justice-making in the world was going
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: on before you showed up, that someone passed that baton
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: on to you. And how that's helpful in this moment
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: is that it encourages you to take the long view.
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: I think that there is a way in which it's
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: easy to become cynical in this moment because we've seen
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: so much hypocrisy in politics, in religious institutions. I think
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: the problems are so enormous that you can easily become
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: hardened and cynical, give in to despair. But participating in
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: these traditions, at least for me, is the recognition that
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: long before I was fighting for health care, Medicaid expansion
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: in Georgia, long before I was fighting for voting rights,
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: which for me is at root about humanity, long before
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: I was fighting for an inclusive community, a beloved community
• 53:10
  Speaker 5: that embraces folks, red, yellow, brown, black, and white members
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: of the LGBTQ community. That's intentional about making sure that
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: we celebrate the gifts and diversity that people who are
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: differently able bring to the table, that there were folks
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: who were having conversations about this and fighting for it
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: long before me. And that helps me to take the
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: long view so that when we have these moments, when
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: there are these contractions, like what we saw between 2016
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: and 2020, these contractions, these steps backwards, I take the
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: long view that says, even if we lose or have
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: a setback in this moment, as Dr. King used to say,
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: the arc of the moral universe is long, but it
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: bends toward justice. It is what gives me hope to
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: keep bending that arc.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Benjamin
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: Netanyahu to be removed from office. He opened the door
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: to conditioning military aid to Israel, at least opened the
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: door to doing that in the future. On Monday, the U.S.
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: abstained from a vote at the U.N. Security Council, which
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: allowed for passage of a resolution calling for an immediate
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: ceasefire in Gaza and for the release of hostages. You
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: said Israel has a right to defend itself. You've called
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: for a negotiated ceasefire and spoken out against the unfolding
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: humanitarian catastrophe. Half of Gaza is on the brink of starvation.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: Aid cannot reach people, including children who need it. Israel
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: is threatening to invade Rafah, where over a million Palestinians
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: have taken refuge. You've called that morally unjustifiable. You signed
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: on to an amendment to require that any country receiving
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: weapons to use them in accordance with U.S. and international law.
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: What will it take for Congress to to use what
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: leverage it has by conditioning aid to Israel. And I
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: know the politics are complex, but how does it make
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: sense morally that we make demands with our statements, that
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: we beseech with our words, but we don't make demands
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: with the resources we provide?
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: Well, I think with the letter that you saw that
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: I and several others signed on to, you see us
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: doing just that, exploring all the ways in which We
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: use the tools we have to get our ally to
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: do what is necessary to honor the humanity of Palestinian
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: children and to recognize that Palestinian children are every bit
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: as precious as Israeli children. And so that's the work
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: that I've been trying to do as a moral leader,
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: that somehow we've got to center humanity. You got me
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: on this faith part of the conversation, which always informs
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: the work that I do. But since we're on this path,
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: there's a scripture where Isaiah says that the lion shall
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: lie down next to the lamb and a little child
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: shall lead them. I must say to you that that's
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: always felt and sounded a little idyllic to me. What
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: does that mean? And as I've been looking at the
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: situation in Gaza, I've thought about the fact that adversaries
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: and people who are on different sides of a conflict,
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: here's the thing they have in common. They all love
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: their children. And if somehow we can look into the
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: eyes of other people's children and see our own, if
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: we actually believed that the ability of other people's children
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: to thrive is inextricably connected to the future of our own,
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: what set of choices would we make? I think that's
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: what the prophet meant when he said that a little
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: child shall lead them. And so we've seen just devastation
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: that is unspeakable. First with, not first, but in recent
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: months with October 7th, we can't turn our eyes away
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: from what happened and the death that happened, the sheer
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: human cruelty Sexual violence used as a weapon of war.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: Elderly people, little babies and children taking the kind of
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: gratuitous violence and brutality of it all. We can't turn
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: away from that, but we also cannot turn away from
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: the devastation that we've seen in the wake of that.
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: There's an acronym they use in Gaza that basically says
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: wounded child with no surviving family. I can't think of
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: a worse place to be in the world, a worse
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: hand to be dealt coming into the world than to
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: be a wounded child with no surviving family. And so
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: I'm doing the things that I can, and I'm actively
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: looking for ways in which we can continue to use
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: all the tools that we have to get us on
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: a path that leads to peace. Here's what I know.
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: Increasing death and devastation will not end death and devastation.
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: And so we've got to get on another road. And
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: I hope that somehow people on both sides of that conflict,
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: that all of us can tap into the best of
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: our faith and moral traditions as we move think about
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: the meaning of Ramadan and Passover, Easter on the horizon
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: for those of us who are Christian, that we can
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: tap into these traditions, center the children, and find our
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: way to a two-state solution that honors the humanity of
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: Palestinian children. children and Israeli children.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: You're talking about empathy and the need to show empathy.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: And one thing I actually talked about this with Rabbi
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: Bross as well is that people who do not feel
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: safe are not in a position to show as much empathy,
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: that empathy is something that is easier to display when
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: you are safe. It is all well and good to say, oh,
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: we hope that these two sides show empathy to one another,
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: but right now Israel's planning this invasion of Rafah. And afterwards,
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: there may be time for peace, but right now we
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: believe it is not only a moral horror, but not
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: in Israel's long-term interest to pursue that path, that it
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: pushes peace, it pushes a two-state solution, it pushes resolution,
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: it pushes safety further away. How do we use our
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: leverage right now to prevent that from happening so that
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: we're not talking about the importance of empathy after we
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: have even more death, after another 10, 20, 30,000 people,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: innocent people have died?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: There's no question that there's a moral urgency to all
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: of this, which is why when I gave the floor
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: speech on the floor of the United States Senate calling
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: for a ceasefire, I said in no uncertain terms that
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: I think it's a mistake, that it would be a
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: grave moral error for Netanyahu to escalate this conflict and
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: to go into Rafah. Palestinian people, in a sense, did
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 5: what they were told to do. And you've got 1.5
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 5: million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah. Now to bomb the very
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: area where they were told to go is unimaginable to me.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: And the relief agencies that are on the ground are
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: saying this. These are folks who don't have a political
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 5: bone in this fight. They're predicting that this could mean
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: that we'd lose some 85,000 Palestinians on top of the 30,000
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: that have already been killed. We're talking not only about empathy,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: but enlightened self-interest. It would be devastating for the people
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: of Gaza. And yes, it would push us further away
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: from peace. I know there are those who say, well,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: what are we going to do about Hamas, which is
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel? I
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: take that seriously. But If the legacy of the attack
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: on October 7th becomes continuing escalating violence in turn, then
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: Hamas will have already won. Hamas is not just an organization.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: In fact, I think the ideology is much more dangerous,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: much more lethal, especially now than the organization. It is
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: an ideology that that lies in a place deeper than
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: any of the tunnels beneath Gaza. And somehow we've got
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: to disrupt that mindset. And I still remain hopeful that
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: we will use all the diplomatic tools that we have,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: that we will use the pressure that we have. Israel
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: is a sovereign state. We respect its sovereignty. But as
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: you point out, as we provide the resources for Israel,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: we have a right and I think a moral obligation
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: to ensure that what happens with the resources, with the weapons,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: is consistent with American values. and that we have an
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: ability to speak with moral authority and credibility in the world.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: That's important for the long-term national security of our country
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: and for the prospects of peace, not only in this conflict,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: but in conflicts in the future.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: Switching gears, one thing I wanted to ask you about,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: there's this bill to ban TikTok. well, to force TikTok
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: to be sold, to pass the House. It does seem
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: as though there's these behind-closed-doors briefings about how terrifying the
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: invasion of privacy is by this Chinese-owned company, and that's
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: why the House passed this bill to force a sale
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: or the app would be banned. We, as the free
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: American people using apps on our phone as we choose,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: don't have the classified briefing. Have you been in these briefings?
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: Where are you on that?
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: On TikTok.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: Do you want ByteDance to sell it? Do you want
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: to support something that forces them to sell it?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: You know, I thought you would be kind to me.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: This is the most controversial thing you've asked me about
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: all day. We got to talk about TikTok, really? Yeah.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: Well, my thing about it is just if it's really dangerous.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Tell us.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: Listen, You don't want to get blamed on TikTok.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: You don't want to get ripped to pieces.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: You're a man of God, and you're afraid of these teens.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: You're a teen-fearing man. For the first time, I am
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 5: hearing from the 13-year-old constituents in Georgia.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: Well, they can't vote. And they're reminding me that the
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: next time I'm up, they will be.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: Able to vote.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's true.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: That's interesting. That's interesting.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: But just here— Have you been in these closed-door classified briefings?
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: If the American people got to see what members of
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: Congress had seen, would they be more alarmed? Would they
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: throw their phones away?
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: What would happen?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: I have. And what I have seen is concerning. It
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: gives me pause. And there's a way in which we
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: have been getting this information now over the last few years.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: And so I do think it's important for Congress to act.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: But I also think it's important for us to act
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: in a thoughtful way. And so this is not a
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: politician's answer. My 13-year-old constituents and my seven-year-old daughter at
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: home notwithstanding, I do think that we need to act
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: in a thoughtful way. So, you know, I'm looking at
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: the various proposals. There's more than one way to think
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: about how to respond to this. But there's a way
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: in which, as you point out, it's that classic balance
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: between national security, on the other hand, and the values
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: that we have around freedom and expression and all of
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: that on the other hand. And both of those things
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: have to be protected. So we'll see where we land.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: Last question.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: You show up to church and they're sitting in the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: front row, hands folded in his lap.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: You have your sermon. Are you just giving your sermon
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: as prepared? Are you throwing it out? Are you talking
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: to him directly? What do you think he would say?
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: You don't know why he's there.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: You don't know if he's had some big change of
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: heart or something.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 5: We're Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Church of Dr. King,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 5: and we're a church. So any and everybody is welcome
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: to the church. And I think that in my case,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't have to change the sermons. because if you
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: heard me on Sunday morning, uh, and the things that
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: I tend to talk about, I'm sure there'll be plenty
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: for him and others to consider.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock, a God fearing, a teen fearing man.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for your time today. I really
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: appreciate it.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: Great to be here with you.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Senator Warnock for joining us. And, uh, We'll
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: have another episode for you guys on Wednesday. Take care.
• 1:07:39
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• 1:07:42
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• 1:07:46
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• 1:07:49
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• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: a review. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: Our show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: Wakeem is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: David Tolles, Kiril Pallaviv, and Molly Lobel.